LOADING
Yukon, Larger than Life
The Jingle of the local Tourismorganisation is exactly right. A Region of an incredible size and almost empty. 35.000 People are living in a region of the size of western Europe. So you can be very happy to meet anyone…
I entered on historique Ground:
Klondike, a word that everyone who ever watched a western movie should know. Here the last big Goldrush happened.
I visited Dawson City in the Center of the Region. The Mine where i could stay for two nights is running since the first days and was back there a village with 5000 Citizens. Now only one old house left.
The Gold that they found up here was spreaded over that region by a volcano long time ago. Cause it is heavier than everything else it was accumulating in the riverbeds. In the beginning they easily collected it but short after that they started to use machines to screen the gravel. The technic has not really changed since then. Still drum screeners are running to wash out the gold. The companies are mostly family run and have few staff. David my host is able to collect enough gold in the 5 months up here to live the whole year from it.
Interesting Story but i wanted to go on. First cause winter was in my back and temperatures in the night were already under 0 degrees and second there is so much to see on the few thousand kilometres left down in Canada.
The last Night the Northern Lights were breathtaking beautiful and i left the camp heading out on the Klondike Highway towards Whitehorse. The Road was build in the 50s to get an easier access to the region that was before only accessible by boat on the Yukon River. That was quite dangerous and a lot of people never arrived up in Dawson. The rough road of these times is now a comfortable Highway.
The next days were nice cycling in partly breathtaking beautiful Landscape. Autumn started intense and when the sun was shining the colours were so nice… Yellow and Red in all facets.
The road was relaxing after the climb the week before so i reached Whitehorse after a week were i planned to stay for a few days. I met Bostjan on the road who first offered me water and then invited me to stay with him in the City.
The Weekend in Whitehorse was good to recover and i also found a company on the city streets. Caroline asked me if we want to cycle together for the next part. So we did.
From Whitehorse we followed the Klondike Highway south to Carcross. We had to fight against the Headwind but we reached that beautiful little town that offers a lot of left overs from the Goldfish times the next day. From there the Backwind pushed us east towards the Alaskan Highway. You could see that the season is finished, almost no traffic on the road and the most of the Restplaces were closing down for winter. Even the Campsites finish at 15. of September so we could stay for free a lot of times without searching for a good spot out in the wild…
Watson Lake, the first Town along the Road offers a special attraction, the Signpost Forrest. ten thousands of Signs from all over the world are collected here. We strolled through the Forrest and found a lot of curious funny and familiar stuff…
We stored the bikes in the basement of the tourism information and hitchhiked down to Liard. The Hotsprings down there are told to be one of the best natural Springs in Northamerica. A hot Creek is running through the Area and only a Dam and a stairway is around. A dream! we relaxed the daytime and watched the Aurora in the Night sitting in the hot water. Perfect spot!
Getting back to Watson Lake was the bigger challenge, almost no-one is going north in these days and so we had 3 cars an hour passing us and after 5 hours we found someone who took us with him… The Highway between Watson Lake and Liard is wonderful. The road winds through the wide country and the colours of fall are really beautiful. The Highlight are the Herds of Bison living just next to the road. First we saw single animals and then two times groups of over 30 Bisons. They crossed the road without taking care of the traffic… Majestic Animals. Both times we saw over 100 Animals.
In Watson Lake we jumped back on our Bikes and started the next part of the Adventure: Cassiar Highway southwards. But this is the next story i will tell you in the future…