2018/07 Arctic Part 1 - Carmacks |
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Back on the road, we passed the turn off south to the Cassiar Highway, our likely route home. We passed a lake with two moose feeding in the shallow water, but by the time we’d reversed back to the lake both moose had disappeared into the trees. We’d already noticed that we were spotting fewer animals now we were in the Yukon. Unlike BC, which mows its verges, the Yukon allows shrubs to grow, so the animals are there, just not as easily seen. As you can see, the highway’s appearance is quite different.
We came to the massive Teslin Lake, over 70 miles long. The town of Teslin continues to rely on plywood policing to slow traffic. Last time we were there some hooligan had driven over the car, reducing it to a jigsaw puzzle, but it’s been repaired or replaced. Time though for a newer model car I think.
Also on Teslin lake was Mukluk Annie’s, famous for its Salmon Bake. The meal deal included free lakeside camping, a free RV wash, and a lengthy boat trip on the lake. However, once he had you in the midst of all that beauty and far offshore, Mukluk George would reveal that he was from St Paul, Minnesota, where he was “known to the police”, and tell you how he’d subsequently found Jesus. Their food was good anyway.
The buildings were still there, but the place was gated and closed. Apparently Annie and George had retired.
We came to Johnson’s Crossing, one end of the Canol Road, built in the 1940s to support the Canol pipeline and a possible choice
of route for our return trip.
We camped that night somewhere near Marsh Lake, an appropriate name as we were surrounded by shallow lakes and marsh. We had loons and hares and flowers and, of course, plenty of bugs.
Saturday June 30th
We were back on the Alaska Highway on a sunny and cool morning. We passed the turnoff to Carcross and Skagway, home of the White Pass Railway, all fascinating stuff but we’d already explored the area in 2004.
We came to Whitehorse, by far the biggest city of the Yukon, home to about 70% of its population. We stopped briefly to pick up and send emails at the Visitors’ Centre and then headed back to the Carcross junction to find the Yukon Rock Shop. It was hidden away behind some trailer homes; no garden, just a yard full of machinery and rocks.
Owner Paul was busy cutting up rocks but took his gear off and did his best to answer Sandie’s questions about what rocks she might find on the Dempster Highway. Unfortunately, he’d never been there; the highway’s a few hundred miles north. He had a copy of an ancient government booklet describing the geology of the area but it predated the building of the highway so even that was vague.
He did give us a map of the mines of Whitehorse, all played out and closed now but interesting stuff could still be found. We bought some rocks from his shop: malachite from the Congo and tourmaline from Brazil, also an example of the copper rocks to be found around Whitehorse.
We drove to the old mining area and found that the access road had been blocked with giant concrete cubes, but some well-wisher had moved one of them over so we could squeeze through. The area beyond was a wasteland of tailings, pits, building shells, and fossilized wrecks of cars and trucks. Just the kind of place that rockhounds enjoy. However, 
although we searched a few piles, Sandie didn’t find that many interesting rocks.
Just outside of Whitehorse we turned north on the Klondike Highway. This took us past the turnoff for Takhini Lodge where we stayed in February 2015 to see the Northern Lights. Beyond there the road follows the shores of a number of large lakes. One of these is Lake Leberge, made famous in Robert Service’s poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee”.
The roads here were lined with yellow and purple flowers, arnica and bear root I think. This stretch of the highway 
from Leberge to Carmacks was new to us, very scenic with its lakes and flowers. There were also these yellow paintbrush, a change from the usual reds.
At Carmacks we enquired about rock hounding in the area and were given a few pages of directions to agate mines in the area. We picked one that we could drive to and headed down a muddy track into a small quarry, which I recognized from one of our earlier trips. The instructions though said we still had a way to go so we continued down the track, which narrowed to where we were pushing through the trees. 
We were in trouble, as backing up would be very difficult. I walked ahead to find a spot with small trees and no big stumps, and then
went back for Sandie. She had to make about a dozen tos and fros, but managed to push enough trees down to get turned around.
As it was getting late we decided to camp in the quarry. The site had obviously been well picked over though, as there were plenty of rocks but no agates. Too late, I found an old copy 
of a better set of instructions we’d been given; this one had the distance to the quarry correct 
and had the warning “Do not continue on the track as there is no turnaround.” Well, there is now. But not for trailers, of course.
Even though we found no agates we had a pleasant evening, eating outside, with few bugs around. We found these unusual and beautiful penstemons amongst the rocks.
Sunday July 1st, Canada Day
I’d been a little worried about camping so close to town on a weekend, in case it was the local kids’ party spot. Sandie said we’d had some night visitors and someone had slammed a car door but no one bothered us.