Saterday and Sunday in Whitehorse, Yukon
We slept in a bit on Saturday, and then went to SS Klondike at 10:30 for a guided tour. The SS Klondike is a sternwheeler, which means that it has one large paddle wheel at the back, as opposed to other paddlewheelers (sidewheelers). These ships were powered entirely off of 4 foot long lengths of wood, which is why there used to be lumber camps all up and down the banks of the rivers they used to run on. The steamers carried miners to the goldfields, food such as powdered milk, vegetables, large amounts of liquor, and clothing and other necessities for the miners on the trip upriver. On the way back down, they carried gigantic amounts of ore from the mines.
There were a couple of people from Estonia in our tour group, they had come to Whitehorse to take part in the huge canoe and kayak race that was going to be held a few days later, starting in Whitehorse. Its called the Yukon River Quest and it is the world's longest annual canoe and kayak race at 715 km / 444 miles. won the race in 46 hours 14 minutes and 56 seconds.
The record time for the course was set in 2008 in 39.5 hours, other years with worse conditions the winning times are nearly 10hrs longer and the race must be completed in under 85 hours. It sounds like quite the ordeal. The one Estonian guy reminded me of my brother, both build and attitude-wise.
The ship was being renovated, so we could only go through about half of it, no access to the cabins at all. Also, they had taken down the spars to paint them, so they are missing from our pictures, but they were used in a labour intensive process when the boat got stuck on a sandbar, to frog-leap forward about 3 feet at a time. The cables going over the pipes up high in the middle of the ship keep the ship from breaking apart, as both ends are very heavy from the engines in the back and the boiler and huge winch in the front.
We visited the Beringa Centre next and we learned that most archaeological discoveries in the Yukon and Alaska are found by miners! The man we paid got Shawn to look around the museum for a woolly mammoth toy, and then hide it again for another child to find.
We had a look around the museum, watched a video and were ready to go but there was a thing where you could try throwing old spears so we went outside with one of the museum people, who lectured us at length on how we are above the food chain because of our weapons, and then finally allowed us to use a spear thrower to throw a spear. But we only got one throw which was too bad because it would take at least a couple throws to get used to using a spear thrower, but it was still cool and it was a neat museum.
This is a giant beaver skull beside a normal beaver skull.
This is a Giant sloth that also used to live in the area:
And this is some strange looking antelope, there are some still surviving in asia but the noses on these were designed to warm up the cold air as they breathed it in and apparently they could run 75kmh which is pretty impressive.
After a late lunch at the campsite, we went to the Macbride museum. A lot of it was under renovations but we still got to see a lot of gold rush stuff there and they had a really cool animal display.
A barber was really messy and burned down the town, then was kicked out of town, so they have all his barber tools in the museum. There is a "gold wall' in the museum, which shows the river/stream system, and what shapes of gold nuggets came from what stream or area. Apparently they can tell what river a gold nugget came from based on its shape. The museum guide told us not to bump the display as it has a sensitive alarm, because it's full of real gold.
In the basement, there was a huge display on the Alcan Highway, which is really interesting. Lots and lots of huge photos of the struggle to build it over terrain that was completely unfamiliar to them. The highway was built in 8 months in 1942-1,700 miles long- for fear of a Japanese invasion of Alaska which did end up happening 3 months after the start of construction on the highway. The Japanese actually held on to U.S.A territory for longer than it took to build this highway.
When the museum closed, we hadn't seen everything yet which was unfortunate but Ryan quickly raced through the last bit taking photos of Sam Mcgees cabin and the other displays.
we cruised around town to see what it was like, checked out the log skyscrapers, and Ryan went to the info center and uploaded a few videos really quickly.
The log skyscrapers were neat,
Martin Berrigan worked the gold dredges in the area- a job which demanded a great deal of physical strength and stamina- and after a number of years of mining, he began to feel run down and said, “I just thought life was too short to allow for getting sick”, so in 1939 he moved to Whitehorse to slow down and find another way to make a living. Construction was to begin on the Alaska Highway and Whitehorse had a lot of American army personnel and civilians with nowhere to live. Anyone who could build a cabin could make a lot of cash and he decided to that, but his cabins were unusual. To maximize space and accommodate more people, he built two and three story cabins known locally as the “log skyscrapers”. He built them on his own when he was well into his 70s. He cut the logs about three miles from town and drove them by horse team into town. He had a pulley system to help him lift the logs in place; each log weighing around 300 lbs. He pounded one foot spikes through to strengthen them. Unfortunatly Martin did not live long enough to reap much of the benefits of hishard work. He died shortly after finishing the last skyscraper at 78 years old. Some of his buildings are gone but these were saved from being demolished and people still live in them now.
Back at the campsite, Ryan worked on the blog and the car while I made Supper. After supper, Ryan took Shawn to the bathroom, while I changed Joshua and just as I was finished with him, Joshua suddenly pointed to our table and told me there was a dog there. I turned around, and there was a fox on our picnic table, eating some scraps! Ryan and Shawn got back and it took off.
A couple walked by with their dog, and Shawn asked to pet her. Joshua actually reached over and petted her as well!! He's doing a lot better with dogs, now. He used to freak out when they got anywhere near him.
Sunday we went to a church in Whitehorse and during the service someone walked into the back and stole a guys backpack. After the service, there was a huge spread of snacks; fruit, vegetables, muffins, and cookies, and as we were preparing to leave, the church ladies gave us a large amount! That took care of breakfast and snacks for the next several days!
We walked around town a bit, the kids played on a nice playground, went to check out the worlds longest fish ladder (1200ft), but the ladder was empty because of a window breaking in the building. We looked around a bit and the boys got to feed the tiny fish they had in tanks there.
We went to miles canyon, next. The walls of the canyon are pillars of rock that were formed by lava a long time ago, the river was flowing really fast below the suspension bridge, and we looked in vain for the sea otters that inhabit the river.
Comments
Post a Comment