Dawson City

This town is a living museum.  We loved it from the very start.  Great atmosphere, well looked after and exudes character.  We did the museum, toured a preserved paddle boat, did a walking tour, went to “Diamond Tooth Gertie’s” Gambling Hall for a burlesque show. The only thing we didnt do that most visitors do was a gold mine tour with gold panning.  (Been there ... done that.). The sun was shining, the food was good, and all was right with the world!

This is our hotel.  It’s in the centre of town away from the tour group hotels.  Note the footpaths everywhere are “board walks”.  The streets otherwise were unpaved.

Diamond Tooth Gertie’s gambling hall show was hilarious - not the show, but the audience was!  A coach load of weary cruise patrons sat there glum faced for the most part: the show must have been part of the tour itinerary, but I think they just wanted to get back to their hotel to sleep!  Alan & I were just about the only people getting into the swing of things, whistling and whooping at the appropriate times trying to make up for the lack of response from the rest of the crowd!

For most of the day and evening though we more or less had the town to ourselves.  The big tours were off doing the gold-panning bit.  Suited us down to the ground!

Across the Top of the World

Thank goodness I bought a new SIM card for my phone yesterday - we needed it this morning.  We are setting off on a 10 hour drive along the Top of the World Highway from Fairbanks to Dawson City, which includes crossing the Canadian Border.  It closes at 5 pm, so we couldn’t afford any holdups.  Well our driver didnt turn up!  Cut a long story short, after several phone calls the drivers superviser turned up instead - one hour later - there was no choice for it, she just had to drive us to Dawson City herself instead, fortunately she just happened to take her passport in her handbag to work this morning!  There wasnt even enough time in hand for her to go home to pick it up.

Valery was quite a character so in the first hour we had already heard her life story!  As it happens she managed to get hold of the original driver who was on his way to Dawson with an empty car! (There had been some sort of mix up with the paperwork) Told him to wait for us at Delta - one and a half hours down the road.  And thats where we met up to swap cars and drivers.  What a hoot!  Especially so because our new driver, Kevin is afflicted with some sort of laughing disease.  Whatever we say he thinks is hilarious!  And he has one of those very infectious laughs that you cant help joining along with.  But his whole body shakes when he laughs too - its like he’s being tickled so he cant stop himself.  One time he spotted a moose and stopped the car right alongside her: I whispered: gee they’re ugly beasts aren’t they?  He couldn’t help himself hooting with laughter scaring the moose off into the trees and bushes.  From then on whenever the word “moose” was mentioned he bust out laughing, accusing me of insulting the poor moose lady so that she would tell all her friends how insulting I was.  And the more he talked about it the more he laughed - tears rolling down his cheeks.  

I didnt realise I was such a comedian!

This didnt distract from the fact that The Top of the World Highway is truly amazing.  The first half of the journey was intermittently effected by light showers and threatening thunderstorms.  We felt as though the rain was chasing us across the mountains.  

It eventually caught up with us at our lunch stop.  But thats another story.

We are the only people in the car, so we could choose where to stop, and we chose “Chicken”, somewhere we had already heard of.  

Some gold prospectors back in the day chose this little valley as a settlement and wanted to name it after the national bird of Alaska, which as it happens they often caught and put in the pot.  The bird is the ptarmigan (with a silent “p”).  But they couldn’t spell ptarmigan, so they chose the name of Chicken, which is what it tastes like!! 😂

It started raining and turned quite cold as we climbed back in the car for the next stretch of road which is unsealed.  That’s exactly when we encountered that ugly moose 🤣

Despite the showers and the rolling thunder around the mountain valleys we then entered some amazing scenery.  The showers cleared then the clouds gradually parted and we were just stared in wonder as the world unrolled before our eyes.

Every corner, every hill top just unfolded more and more unspoiled scenery.  My photos dont really do it justice.  Even Kevins hilarity abated as the glory of the countryside unfolded around us.

Just after we crossed the Canadian border he stopped the car to let us walk around to savour this expansive empty landscape.  We had it all to ourselves.  So, so vast and quiet.

You’ve got me hooked Yukon.

At last, after 10 hours driving we reach the Yukon river - to be crossed only by a ferry.  A fitting end to an amazing journey.

Back to Civilization - Fairbanks again

We fly back to Fairbanks, happy to be back into the modern world!

Well, not quite modern.  The city is stuck in some sort of weird time warp I think.  It has very few redeeming features worth taking photos of, and the weather is pretty grim, cool, grey drizzly sort of stuff.  Summer only lasts 6-8 weeks, so the place is never “dressed for summer”.  Most of the time its under snow.  Anyhow, we spent one day stuck in our hotel room, it was raining heavily on and off all day, then the hotel had a 7 hour power cut with us stuck up on the 4th floor.  The second day we managed to explore a bit.

Just up the road from us is this weird little Museum Room which we never worked up the courage to explore, on peaking through the door it looked more like a very mouldy dusty junk shop - the “Cash for Antlers” signpost amused us!

