Whitehorse (Destined to be our Home...)

On July 18th, we hit the road with our destination to be Whitehorse, YT. We had read about a place located off of the Alaska Highway in Watson Lake, YT, called Sign Post Forest. Apparently, homesick soldiers would post signs of where they were from to remind them of home, and the tradition carries on as people who come through the town to visit are encouraged to leave a sign as well.

We found some places in Texas, including Victoria, Lubbock, Ingram, but we never did find Midland/Odessa in the jumble. We didn't know that you could still add to the forest, so we didn't make a sign ourselves, but we will remember next time.

When you exit the town on the Alaska Highway, you must cross over the Liard River via a bridge...a bridge under construction...down to one lane to cross...they only allow 1 commercial vehicle on the bridge at any one time...and it was very narrow.

We made reservations at Caribou RV Park outside of Whitehorse just in case the RV rally people decided to set up camp in the city. Whitehorse is the Yukon Territories' Capital City with about 27,000 people.

We thought it best to go see a few of the city's attractions that night after we got settled in our campsite, and picked to see Miles Canyon and the Fish Ladder. Miles Canyon was a great hiking area next to the river and Schwatka Lake that feeds the dam that powers the city, hence the need for the fish ladder especially during salmon season. While we were at Miles Canyon, we kept seeing planes fly overhead and so we made a mental note to find out where they were coming from.

We found the planes on Miles Canyon road. I think they tour the city, canyon areas, and local lakes.

The Fish Ladder was closed for the day to tourists. I looked at my phone and realized it was 10pm, which did not match the daylight left in the sky. We made a quick drive through the city and noticed that everything (even WalMart, which was taken full advantage of by dozens of RVers) closes at 10pm, so we headed home.

The next day, we went to tour the Fish Ladder and Whitehorse Dam. The dam provides the city's power and you can definitely see nature's force when you are standing out on the observation area, you get quite wet from the spray of the water that is let out from the lake. The Fish Ladder is the longest wooden fish ladder and they have holes cut out of the ladder sections for the fish to swim through so they don't get too tired jumping over "ladder slats." They provide a live camera feed during salmon season, which the site link is in a picture below.

Next on the agenda was to figure out why there was a large steam powered paddle boat near the river on the way into downtown. This boat is the SS Klondike #2 (because #1 sank). It was used to boat people/supplies/etc. up the river to Dawson City, YT once the ice mostly melted from the river. It took about 1 day to get to Dawson City (downstream) and 4-5 days to get back to Whitehorse (upstream).

We had seen many advertisements around the city for the Yukon Transportation Museum, so we tracked it down and much to our surprise, it was worth the $10/person admission. They have the one of the world's largest weather vane, being a DC-3 airplane, and it does actually work.

After the day's adventures, we headed back home for dinner and sleep. We were eager for the next day because we would FINALLY make it into Alaska.