June 18, 2014
Well, we made it. Unbelievable coming through the mountains from Dawson City. We caught a ferry just at the outskirts of Dawson. The roads were horrible. It snowed and rained most of the way. We hear it is going to be cold and miserable for the next several days. There is a huge storm over Alaska and moving our way. I got some video but I think it's something you have to be there to appreciate. We were on TOP OF THE WORLD HIGHWAY. Of course we were waiting for that feeling to hit. Yes we felt like we were on top of the world. It was fun for a while but then the rough ride turned into over 3 hours of rough riding. George was then on a mission. No stopping to take pictures...I had to get them on the move. He was getting tired of the slick muddy roads and the drop off on the sides. We saw a sign that said, "soft shoulder." A road worker let us pass on the inside of the mountain and then I hear George say, he is going to pull over and let this car pass (and he wasn't heading to the mountain side). I'm sorry but the backseat driver came out because it is a straight drop off on my side and the sign just said SOFT SHOULDER. I wanted to say, "What part of soft shoulder did you not understand? But instead I said, "they don't look like they want to pass and they can just follow us." If you know me you probably don't believe that. But my delivery is was got my point across. I have a good delivery. We had the 4 wheel drive and they just had a car. Somehow we made it.
So here we are in a little cabin in the little town of Chicken. No electricity, no running water. George saw bear poop outside our cabin so we will have to take the bear spray to the outhouses. He claims he is going to pee in a cup tonight because he knows the bears will be out about 2am. Not me, I will be taking the bear spray. I only pee in a cup on doctors’ orders.
I forgot to tell you about our morning in Dawson Creek. We went to the old cemetery that was overlooking the town. It was very interesting. The whole back row was filled with infants and children. One 11 days old, one 22 min. A lot of them died in 1898. On guy was born in Poland in 1867 and died in Dawson in 1921. I saw on Guisseppe born in Buenos Ayres in 1877 and dies in June 1948. I found it all very interesting. The old graves were marked with wood markers but most of the writing was worn off. It looks like someone marked most of them at a later date. I saw one marked, “Murdered 1902, buried June 1, 1904.” A lot were young men. Some from Ireland, some Poland, Austria, Sweden, France, all over the world. A lot were from the states. The history in Dawson City is fascinating. What these people went through was unbelievable.
We learned the story of how they all came to Dawson. It has all been a little fuzzy but we finally got the story straight. The Yukon runs north and then west. The famous picture of the human chain of people lined up on the side of the mountain at Chillkoot pass, which is down around Skagway, is an incredible story. After they climbed that mountain they had to come back down as many as 40 times to get their supplies up there. They had to have 1000 lbs of provisions per person. After that they had to hike about 14 miles to get to the lakes to get to some water transportation. They made boats to sail up the Yukon through the rapids. A lot of people turned back and a lot died. All for the hope of a new and richer life. Some never found gold but found the riches of living their life in the Yukon.
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