June 27-Aug 1, 2000
Short Version
We flew to Whitehorse, then canoed 13 days & 720km to Dawson. Saw lotsa animals, and some nice gold rush ruins. Dawson is great with lots of interesting gold rush stories. Then down to Alaska for breathtaking Glacier Bay (whales, orcas, bears etc. & lotsa glaciers). Hiked around Juneau in preparation for our 5 day hike on the infamous Chilkoot pass. We had great weather (12c) & the scenery was incredible. Then a quick tour of Skagway & our flight back home from Whitehorse. Next trip is the Maritimes Aug 10-Sep 2.
Long Version
Whitehorse
Day 1: Fly to Whitehorse (on points!) with all 3 weeks of food already packed. Buy last minutes supplies (propane, steak & eggs!), all at prices comparable to Toronto (so much for needing to cart all our food on the plane!).
Day 2: Tour Whitehorse (10am-11am), Trip prep & tv watching (11am-10pm).
Canoe Trip
Notes: The current averages 7km/h. When we (I) paddle we go about 10km/h. The waters cold & the air temperature varies from 12c to 22c. The sun sets around 11:30pm but it never gets totally dark. We keep our food in a sealed container, away from our tent (in case of bears). Our gear is in waterproof bags.
Day 3: A nice day of foggy rain (& a lovely Egg McMuffin + 2 pies for a $1) starts our canoe trip. We do about 33km, only 690km to go! We see a distant eagle & take tons of pictures.
Day 4: Start Lake Labarge, the wind is causing swells & Louise has to actually paddle (I cover my ears). Rain all day. Dinner is pop tarts in the tent! We've done about 1/3 of the lake.
Day 5: Nice day. We see an eagle & take some pictures. Around 6pm we see the end of the lake with no more lake or river in sight. We ask some Germans where the lake goes & they point under our canoe. We thank them for their help & go on our way. Further research indicates the lake turns into a river just 2 miles ahead (not visible due to the landscape) & we decide to save it for tomorrow (how bad could it be?).
Day 6: It's Bad. After 10 minutes of paddling thru 2 ft swells a wave crashes into our canoe. Louise is not happy. We decide to head to shore. The temperature is fine (it's just windy) so we lay in the sun & eat pop tarts & licorice. Soon it settles down a little & we have a lovely paddle down the 30 mile (a Canadian Heritage section of the River).
Day 7: We see an eagle up close & take a picture or two. Our camp is a beautiful area with lots of old Indian/Gold Rush buildings. We spend the nite taking pictures of ground squirrels.
Day 8: We get passed by 4 Americans in 2 canoes with a motor! They only have 4 days to do the 7 day trip! We see an eagle (who cares).
Day 9: Arrive in Carmacks (the way point & an actual town!). We stay/eat/shop in the hotel/restaurant/grocery store. We walk the highly recommended 2 mile boardwalk (we've had better advice.) Two more Americans have joined the group. We see them load their canoes: 6 people, 10 coolers!
Day 10: Today we do the only rapids on the river: 5 Fingers & Rink Rapids. They're only class 2 but Louise has been doing class 5 worrying. We scout 5 Fingers, it doesn't look too bad. We do 5 Fingers, very anticlimactic. Louise promises not to worry so much in the future. Louise starts worrying about Rink Rapids! Rink Rapids is fine, but the wind causes swells & the weather looks ominous. We stop & hide in the bushes for 30 minutes. We press on but the weather doesn't cooperate. We camp on a 10 wide clearing, 18 above water level.
Day 11: We arrive in Ft Selkirk, an 1880's village that was sacked by the Indians just before the gold rush. Around 12:30am we hear someone yell bear. Louise doesn't stir, so I pretend I didn't hear anything. Some of the locals take care of it. After an hour of dogs barking & people yelling bear, we both get up. The Americans are armed with 2 cans of pepper spray (still in it's packaging). We never see the bear, I sleep like a baby. Louise sleeps in the canoe the next day.
Day 12: We are soothed by the gentle sound of the Americans motor slowing approaching us. Their 3 loaded boats with one motor, don't go much faster than our boat with 1 paddler. I suggest they try paddling. The idea gets debated amongst themselves. They motor on.
Day 13: The river widens to small lake proportions.
Day 14: By this point we've seen 5 moose, 2 calves, 2 sets of Mtn goats, 1 river otter and 1 beaver. At nite we camp with mushroom pickers. They follow the forest fires & get $8/pound (up to $500/day).
Day 15: Arrive in Dawson! We run into the Americans whose list of things sighted includes 2 distant bears & a nude sunbather! We go to the Visitor's Centre to check on hotels. We settle on the $46 hotel. It's not on their recommended list. We ask them to call a cab but the lady helping us says she'll drive us there! The hotel manager expresses in broken English her pleasure that the Visitors Centre is actually bringing her business. The room is the size of a Ford Explorer, our mattress sinks several inches but the room's clean & has a private bathroom, we're set!
