Whitehorse: on the Klondike Trail for Gold

For the past few days I have been reading Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" and getting a feel for the Yukon and the Klondike trail. I even wondered how Snickers would perform as a sled dog pulling prospectors up to the gold rush territory.

Yesterday Matthew and Eric arrived in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Whitehorse is located at Mile 918 of the Alaska Highway and is the former terminus of the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway from Skagway, Alaska . At the head of navigation on the Yukon River, the city was an important supply and stage center during the Klondike Gold Rush. As I read about the sled dogs and the gold seekers I thought of Matthew and Eric in the wilds of the Yukon. Matthew claimed to see a "glint of gold" in a stream and nearby was a cabin that looked like it "could belong to a prospector." I thought of the movie "White Fang" another Jack London book.

A phone card in the Yukon was much cheaper than the USA card so we heard some good stories from both adventurers. The day before they had a "monster day of 120 miles" with a great tail wind of 25 mph. With limited traffic and good shoulders they can cruise pretty fast down the Alaskan Highway. Along the way they stopped to take a "day off"on Sunday. Some where in Kluane National Park they found a six thousand foot galcier with plenty of snow. It was about six or seven miles in so it wasn't really a day off as most of us see it. To make it extra special and to their liking, snow flurries appeared as they were hiking on the glacier. The highest mountain in Canada was not too far away but with no boots and climbing gear they stayed off the mountain tops.The weather in the Yukon hasn't been great with rain and cold in the high thirties at night and 50's in the day. The local people say this is the coldest Yukon summer in thirty five years.

Mary Kay was not supposed to hear about this so don't tell her. They finally got to see their first Grizzly Bear after almost two weeks and 1000 miles of bike riding. The bear was in the bushes making some grunting and hissing noises. As Eric snapped a photo, the big puffy "definitely a Grizzly Bear" spotted the the bikers and started running............ away from them "like a scared chicken." said Matthew.

We also heard more about just who the beaver at the trout pond scared. As Matthew flipped out a fly he heard a big splash and thought maybe Eric had thrown a rock. It turns out it was Not Eric but instead it was a big Beaver warning the fishermen and probably all his beaver buddies in the water.

After a long ride from Fairbanks the bikers found a nice hostel in downtown Whitehorse. It was called http://www.hide-on-jeckell.com/index.htm

Hide on Jeckell and had all the amenties including a welcome shower, laundry and comfortable beds along with a 10% discount for bikers. It was a welcome respite from the tent. Two big pizzas had "our names" on them and they were going to bake them in the kitchen oven at the hostel.

Grandpa Gilbertson will enjoy this story from Matthew. Matthew said, "I think I finally figured out what fly fishing is all about." He dropped in a hook with a dragon fly and none of the trout went go for it. Then he said,"I took out the fly that I found along the road. I put it on the line and hung it on top of the water. Within seconds a big eight inch trout nailed it! The problem was, he must have told his bigger buddies to be careful as we only caught a few smaller ones after that and then the beaver tried to scare us off. If I could cast the fly out more I could catch some big ones."

The next major destination is 275 miles east at Watson Lake, Yukon. We hope they make it to the post office on time to pick up some mail. They will cross briefly into British Columbia and return to Yukon.(See map below this post). You can click view larger map for more features . So far Eric and Matthew have ridden about 1100 miles.