22 Aug 2006 Tuesday

THE SUN IS SHINING!!  We finally have a morning not dreary andraining!  We had our breakfast of eggs and reindeer sausage (leftover forma previous breakfast) and left the cabin.  We walked around Dawson City abit.  This area is famous for the gold rush in 1898 and in some ways, ithasn’t changed much since.  

We drove up to Midnight Dome where the city planned a celebration in the1890’s for the midnight sun on the summer solstice.  But the sun didn’t getthe schedule of events and set about half an hour before midnight and rose againa couple of hours later.  It didn’t stop the party, though.  They havea summer celebration here every year, but they don’t wait for midnight. From Midnight Dome we had a beautiful 360 degree view of the area, with theKlondike River and the City of Dawson below.  We could see the “Top of the WorldHighway” winding up the mountains across the river.  The sun is outand our moods are better.  We drove back down into town.  

We were walking around and stopped into a grocery store and found a fewthings we hadn’t seen before in the US.  Among the strangest things we sawwere cornflakes in chocolate bars and ketchup flavored potato chips.  I’mnot sure if we want to try this stuff or not.  (We did later try theketchup potato chips.  The brand name “Lay’s” tasted like Frenchfries; the No Name brand tasted like powdered ketchup)

We walked several blocks from the Information Center to Jack London’s cabinand interpretive site on the far side of town.  It felt good to get outand walk again after being in the truck for so long.  We sat in on aninterpretive presentation about Dick North and his quest to track the authorJack London’s time spent in the Yukon.  Jack London wrote many books, butnever an autobiography.  Many people have written about Jack London and hismany adventures.  But the year he spent in the Yukon was apparently pivotal indeveloping his stories.  Jack London’s signature was found on theinside of this cabin found decades later out in the Yukon.  The signaturehas been authenticated.  It is believed he would sit with the others in theYukon at that time for gold mining or fur trading and on the long winter nightsas they told tales around the fire, he was developing his thoughts for hisstories.  Dick North has written several books on the life of JackLondon.  He is still alive and in his 70’s and lives near DawsonCity.

We got back to the truck and had lunch, then hit the road.  The sun isstill shining (YES!) as we headed south.  We were traveling thru FirstNation’s Land (Native land) and we weren’t sure of their rules ondispersed camping.  Out of respect for the Native land, we found acampground a few hours from Whitehorse, Yukon Terr., our next destination. At the campground we got out some of our wet gear and laid it out to dry. We had a tarp and 2 folding chairs I was beginning to worry about mold andmildew.  If we  can stay out of the rain, we’ll enjoy the rest of thistrip much more.  We woke up around 2am to see if we could spot the AuroraBorealis, but we had a light cloud cover and didn’t see much. 

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