May 27, 2013

 

Today we drove from Whitehorse, YT to Dawson City, YT (about a 7 hour drive) and we saw absolutely no wildlife and the road was not very good.  Our goal was to get to Dawson City tonight and then drive on the “Top of the World” road tomorrow into Alaska.  When we got to Dawson City we were informed that the “Top of the World” road was not open yet because they had 12 feet of snow on the road they were trying to clear – it should be open Thursday morning at 9. We would hang out here but are afraid they will not get the road open or if they do the road will be a mess so we have now decided to drive back to Whitehorse tomorrow and go into Alaska by way of Haines Junction instead.   Normally the road is open by the 1^st of May but apparently they have had a really heavy snow this winter and it is taking them longer to get it open.  We did not even think to check before we left Whitehorse and there were no signs posted along the way to let us know.

On the good side, Dawson City is a truly unique town.  All the buildings look old and most of the roads are gravel.  They have built a wooden boardwalk that goes all over town to walk on.   There is also a casino called Diamond Tooth Gerties that has 3 shows a night of girls doing the cancan so we are thinking we may go there tonight just to see how it is. It reminds me of an old western town in the old movies.

So tomorrow we will be doing some backtracking but, hopefully, we will make it to Alaska in a couple days.

 

Our view for most of the day

Pelly River

Dawson City, YT

This picture was taken at 9:15 p.m. in Dawson City