Saturday, June 2, 2012

June 2 – Dawson City, Yukon

We drove into Dawson this morning to first hit the visitor’s center. After loading up on brochures and useful information we just wandered around town for a while. Only the main highway is paved. The rest of the streets are dirt with wooden boardwalks.

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Today is really just a planning day so we didn’t do too much.

Since it was just across the street from the visitor’s center we toured the paddle wheeler S.S. Keno.

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Whereas the S.S. Klondike (in Whitehorse) was the largest, the Keno was the smallest. Compare the sitting and dining rooms.

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Walking along the riverfront we saw the ferry that we will eventually have to take when we leave. It is free and can take one large RV or a bunch of smaller cars at a time.

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This is the start “Top of the World” highway that we will take once we cross. It is a dirt road that climbs up and then follows the ridge line 100 km to the Alaskan border. It is supposed to be amazing but it should be a fun trip in the RV.

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We had lunch on the outdoor patio of a nice restaurant.

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After lunch we drove up to the top of the Midnight Dome, which is a hill behind the town with great 360 degree views.

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At the very top was a huge bench where the view was the best.

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Our RV parking lot from the Dome. Ours is in the front.

As we drove in to town yesterday we saw these huge piles of rock in long rows. We realized they are the result of the giant dredges that worked here. They gobble up the rock, remove the gold and spit out these long snaking lines of rubble. Parks Canada has a tour of the largest dredge, which we plan to take.

After staring off into the distance for quite a while we headed back to the RV.

As I was writing the blog, this monster drove in. Very nicely colour co-ordinated. I assume he has some sort of ramp to get the Smart Car down. Amazing.

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