Mines, Mud, and More Glaciers!
After the Kenai Peninsula we had planned to head to the Valdez area, however, we met so many travelers who told us we had to go to a town called McCarthy and see the Kenicott Mining historical park, we went there instead. They were right, it is a place not to be missed! The 73 mile dirt and mud road to get there was pretty fun (except for the rain) and camping was cheap $15. Showers were crazy expensive – $10 per shower! Needless to say, all our bathing at this location was done with baby wipes :). The highlights for us were the views of the glaciers and mountains (right from town) and our first ever hike on a glacier! It wasn’t that cold, as the sun was actually out, so we hiked the glacier in our sandals with Yaktraks attached. It was beautiful beyond description (hopefully the pictures will help).
From McCarthy we headed north towards Tok. It was raining and we were cold (surprise) so we opted to stay indoors – at some rather interesting accommodations. It was an enormous ‘working’ wood stove that had been converted to allow guests to sleep inside. We met the creator of the stove and apparently he really makes stoves this large for remote Eskimo villages to burn their trash.
Our next challenge was the Top Of The World Highway. Over 100 miles of dirt road, rain, and fog that brought us back into Canada. The visibility was poor to say the least and in some places we were driving through clouds! We had one wildlife encounter on the drive – right in the middle of the road we saw a large male caribou, as we stopped he reared up on his hind legs and pawed the air with his front legs. A moment later he bounded into the trees. It happened in seconds and seemed strangely surreal and totally amazing at the same time.
In the town of Chicken (Yes, that’s right it is called Chicken 🙂 we met some real life solitary miners outside the general store and spent about an hour listening to stories and asking questions about their experiences. It was like living, talking history! We felt like we had met miners from the Klondike from a hundred years ago.
Our arrival in Dawson City was accompanied by the heaviest rainfall we have seen since we used to live in the Honduras rain forest! Seriously, it was coming down in buckets. We attempted to camp, but the sites were all lakes. And since everybody else was also seeking shelter from the deluge of rain we could only find a vacancy at a really nice hotel. The cost was painful, but the two days out of the rain and cold were priceless! Thank you to Sharon’s co-workers whose generous going away gift funded our stay out of the rain!
After our short respite we headed out to face the challenges of the Dempster Highway – over a thousand miles of dirt, mud, rain, and (as it turned out) snow! We’ll talk about that in the next update…
Currently defrosting in Barkerville,
Chris & Sharon
