Trip to Dawson City

My parents were visiting for a few days over the weekend. We took a drive to Dawson City, about six hours away.
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Heading to Dawson, this was just past the village of Carmacks on the North Klondike Highway.

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Gravel Lake, where we stopped to stretch our legs.

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The George Black Ferry, the only way to cross the Yukon River and reach the Top of the World Highway. The ferry runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week when the water is not frozen and the trip across is free. The highway is cut off for several weeks every year at freeze up until the ice is strong enough to drive across. It's cut off again in the spring for awhile until the ice is out.

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A view of Dawson taken from King Solomon's Dome.

More coming.....

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My parents standing on the Top of World Highway.

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Me and my Mom at the same spot.

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Dredge No.4. A huge gold mining operation that's now shut down and a national historic site.

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Discovery Claim on Bonaza Creek. This was the site of the original gold strike that started the Rush of 1898. It's also a national historic site now. Mining continues on a small scale all around Dawson.

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No trip to Dawson is complete without a visit to Diamond Tooth Gertie's, the only casino North of 60 in Canada.

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Gertie herself putting on a show.

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The Gertie Girls--cancan dancers.

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My Dad playing golf at the Top of the World course. The only golf course I've ever seen that includes old mining equipment as hazards. There is also no stroke penalty if you loose your ball to a raven or one of the foxes that lives on the course!

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On our way home, we stopped at Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon River. It's a beautiful spot.

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And we stopped at the Fox Lake Burn. This area burned in a massive forest fire in the summer of 1998.

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The pictures don't capture the feeling of utter devasation that still fills the burn area. This fire was very close to the city of Whitehorse. It was fought hard by lots of crews and still burned hundreds of thousands of acres.

My parents left yesterday morning. It was a very nice visit, but too short.

Wow, it is so beautiful! Thanks for sharing the pics! Usually what you see on pics is not reflecting exactly all the beauty you see by yourself, so I can imagine that it is even more beautiful in reality! :cool:

It seems you all had great time :) :)

:eek: WOW the country is just so so breathtaken & the pictures are so great.. Thank you for sharing..

I love your pics, I say that everytime but really I do. And you tell what every pic is and it's like a story. Makes me want to visit up there so bad. :)

Thank you for the tour. As always your photos are incredible.

The pics are breathtaking. I would love to someday visit the great north.
Thanks for sharing!

Nature is soooo beautiful up where you live!! BREATHTAKING !!
Exacty how far north is this?

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Originally posted by Maya & Inka's mommy
Nature is soooo beautiful up where you live!! BREATHTAKING !!
Exacty how far north is this?

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Dawson is at latitude 64.05 and longitude -139.09. Basically straight across from Fairbanks, Alaska--if you could go straight across, there's a bunch of mountains that get in the way!:p
Here's a map that might give you a better idea
http://www.dawsonbb.com/YukonMap.html

Glacier, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I SO enjoy your pictures. I've always wanted to visit Alaska, and your pictures are only making my desire to go much stronger! ;)

I kept waiting for picutres of Founder and Hobo and team. :D

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Originally posted by Lobodeb

I kept waiting for picutres of Founder and Hobo and team. :D

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The weather has been too rainy to run them lately. Cold and dry is good, cold & wet is a bad thing. Hopefully over the weekend they will get a few good runs in.

Thank you so much for that map!! Dawson is very close to the artic circle, hey! It sure is BEAUTIFUL !!!!!

Great pictures, as usual Glacier.:) It looks like some ground
cover is already starting to grow back in the burned area. Do
your parents live up north like you ? I'm glad you had a good
visit. Thanks again for the beautiful pictures.:)

Absolutely stunning!

I've made myself a promise to try make my way up there maybe next summer. Would that be OK?

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Originally posted by lizbud
It looks like some ground
cover is already starting to grow back in the burned area.

Do your parents live up north like you ?

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The willows are weeds are coming back. Bigger trees grow very slowly up here so it will be much longer before there are any large pines in there.

No, none of my family lives up here. They all live in Saskatchewan. My parents drove up this time. It's 2400 kilometres or about 1500 miles from their door to mine.

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Originally posted by slick
Absolutely stunning!

I've made myself a promise to try make my way up there maybe next summer. Would that be OK?

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I know I'll be gone for a bit in late July/early August as I have a big family reunion in Saskatchwan. I'm sure we could work something out though.