Our morning began with housekeeping. A thorough tidying up was followed by a good cleaning. Everything got vacuumed, shaken out, wiped, etc. The dog got a good brushing and we both had a long shower. This was followed by a well deserved breakfast where we discussed our plans for the day. We filled up with water, dumped and said goodbye to Martin, our campground host, and his dog “Big Man” and set off for Whitehorse to visit some more museums.
Our first museum was the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre. This museum concerns itself with the land bridge that existed between Siberia and Alaska at the time of the last ice age when the ocean levels were lower because of the amount of water that was frozen. The museum is modern, interactive and well worth visiting.
The next stop was next door at the Yukon Transportation museum. Martin had to take a picture of the world’s largest weathervane – an iconic DC-3 airplane! This particular aircraft was built in 1942 and spent much of its working life in the Yukon.
In the museum we listened to a talk by Michael Gates, the curator of a museum in Dawson City and a well known author who writes about Yukon history. In his talk and reading he focused on a hike on a historic trail.
The museum included displays of three different canoes – sealskin, birch bark and dugout, typical for natives in various areas of the Yukon. We also saw various vintage vehicles, trains, a replica of the Queen of the Yukon aircraft and various photographs.
The last museum before departing Whitehorse was the Copperbelt Railway and Mining Museum. This unfortunately was a bit of a disappointment as none of the staff seemed to have any idea of what the museum was even about. We did ride a small train for two kilometers, mostly in silence save for the diesel engine noise since the audio system did not work.
We left the Alaska Highway and are now heading up the Klondike Highway towards Dawson City.
Those of you who have been following will be aware that we stop at any and all cinnamon bun cafes. Today we stopped at the Braeburn Lodge which is one of the stops on the 1,000 mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. They also have HUGE cinnamon buns that will feed 4 people! Well, we proved them wrong and split one between the two of us. It did mean no dinner tonight.
Thirty Kilometers down the road we stopped at the Twin Lakes Yukon Government campground and chose a site and went for a swim in one of the twin lakes. The water was not quite as cold as the North Sea in Denmark had been. This was not enough, and we decided not to forgo the opportunity to take out kayak out for a ride. What a treat! Beautiful warm evening sunshine, calm clear waters and a gentle breeze.
