Day 9 -- Mile 3310 - mile 3590-- Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

As Emily worked at booking hotels for the Canada portion of this trip we found an ad in the Milepost for this hotel. The ad bragged of frilly curtains, fluffy bedspreads, and rustic pine furniture. I guess I now know why they didn't brag about their air-conditioner. However, a nice box fan labeled OLD FAN was in the room. How we have wished for Byron or Marsha on this trip as the sites we have seen would only enhance their training!
It seems that the hotels up and down the Alaska Highway are members of a hotel co-op. One thing they share for sure is baby blue paint! Of course, that certainly goes well with the blue bathroom fixtures!!
I honestly think the towels at the hotel came from mine or Mary Louise's garage sale.
About 90 miles outside of Watson Lake we found the Rancheria River Recreation Area and Falls. There is a boardwalk trail up to a natural falls in the river. This is a boreal forest with white and black spruce. We learned that the black spruce holds onto its cones while the white spruce is deciduous. That is one of the only ways for novices like us to tell the difference. The smell of all these trees is incredible.
Mike and David on the hiking trail above the falls.
Just in case you don't know these people by now, that is Mike and Emily at Rancheria Falls.
When we watched the parade in Dawson Creek we met two couples who were traveling from Michigan. Since then we have run into these nice people two other times. Today they were coming up the boardwalk as we were going down. They are headed to Inuvik on the Arctic Coast where one of the couples used to live. It has been fun seeing them again and again.

No picnic lunch today for the moose nuggets. We stopped at the Continental Divide Lodge and Pub. They served the best fried eggs and homemade sour dough toast. These little outposts show up every 30 - 45 miles or so. It seems that the people who own them live in the same building as their business and all have cabins and camping hook-ups. A very unique life-style.
The town of Whitehorse is known for its brewery. This is a little home style brewery that only sells to the surrounding area. The tour was very interesting. They literaly hand pour and seal their canned products but did buy an old Coca-Cola bottler on the internet for their glass bottles.

Before we left this morning I made the grocery store run. The other moose nuggets almost went off and left me as I couldn't tear myself away. $7.09 for a gallon of milk. Made me proud of the Piggly-Wiggly!!!

We still haven't seen a moose. I hope we don't get killed trying to find one. Today I glanced down a river bed and saw four large animals walking across the water. Thinking they must be our elusive moose, I made a quick u-turn but they were gone. We keep pretending to be Harry Potter and pointing at the forest saying "Revealio Moose". I guess Muggles really can't do magic or we are poorly trained spell casters.

After dinner tonight we drove a couple of miles out of town to Miles Canyon. The Yukon River runs through here with a suspension bridge that was built in 1922. We hiked around this area for a while. During the 1898 Gold Rush this was a major thoroughfare for miners eager to get to the Klondike. Interestingly, the "government" at that time issued a decree that only a master pilot could navigate the miners through the rapids in this canyon. Well, there was only one master pilot who must have been well-connected. We could just imagine the bribes paid to get to be one of the first each day to navigate through this stretch of the river.

We have traveled far enough north now to really be able to tell the difference in the daylight hours. Our latitude here in Whitehorse is roughly the same as Anchorage. It is 11:05 and still light outside. The brewery tour was hosted by a man who works for the local school district. He was lamenting the fact that school doesn't start until after Labor Day. They go to school through most of the month of June when it is daylight almost all the time. He preferred starting and ending earlier as the kids are finished when it doesn't ever get dark.

Tomorrow we drive to Beaver Creek to stay at Buckshot Betty's. Only 3 more nights on the road. We have enjoyed the long afternoon in Whitehorse. Glad to have Paige as a reader. I didn't exactly know the proper blog etiquette. Sorry, I should have informed you earlier. Hope you are all caught up!

Until tomorrow and hopefully a moose sighting, goodnight.