Joan and Keith's Travels: Carcross Desert and Dawson City

Traveling to Dawson City!

Carcross Desert, located outside Carcross, Yukon, Canada

is often considered the smallest desert in the world. The Carcross Desert measures approximately 1 square mile (2.6 km²), or 640 acres.

Carcross Desert is commonly referred to as a desert, but is actually a series of northern sand dunes. The area's climate is too humid to be considered a true desert. The sand was formed during the last glacial period, when large glacial lakes formed and deposited silt. When the lakes dried, the dunes were left behind. Today, sand comes mainly from nearby Bennett Lake, carried by wind. The dunes contain a wide variety of plants, including unusual varieties such as Baikal sedge and Yukon lupine, among others.

Sometimes - Others have a BAD day.

Even though our motto was

NO Bad Days!

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Please watch your step when exiting the coach!!

We stopped here for cinnamon buns - yum yum!

Ask Steve for a bun. They are about 12 inches across!!

This is also an official check point for the Yukon Quest.

Considered by locals to be much tougher then the Iditarod.

The Yukon Quest 1,000-mile International Sled Dog Race, or simply Yukon Quest, is a sled dog race run every February between Fairbanks, Alaska, and Whitehorse, Yukon. Because of the harsh winter conditions, difficult trail, and the limited support that competitors are allowed, it is considered the "most difficult sled dog race in the world", or even the "toughest race in the world".
In the competition, first run in 1984, a dog team leader (called a musher) and a team of 6 to 14 dogs race for 10 to 20 days. The course follows the route of the historic 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, mail delivery, and transportation routes between Fairbanks, Dawson City, and Whitehorse. Mushers pack up to 250 pounds (113 kg) of equipment and provisions for themselves and their dogs to survive between checkpoints. They are permitted to leave dogs at checkpoints and dog drops, but not to replace them. Sleds may not be replaced (without penalty) and mushers cannot accept help from non-racers except at Dawson City, the halfway mark. Ten checkpoints and four dog drops, some more than 200 miles (322 km) apart, lie along the trail. Veterinarians are present at each to ensure the health and welfare of the dogs, give advice, and provide veterinary care for dropped dogs; together with the race marshal or a race judge, they may remove a dog or team from the race for medical or other reasons.
The route runs on frozen rivers, over four mountain ranges, and through isolated northern villages. Racers cover 1,016 miles (1,635 km) or more. Temperatures commonly drop as low as −60 °F (−51 °C), and winds can reach 50 miles per hour (80 km/h) at higher elevations. Sonny Lindner won the inaugural race in 1984 from a field of 26 teams. The fastest run took place in 2010, when Hans Gatt finished after 9 days and 26 minutes. The 2012 competition had the closest one-two finish, as Hugh Neff beat Allen Moore by twenty-six seconds.
In 2005, Lance Mackey became the first Yukon Quest rookie to win the race, a feat that was repeated by 2011's champion, Dallas Seavey. In 2007, Mackey became the first to win both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, a feat he repeated the following year. The longest race time was in 1988, when Ty Halvorson took 20 days, 8 hours, and 29 minutes to finish. In 2000, Aliy Zirkle became the first woman to win the race, in 10 days, 22 hours, and 57 minutes. Yukon Quest International, which runs the Yukon Quest sled dog race, also runs two shorter races: the Junior Quest and the Yukon Quest 300 (previously the Yukon Quest 250).

