Day 5 (August 27, 2021): Buildings and Mountains

Into every vacation, a little metaphorical rain must fall. Well, today felt like a total downpour on that front.

It all started with a power outage across Dawson City just after we got up. It made finding any breakfast or even coffee, impossible. But that sort of thing happens everywhere once in a while and you just live with the inconvenience. No biggie. 

On empty stomachs, we joined our pre-reserved Parks Canada walking tour of the historic core of Dawson City at 9:30 AM. As with the two Parks Canada tours yesterday, the quality and information was second to none. It really gave great insight into the foundations of Dawson City, which were rooted in the short-lived Gold Rush in the last few years of the 19th century.

After the tour, we returned our rental car and were driven to the airport. And that’s when the second chunk of bad news for today hit us: Air North told us they had oversold the 42-seat flight by two seats and that we had been identified as the two standby passengers. The fact that we had confirmed tickets meant nothing. And why us, we have no idea. We were even among the first to check in for the flight.

The situation was exacerbated by the fact that Air North only runs one flight per day out of Dawson City, and they are booked solid for the next six days. With no taxis in the town, and no rental cars or hotel rooms available, and with an onward ticket back home necessitating that we get to Whitehorse, the stakes were high. Picture a waiting room in a shoebox-sized airport the size of your living room, and every passenger on the plane being aware of the situation. I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a stressful, terrible travel situation. I’ll spare you a lot of the drama, but it reached a point where they offered $2400 and a free round-trip ticket anywhere they fly to anyone willing to give up their seat. For the longest time, there were no takers. In the end, two guys did take the bait, and we got seat assignments at the last minute.

We finally made it to Whitehorse and set off for Kluane National Park at 3:45 PM. The mountain ranges became bigger and more stunning the closer we got to the park. Just before we arrived at the park boundary, the third chunk of bad news hit: we called Air Canada while driving down the highway, because I had received an email suggesting our return flights to Halifax had been canceled. Sure enough, we had been offloaded by the Air Canada reservation system for all three flights, from Whitehorse to Vancouver to Montreal to Halifax. I eventually spent three hours on the phone trying to sort it out. I never did get an explanation as to why this happened, and unfortunately, every seat and every flight from Whitehorse east on Air Canada is now sold out until September 1. I’ll spare you more drama by telling you we ended up having to pay for new WestJet tickets as far as Calgary, and then Air Canada got us seats from there. The frustration and angst over this situation is more than I can describe.

With what little daylight we had left, we drove into Kluane National Park and found Kathleen Lake, one of the top accessible spots in the park, with magnificent views, just before dusk. That part of today was an incredible highlight.

Don’t get me wrong, the day was peppered with some wonderful sights and moments. But the stress of all the things that went wrong overshadowed the day. By the time we got to our motel on the edge of the national park (where the toilet didn’t work!) and started to look for a place to eat dinner, we realized there was just one restaurant still open. I love food, and I am anything but picky. But this was the worst eating experience ever. It was just the proverbial icing on a cake filled with difficult ingredients!

I apologize for this depressing August 27th blog entry! Hopefully the photos below will tell a more pleasant story. 

DAWSON CITY

The Klondike in Whitehorse and the Keno, shown here in Dawson City, are the last two remaining stern-wheelers in the Yukon.  

Rustic cabin on the river’s edge in Dawson City.

A statue commemorating all the gold rush miners. 

The British North America Bank, along with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, were the two banks established in Dawson City during the Gold Rush. Each had an in-house facility for melting gold and producing gold bars, as shown above.

The Downtown Hotel, our accommodation during the visit to Dawson City.

Ruby’s House, a brothel set up by a ‘Madame’ from Paris.

The Feather Saloon. 

The Westminster Hotel from 1898. 

Believe it or not, these two buildings are carefully preserved by Parks Canada, to show the impact of permafrost on buildings from the Gold Rush era.

Diamond Tooth Gertie’s gambling hall, where nightly can-can shows can still be seen.

The Dawson Daily News office. 

The post office - the first federally built post office in Canada - has been carefully restored by Parks Canada.

The Palace Theatre. 

The Yukon Hotel. 

The Commissioner's residence.

EN ROUTE FROM WHITEHORSE TO KLUANE

If you’ve ever wondered what driving the Alaska Highway looks like, there is a typical stretch.

KLUANE NATIONAL PARK

Kluane, along with three adjoining parks in Alaska and British Columbia, form the largest contiguous international protected land mass on the planet!


Quill River

Kathleen Lake

At Kathleen Lake, we were shocked to see this sign indicating 5500 km to Cape Spear back in Newfoundland! It made us feel close to the east coast somehow.

Haines Junction is our rest stop for the night. 

And just to show our proximity to Alaska tonight! 😀