Dawson
Days 16-18: We tour lots of original gold rush buildings. We see the Gold Rush Revue & hit the casino (with dancing girls). We hear lots of good stories. The best is that most of the men who found gold spent it all at the saloons and dance halls (it was called mining the miners). The dance hall girls charged $1/dance (average wages were $10/day). The orchestra got a cut so songs tended to be about 70 seconds long. At the end of the song, the dancer will have worked her way to the bar where the obliging miner offers her a drink. She never refuses but the bartender puts no liquor in her drink & splits the profit with the dancer. The biggest scam is in the upstairs rooms where after getting a man sufficiently drunk the dance hall girl would pour full bottles of champagne down a secret hole, then have the miner order another to replace it. Nothing went to waste in those days and the new bottle could contain that same champagne since the secret holes led right to the bar!
Day 19: To make a long story short, Paddling 720km does not guarantee you'll be able to complete a 60km cycle up a 3000 mtn.
En Route
Day 20: Bus to Whitehorse.
Day 21: Bus to Skagway. Ferry to Juneau. Arrive 11pm, we need to be back here for 11am. Taxis are $20US each way & hotels are around $100US. We sleep at the ferry terminal!
Day 22: After watching the resident eagles (& waiting for the washrooms to open) we ferry to Gustavus, seeing humpbacks en route. We then taxi to the Glacier Bay campground (our home for 2 nites).
Glacier Bay
Day 23: We pay $154US each for an 8 hour cruise of Glacier Bay. Holy @7^%$#*&^% was it ever worth it. We saw black bears, brown bears, mtn goats, humpback whales, seals, sea otters, puffins, tons of other birds & ORCA's! Oh yeah, and the largest concentration of tide water glaciers in the world!
Day 24: A ranger hike in the morning, seeing a moose & her calf, then a whale watch in the afternoon where we see a humpback whale feeding! It's been a good past few days. Ferry back to Juneau.
Juneau
Day 25: Hike up Mt Roberts. The terrain moves from rain forest, to alpine then tundra. We see a slew of hoary marmots (that is not a made up word!). Spending $5 at the gift shop gets us a free cable car ride down!
Day 26: Hike the West side of Mendahall Glacier. The rain (Juneau gets about 30 sunny days a year) makes for a slippery muddy trail. A walk across a dry creekbed becomes a 40 crossing of a raging torrent. The glacier views are few and far between, but we meet people at the top who take us down to the glacier & we are awed by it's size. We conclude it was worth it.
Day 27: Cruise of Tracy Arm glacier. Just like Glacier Bay only smaller. And it's raining.
Skagway
Day 28: Ferry to Skagway. Stay at the Home Hostel. It should be called the I'm not a pleasant lady hostel. We opt for a hotel on our return.
Chilkoot Trail
Day 29: Of all the challenging tasks facing the gold-rushers in 1890, this was the most daunting. A 3 day trek culminating in a 2000' vertical ascent of a snow covered rocky outcrop. And to avoid starvation the RCMP made gold-rushers carry a ton of supplies. So after the terrible climb - you had to go back and do it 39 more times!! The question of whether we've bitten off more than we can chew is not quickly resolved. The up & downs are taxing but the rain forest is beautiful.
Day 30: A short day, but we still manage to get tired.
Day 31: This is the day we will cross the pass. We pride ourselves on being fit & outdoorsy enough to do this. Soon we catch up to the group in front of us. It's a blind kid with his parents. Our stamina enables us to catch the next group: a mentally challeneged mother/daughter. When we pass the parents with their 5 kids aged 2 to 12 our pride hits an all time low! The first 4 hours are a gradual but taxing uphill. The next hour is the famous postcard scene: a line of people going up a 45 degree slope with packs on their back. But since it's summer not winter we're scrambling over boulders, not walking up steps carved in the snow. It's very foggy and the views are restrained. We see the top. Wrong. We see another top. Wrong. Finally we see the real top? Yes, we're now in Canada, Hurray! As if to say welcome home, the skies clear up & we get breathtaking views. Each step yields a view that's more beautiful than the last. We go thru 2 rolls of film in 2 hours.
Day 32: Beautiful walk along a canyon, past a Goldrush gravesite & on to a lovely secluded lake.
Day 33: Just 2 hours to get to Lake Bennett where the Goldrusher's built boats to sail to Whitehorse then float down to Dawson. Nowadays we pay $65US for a beautiful scenic train ride down narrow gauge tracks built just after the gold rush in 1900.
Returning Home
Day 34: Bus to Whitehorse, Enjoy a nite out at Pizza Hut.
Day 35: Fly to Vancouver & enjoy our 5 hour layover (at least Air Canada's not on strike).
Day 36 (early am): Arrive in Toronto. Wait one hour for our luggage.