The main tourist attraction in town is the “Pioneer Village” - a quaint heritage “recreation” of Fairbanks in its early days containing at least a few original log cabins.  Problem was it was a Monday - so only half the attractions were open.



We browsed one museum and found this little gem:




Cannabis is legal in Alaska so we found several shops on the main streets freely advertising their wares.

The people are interesting folk.  Slow talking, friendly in an offbeat sort of way.  Comes from spending 9 months of the year in darkness and off grid to boot!  After 2 days we felt like we were blending in a bit, only to have a complete stranger passing in the street say “welcome to Alaska”!  Another time I walked to the local grocery store on my own, there was no other pedestrian with 3 blocks when I passed a car attempting to pull out of a disused petrol station driveway bunny-hopping in a learner-driver kind of way.  The driver flung open his door and called to me - “can you help me please? I would shake your hand but mine is too greasy (and it was - totally black).  Would you sit in my driver seat and pump my brakes for me?

Well, what could I say?!  He continued: I need to bleed the brakes, if you could pump the brake pedal for me while I bleed them, I would much appreciate it.  It’s a two man job you see.

There was no one else within three blocks - what was I to do?  

Well, I did as he asked.  I did as he requested a couple of times while he was under the car doing mechanic sort of things.  The deed done, He said, thank you so much - much appreciated, and off he drove.

That’s Alaska for you.

Top of the World Tour

Our hotel: the “Top of the World”

Soon after breakfast a light drizzle of rain began which soon turned to sleet - its about 6 deg C with a significant wind chill factor.  As the day progressed it eased and didn’t prove to hamper our booked tour of “the Top of the World”.  What we expected to be 2 or 3 hours, turned into 5 pretty cold hours!

It was extremely interesting though, and unlike anything we have ever experienced before.  Our guide was a delightful young Native lady who has lived here all her life.  Three quarters of the population of 30,000 are native Alaskan Indians, or Eskimo if you like.  Not sure what is politically correct nowadays.  We were shown around town having the most significant buildings pointed out, including schools, churches, sporting complexes and stores.  We spent an hour at the Heritage Centre learning all about the whaling tradition, paddled in the Arctic Ocean and looked over a couple of archaeological sites.

Alan says it wasnt as cold as he expected it to be, he thinks it was because his feet were almost numb before he even reached the water, so the cold didnt really register!

That’s me by the way in one of their “parka’s”, the fur trimming is wolverine.

We didnt have to queue for anything on this tour!  This little girl “Georgia” belonged to our small party of 6 (5 if you dont count her little baby brother).  

Our guide is wearing the hoodie, and Georgia’s mum was carrying her 3 month old baby under her coat.

An unexpected part of the tour was dropping into a small youth centre where students performed some traditional songs and dances.

This is the favourite mode of transport around here.

One of the whaling ships that was the foundation of the town of Barrow.  Nowadays they are only allowed to use their traditional skin lined canoes for whaling.  They are permitted to kill 21 whales each year.  This year they caught 11.  Only because after that number they run out of storage space for any more meat!  Most of their protein is hunted and fished: including caribou and ducks.

No trees in this part of the world, so they create their own!

What a tough place to live.

Barrow

Well, words escape me at the moment.

I’ll just start at the beginning.  Our shuttle awaits to transport us along dirt roads to our hotel.  The accommodation is ok actually, and we had chosen a room with Arctic Ocean glimpses.  This is the view from the dining room - best seats in the house!

As you can see by the mud tracks, a stroll to the beach is not on the books!  So by 10 pm we are ready for bed - its still daylight so we block out as much light as we can. The curtains dont do the trick, they’re short and dont quite reach one edge of the window so we utilised the ironing board to hold the  curtain against the wall.  I fell asleep quite quickly, (with eye mask on) but was awake again at 1.15 am - and it was even brighter than when I went to sleep.  I took this quick shot through our window (and flywire).  The Arctic Sea is just past those houses but a sea mist sweeps across from time to time, obliterating our  “ocean glimpses”

1.15 am!!!

Fly up to Barrow

Why are we doing this?  We’ve asked ourselves this question a few times today!!!

Just because its there - the northern most tip of America thats why.  Our hotel is just 100m from the Arctic Ocean - and I WILL NOT be going for a swim!

Our flight from Fairbanks goes via Prudhoe Bay, where all the pipelines from offshore rigs converge, then is piped onwards overland.  It’s one of those places people fly in and out of to work 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.  We didnt come here for sightseeing, we had to change planes for the onward flight to Barrow.  We had a 3 hour layover from a midday flight, so we thought - foolishly as it turns out - that we would just fill our time with a lazy lunch. 

Ha! Ha!

Other than toilets there are no facilities at all at the airport - not even slot machines for beverages!  One of the ground staff suggested trying over the road at Prudhoe Bay Hotel.

It’s quite a large hotel, obviously for the workers.  We ate in their canteen - helped ourselves to what (little) food was around then paid at reception.

Seems everyone is at work:

Not sure how they entertain themselves when the shift ends.

Just as well return to the airport - the seats are more comfortable anyway!  The airport by the way is not called Prudhoe Bay Airport - its “Deadhorse”

Mmmm ....