History

The idea for the Yukon Quest originated in April 1983 during a bar-room discussion among four Alaskans: LeRoy Shank, Roger Williams, Ron Rosser, and William "Willy" Lipps. The four proposed a thousand-mile sled dog race from Fairbanks, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon, to celebrate the Klondike Gold Rush-era mail and transportation routes between the two.They disdained the many checkpoints and stages of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race^[5] and envisioned an endurance race in which racers would rely on themselves and survival would be as important as speed. "We wanted more of a Bush experience, a race that would put a little woodsmanship into it", Shank said at the race's 25th anniversary.
This remained a vague plan until August 1983, when the first public organizational meetings took place. Fundraising began, and the start date for the race was optimistically moved forward from February 1985 to February 25, 1984. The entry fee for the first race was $500, and Murray Clayton of Haines, Alaska became the first person to enter when he paid his fee in October 1983. In December 1983, the race was officially named the Yukon Quest. Two more months of planning followed, and a crew of volunteers was organized to staff the checkpoints and place trail markers. On February 25, 1984, 26 racers left Fairbanks for Whitehorse.^]Each team was limited to a maximum of 12 dogs, and racers had to finish with no fewer than nine. They also had to haul 25 pounds (11 kg) of food per dog (300 pounds (136 kg) total) to cover the long distances between checkpoints.
Numerous problems occurred in the first race. The leading mushers had to break trail because the snowmobile intended for the task broke down. Trail markers often were absent or misplaced, and no preparations had been made for racers in Dawson City until organizer Roger Williams flew there shortly after the race began. After Dawson City, mushers had their dogs and sleds trucked 60 miles (97 km) to avoid a section of snowless trail, then had to deal with open sections of the Yukon River near Whitehorse due to above-average temperatures. The eventual winner of the inaugural race, Sonny Lindner, was greeted with little fanfare on his arrival. On the race's 25th anniversary, he recalled, "I think it was 90 percent (camping) trip and maybe a little bit of racing."

Remember - This is still wilderness up here!!!

You need a Phone??

Sure they have one here - Amazing!

Just need to climb the ladder first to get it.

On To Dawson City!!

Leo, Joe & Don having fun!

We all did that a lot!

The Town of the City of Dawson or Dawson City is a town in Yukon, Canada.
The population was 1,319 at the 2011 census. The area draws some 60,000 visitors each year.

History

The townsite was founded by Joseph Ladue and named in January 1897 after noted Canadian geologist George M. Dawson, who had explored and mapped the region in 1887. It served as Yukon's capital from the territory's founding in 1898 until 1952, when the seat was moved to Whitehorse.

Dawson has a much longer history, however, as an important harvest area used for millennia by the Hän-speaking people of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and their forebears. The heart of their homeland was Tr'ochëk, a fishing camp at the confluence of the Klondike River and Yukon River, now a National Historic Site of Canada. This site was also an important summer gathering spot and a base for moose-hunting on the Klondike Valley.

Dawson City was the centre of the Klondike Gold Rush. It began in 1896 and changed the First Nations camp into a thriving city of 40,000 by 1898. By 1899, the gold rush had ended and the town's population plummeted as all but 8,000 people left. When Dawson was incorporated as a city in 1902, the population was under 5,000. St. Paul's Anglican Church built that same year is a National Historic Site.

The population dropped after World War II when the Alaska Highway bypassed it 300 miles to the south. The damage to Dawson City was such that Whitehorse, the highway's hub, replaced it as territorial capital in 1953. Dawson City's population languished around the 600-900 mark through the 1960s and 1970s, but has risen and held stable since then. The high price of gold has made modern mining operations profitable, and the growth of the tourism industry has encouraged development of facilities. In the early 1950s, Dawson was linked by road to Alaska, and in fall 1955, with Whitehorse along a road that now forms part of the Klondike Highway. In 1978, another kind of buried treasure was discovered when a construction excavation inadvertently found a forgotten collection of more than 500 discarded films of fragile nitrate filmstock from the early 20th century that were buried in and preserved in the permafrost. This historical find was moved to Library and Archives Canada and the US Library of Congress for both transfer to safety filmstock and storage.
The City of Dawson and the nearby ghost town of Forty Mile are featured prominently in the novels and short stories of American author Jack London, including The Call of the Wild. London lived in the Dawson area from October 1897 to June 1898. Other notable writers who lived in and wrote of Dawson City include Robert Service and Pierre Burton. The childhood home of the latter is now used as a retreat for professional writers.
Geology
Dawson City lies at the western end of the Tintina Fault. This fault line has created the Tintina Trench and continues eastward for several hundred kilometres. Erosional remnants of lava flows form outcrops immediately north and west of Dawson City.
Climate
Like most of Yukon, Dawson City has a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc). The average temperature in July is 15.7 °C (60.3 °F) and in January is −26.0 °C (−14.8 °F). The highest temperature ever recorded is 34.7 °C (94.5 °F) on May 31, 1983 and the lowest temperature ever recorded is −55.8 °C (−68.4 °F) on February 11, 1979. It experiences a wide range of temperatures surpassing 30 °C (86 °F) in most summers and dropping below −40 °C (−40 °F) in winter.
The community is at an elevation of 320 m (1,050 ft)and the average rainfall in July is 49.0 mm (1.93 in) and the average snowfall in January is 27.6 cm (10.87 in). Dawson has an average total annual snowfall of 166.5 cm (65.55 in) and averages 70 frost free days per year. The town is built on a layer of frozen earth, which may pose a threat to the town's infrastructure in the future if the permafrost melts.

