Sunday 28 July 2013

LAND OF THE FREE SPIRIT...sort of.....

I haven't been eaten by bears. Mosquitoes yes, but not bears and no launderettes or bakeries that have internet just in case anyone is following me in my Yukon Quest.  

I have covered a lot of miles. Almost as many as they do in the Yukon Quest (1000) albeit not with huskies in minus 50, just an RV that hopefully will bring us back in one piece.

 My itinerary is bonkers so although I am a free spirit and this is the land of the free spirit I'm up against time all the time and looking to see if I've run out of diesel so I don't feel very free. I feel very stressed.     It doesn't help that some of the signs are in miles and others are in kilometers and some are both.   Passed through Beaver Creek although didn't see any beavers - or bears - and crossed border crossing into Alaska.   Border control always interesting into the States.  I always get the impression they don't want you in their country no matter how many 'have a nice days' I hear thereafter.   First impressions matter.     First stop is 'Chicken', a small place where all the souvenirs revolve around the slogan 'I got laid in...Chicken'.    Yup.

The Top of the World road is stunning. Again no bears, but a tour bus on it's side in the mud.   In the absence of taking a photo of the bears, I took a picture of it.

Dawson City I remember well on my last trip. Little has changed It's got a bit bigger but the tour around Dredge Four and the Gold Bottom mining tour fascinating.   And we found gold - all $7 worth of it.

Then 400 mile drive to Tombstone Park.  Shattered.   Still no bears.    But the best day so far was with the Cathers in Lake Laberge, an incredible family with so many stories - bear and otherwise I could have stayed there all week.   They teach you how to sledge with huskies but they do it properly in the most stunning setting. In the summer you can hike with them and go canoeing in the lake which is beautiful, but in my articles I'll write more about the stories.   Some of them involve people pissing up trees, sliding along ice at 20mph trying to correct huskies going in the wrong direction and playing chicken with black bears.

Then met Keith Wolf Smarch, who taught Tom how to gut fish he'd just caught. He's a master wood carver and taught Tom how to do it.  Tom helped with a totem pole.   Now that's something he can put on his CV. "I helped carve a totem pole'.    There's experiential travel for you!

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