6-10-2011

  We pulled into Watson Lake on June 3rd. We were now in the Yukon Territory. We went to the sign post forest where people have placed 1000’s of signs from there home towns and a northern lights show. When going to the show we saw a small diner that looked like a good breakfast place. If I learned anything in my time working with the phone company it’s was how to spot a good breakfast place. We went over the next morning and it was crowded so we ended out sharing a table with a young man. We found out a lot of the folks in the diner were firefighters in town to fight the forest fire along the Cassier Highway. The young man we were sitting with was a helicopter pilot down from Whitehorse to fight the fire. We enjoyed our chat with him. Several people told us to stop in Teslin for a cinnamon bun so we did and they were great. When we reached Whitehorse we decided to stay a few days. While there we toured the Yukon Brewery which was a step back in time. It was a small operation and quite a few of the operations that would normally be handled by machinery were done by hand. We visited a dam built by the power company where they built a fish ladder so salmon could get over the dam. We did some trails along the Yukon river and walked around town. It was the biggest town we had been in in quite awhile. They gave visitors a parking pass for 3 days so we didn’t have to pay at any of the meters. We walked around town and ate diner at a great 50’s diner. It is also home of  the World Biggest Windvane a  DC-3 Aircraft. We decided to veer off the Alaskan Highway and head toward toward the top of the world highway. When we were walking around Whitehorse some locals we were talking to told us about another cinnamon bun place along the Klondike highway so when we got to Braeburn we stopped to get one. It was huge about 3 times bigger than the one we got in Testa and even though we thought it impossible it was better. We arrived in Dawson City on June 9th. We  decided to stay at a Provincial Park across on the other side of the Yukon river and since there was no bridge we loaded Emily on a ferry and across we went. Dawson City had it’s beginnings with the Klondike gold rush so one of the 1st things we did was pan for gold with no success. We also walked around the discovery claim where the gold was discovered and toured a dredge which was used to move a lot of dirt and remove the gold from the dirt. We also walked around town and toured the local museum. Next up the Top of the World Highway.