Getting a history lesson from our "Tour Guide"

Downtown Dawson City!

This is what permafrost does to a foundation!

Nice smooth streets you say!

This is how they repave their streets!

They grade the permafrost to smooth the surface.

Solid Ice Top Layer!!!

What would these old snowshoes say today!

The SS Keno is a preserved historic sternwheel paddle steamer and National Historic Site of Canada. The SS Keno is berthed in a dry dock on the waterfront of the Yukon River in Dawson City, Yukon, Canada.

The vessel was constructed in 1922, in Whitehorse, by the British Yukon Navigation Company, a subsidiary of the White Pass and Yukon Route railway company. For most of its career it transported silver, zinc and lead ore from mines in the Mayo district to the confluence of the Yukon and Stewart rivers at Stewart City. It was retired from commercial service in 1951 due to the extension and improvement of the Klondike Highway in the years after World War II.

Following its withdrawal from service, the SS Keno was laid up at the BYN Co. shipyard in Whitehorse, before being selected for preservation and donated by the company to the Canadian Government in 1959. On 25 August 1960 the Keno left Whitehorse to sail downstream to Dawson City. In doing so she became the last of the Yukon's sternwheeler steamers to navigate the Yukon River under her own power. Three days later she arrived in Dawson and was subsequently installed as a tourist attraction and a permanent memorial to the approximately 250 sternwheelers that provided a vital transport service on the Yukon River and its tributaries during the latter half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

Background

The Yukon River flows for 3,190 km (1,980 mi) through Yukon and Alaska, and its catchment area covers approximately 832,700 km² (321,500 sq mi). The Yukon's name is derived from a Gwich’in name, meaning "Great River", and the waterway has been used by aboriginal groups in the area for many centuries. From the middle of the 19th century it also formed a major transport link for white trappers, traders and mineral prospectors operating in the region, but its shallow, sinuous and fast flowing nature made navigation difficult. As early as 1869 the Alaska Commercial Company began regular sternwheel paddle steamer services as far upstream as Fort Selkirk, exploting the sternwheeler riverboat design's inherent shallow draught, flexible landing ability and protected paddlewheel to overcome many of the river's challenges. River traffic boomed during the Klondike Gold Rush, and by the end of the 19th century around 60 sternwheelers were in operation on the Yukon.

By 1914 the White Pass and Yukon Route railway company's river navigation subsidiary, the British Yukon Navigation Company (BYN Co.), had built an effective monopoly on riverboat traffic in the upper reaches of the Yukon River. As trading and mining activities in Yukon and Alaska grew, bigger and better sternwheelers were built to cope with the increasing traffic on the main river channel. However, in order to connect to many mining camps and trading posts vessels were required to negotiate the still shallower and more tortuous channels of the Yukon's tributaries. In 1922 BYN Co. built the SS Keno to provide service to the booming silver mining district around Mayo Landing, in particular the United Keno Hill Mine properties, approximately 290 km (180 mi) up the narrow, winding and shallow Stewart River from its confluence with the Yukon River.

The Boiler that cremated "Sam McGee"

The Cremation of Sam McGee is among the most famous of Robert W. Service's poems. It was published in 1907 in Songs of a Sourdough. (A "sourdough", in this sense, is a resident of the Yukon.) It concerns the cremation of a prospector who freezes to death near Lake Laberge, (spelled "Lebarge" by Service), Yukon, Canada, as told by the man who cremates him.

