Before leaving Whitehorse we headed to a local chain store called Canadian Tire to buy a Mosquito Zapper. Now these are quite the item. They are a battery operated bug zapper that is shaped like a tennis racket. When you are being attacked by mosquitoes you push the button on the handle and if a mosquito or other insect comes in contact with the “strings” of wire…ZAP they’re fried! You can get a ic sort of rush when you successfully get back at one of the little monsters! Found a rather fancy one for $17. I’m sure we will get a chance to test it. Also was able to locate a large bolt to replace the one that came with the safety roller I had ordered to put under the hitch on the back of the RV. It acts to support the rear of the RV and prevent scraping on the roadway or ground in the event of going too fast over a large bump or such. The bolt that came with the roller was too short to properly mount the roller through our hitch. We now finally have the hitch roller installed. We had scraped once or twice near Dawson Creek. Back to the library to check email then off for the day.
Today we left the Alcan Highway and turned North on the Klondike Highway (Highway 8) headed north toward Dawson City in Yukon Territory. This is a 200 plus mile detour to the north to allow us to cross the Top Of The World Highway. (More on that when we get there!) Wow I thought we had seen some areas where there had been forest fires but nothing like this area. There have been three major burns in 1959, 1969 and 1998 in this area and you could clearly see where each had burned hundreds of thousands of acres. The fire is considered a natural process; most started by lightning, and are allowed to burn unless they threaten inhabited areas. We observed the very slow but steady recovery of the forests after a fire and the progression of plants that develop. The first plant to make known the recovery is the colorful and very plentiful Fireweed.
Fireweed grows nearly everywhere but once a forest has matured it goes into a sort of dormant state for many years. The first year after a burn however they plant starts to grow and to present its very brilliant and colorful tall dark pink blooms. The fields of Fireweed are really pretty to see and they are very prevalent along the roadsides in many areas.
Along the way we stopped at Braburn Lodge, a solitary rest stop famous for its GIANT Cinnamon Rolls. One could serve four people nicely! (The coin with the silver and gold is about the size of an old US Silver dollar for reference.)
Awhile later at milepost 104 on the Klondike Highway we stopped at an overlook of Five Fingers Rapids lookout along the Yukon River. See photo. This area was considered a severe hazard to the miners who used to use the river for transportation. We lunched here during a sudden downpour that caught a lot of visitors on the trail down to the river.
We stopped for the night at Stewart Crossing where a bridge now crosses the Stewart River that flows down to join the Yukon a few miles later. The campsite was a spartan rock and grass field behind the gas station that is the only building in the area. The mosquitoes here are the worst we have encountered, worse than Liard Hotsprings and we had not thought that possible. We used our bug net jackets to connect up. We chose this night to use our gas fired BBQ for the first time to cook a London broil that we had in the freezer as we are concerned about trying to take the beef back into the US at the Alaska border. Since the Mad Cow scare the transportation of beef across borders has become an international hot spot and we have heard stories of confiscation of beef from refrigerators and freezers at the border. At least our new bug zapper got a real workout!
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