The night prior to the death of the title character, who hails from the fictional town of Plumtree, Tennessee, the narrator realizes that "A pal's last need is a thing to heed," and swears to McGee that he will not fail to cremate him. After McGee dies the following day, the narrator winds up hauling the body clear to the "marge [shore, edge] of Lake Lebarge" before he finds a way to perform the promised cremation. Robert Service based the poem on an experience of his roommate, Dr. Sugden, who found a corpse in the cabin of the steamer Olive May.

A success upon its initial publication in 1907, the poem became a staple of traditional campfire storytelling in North America throughout the 20th century. An edition of the poem, published in 1986 and illustrated by Ted Harrison, was read widely in Canadian elementary schools.

The reality behind the fiction

There are strange things done in the midnight sun,
by the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

— The poem's opening and closing stanzas

Although the poem was fiction, it was based on people and things that Robert Service actually saw in the Yukon. The "Alice May" was based on the derelict stern-wheeler the "Olive May" that belonged to the BL&K company^[and had originally been named for the wife and daughter of Albert Sperry Kerry Sr. Lake Laberge is formed by a widening of the Yukon River just north of Whitehorse and is still in use by kayakers.

William Samuel McGee (b 1868, Lindsay, Ontario, - d 1940, Beiseker, Alberta) was primarily a road builder but did indulge in some prospecting. Like others, McGee was in San Francisco, California, at the time of the Klondike Gold Rush and in 1898 left for the Klondike.

In 1904, Service, who was working in the Canadian Bank of Commerce (not the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce; a frequent error) branch in Whitehorse, saw McGee's name on a form. He talked to McGee about using his name and received permission, which is confirmed by correspondence between McGee and his family. In 1907 the publication of the poem, along with the others contained in Songs of a Sourdough, made Service famous and McGee the subject of ridicule.

In 1909 McGee traveled south of the Yukon to build roads, including some in Yellowstone National Park. Eventually, McGee and his wife moved to live with their daughter outside of Beiseker. However, in 1930 McGee returned to the Yukon to try prospecting along the Liard River, but met with no success. He did however return with an urn that he had purchased in Whitehorse. The urns, said to contain the ashes of Sam McGee, were being sold to visitors.

McGee spent the rest of his life at his daughter's farm where he died in 1940 of a heart attack.

There are at least two stories about McGee and Service that have grown over the years. The first takes place in the Yukon prior to them both leaving. McGee is said to have obtained his revenge on Service by taking him on a dangerous canoe ride down the Yukon River. It is also claimed that at the time of McGee's death, Service, who was in Canada, tried to attend the funeral. Service, it's said, went to the wrong church, but turned up at the cemetery just as McGee was being buried.

There is a town named Plumtree in North Carolina, only about twelve kilometers (but twenty-two kilometers by road) from the border of Tennessee.

This picture says it all!

Gold Mining is Very Much Alive Here!

Just a Cool Picture!

Winter Past Time

Drinking!

Only place to get groceries!

Lining up to see the inside of the saloon.

Chandelier inside the saloon.

One Stop Shopping!

We drove up to Midnight Dome

This Is What We Saw!

Confluence of Yukon (larger brown colored) and Klondike (clear) Rivers.

Top of The World Highway Off in the Distance.

That is Where We Are Headed Next!

The Top of the World Highway is a 127-kilometre (79 mi) long highway, beginning at a junction with the Taylor Highway near Jack Wade, Alaska traveling east to its terminus at the ferry terminal in West Dawson, Yukon, on the western banks of the Yukon River. The highway has been in existence since at least 1955 and is only open during the summer months. The entire portion of the highway in Yukon is also known as Yukon Highway 9. The Alaska portion is short and not numbered. The Alaska Department of Transportation refers to it as Top of the World Highway.

As of July 2014, the US portion of the highway is paved, and most of the Canadian portion is unpaved. The paved Canadian sections are from kilometer 0 (at Dawson) to 9, 74 to 76, 79 to 82, 83 to 94 and 99 to 104 (at the Canada-US border).

The highway is so named because, along much of its length, it skirts the crest of the hills, giving looks down on the valleys. It is also one of the most northerly highways in the world at those latitudes. Two nearby, farther north highways are the Dempster Highway (Yukon Route 5) and the Dalton Highway (Alaska Route 11). It is not particularly safe in winter, even for snowmobile use, due to the lack of trees for shelter.

A ferry connects West Dawson to Dawson in summer, and residents living in West Dawson and nearby Sunnydale cross on the ice during the winter. A bridge is planned by the Yukon government, although there is significant division among Dawson area residents as to whether such a bridge should be built. The west-bank residents received improved phone service only in 2004 but do not have a public electricity supply.

A 50 kilometre branch road off the highway was used to reach the town of Clinton Creek, Yukon, site of a former asbestos mine shut down since 1979.

The border is the highest US road border, known as Little Gold Creek in Canada and Boundary (or Poker Creek) in the U.S., features one of the few jointly-built single building customs ports of entry along the Canada-U.S. border. There is a one-hour difference in standard time zones at this border, which is only open in summer during the 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. period (Alaska time).

While on the Dome I saw these!

Northern Monkshood!

We later learned - YOU DO NOT TOUCH THIS!

Good Thing We Didn't!

Here is Why!

Aconitum (/ˌækəˈnaɪtəm/), also known as aconite, monkshood, wolf's bane, leopard's bane, women's bane, devil's helmet or blue rocket, is a genus of over 250 species of flowering plants belonging to the family Ranunculaceae. These herbaceous perennial plants are chiefly native to the mountainous parts of the northern hemisphere, growing in the moisture-retentive but well-draining soils of mountain meadows. Most species are extremely poisonous and must be dealt with carefully.
The name comes from the Greek ἀκόνιτον, meaning "without struggle". Toxins extracted from the plant were historically used to kill wolves, hence the name wolf's bane.

Uses

The roots of Aconitum ferox supply the Nepalese poison called bikh, bish, or nabee. It contains large quantities of the alkaloid pseudaconitine, which is a deadly poison. Aconitum palmatum yields another of the bikh poisons. The root of Aconitum luridum, of the Himalaya, is said to be as poisonous as that of A. ferox or A. napellus.
Several species of Aconitum have been used as arrow poisons. The Minaro in Ladakh use A. napellus on their arrows to hunt ibex, while the Ainu in Japan used a species of Aconitum to hunt bear. The Chinese also used Aconitum poisons both for huntingand for warfare. Aconitum poisons were used by the Aleuts of Alaska's Aleutian Islands for hunting whales. Usually, one man in a kayak armed with a poison-tipped lance would hunt the whale, paralyzing it with the poison and causing it to drown.

Toxicology

Monkshood, Aconitum napellus

Marked symptoms may appear almost immediately, usually not later than one hour, and "with large doses death is almost instantaneous." Death usually occurs within two to six hours in fatal poisoning (20 to 40 mL of tincture may prove fatal).The initial signs are gastrointestinal including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. This is followed by a sensation of burning, tingling, and numbness in the mouth and face, and of burning in the abdomen.^[ In severe poisonings pronounced motor weakness occurs and cutaneous sensations of tingling and numbness spread to the limbs. Cardiovascular features include hypotension, sinus bradycardia, and ventricular arrhythmias. Other features may include sweating, dizziness, difficulty in breathing, headache, and confusion. The main causes of death are ventricular arrhythmias and asystole, paralysis of the heart or of the respiratory center. The only post-mortem signs are those of asphyxia.

Poisoning may also occur following picking the leaves without wearing gloves; the aconitine toxin is absorbed easily through the skin. In this event, there will be no gastrointestinal effects. Tingling will start at the point of absorption and extend up the arm to the shoulder, after which the heart will start to be affected. The tingling will be followed by unpleasant numbness. Treatment is similar to poisoning caused by oral ingestion.
Aconitine is a potent neurotoxin that opens tetrodotoxin sensitive sodium channels. It increases influx of sodium through these channels and delays repolarization, thus increasing excitability and promoting ventricular dysrhythmias.
Canadian actor Andre Noble died during a camping trip on July 30, 2004 after the accidental consumption of aconite from monkshood.
In January 2009, the British 'Curry Killer' Lakhvir Singh, killed her lover Lakhvinder Cheema with a curry dish laced with Indian Aconite. On 11 February 2010 she was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 23 years for the murder.