My hotel is behind the street clock with the red fascia and row of
lights. Notice the time of night.
What do salmon do when man builds a dam in the way of his reproduction
instincts?
They use the lock system designed to lift them over the dam.
Hard
to believe there were about 250 of these on the Yukon during the Gold
Rush years. It took 36 hours to reach Dawson City, with the current,
and four to five days to return, against the current. A cord of wood
per hour to supply the steam.
I filled up in Skagway this morning before leaving for Whitehorse;
$3.64. The temp was mid-fifties. So far I have been lucky to miss the
rain. Looking at the clouds ahead, I thought my luck had run out. It
turns out that the temperature dropped into the forties and the clouds
dropped down on the highway, but the rain stayed put. Miraculously,
the clouds dissipated almost immediately after crossing White Pass
(3300 ft.) and the temperature climbed into the sixties.
Whitehorse was/is a gemstone in the crown of the Yukon. I was very
impressed. It is clean, well laid out, modern tastefully integrated
with rustic, and the people were very friendly. I checked into the
hotel (two floor walkup) and headed for the fish ladder. The fish
ladder is the world’s longest and its purpose is to move salmon
upstream past a dam. I never thought about how salmon would get back
to their spawning grounds if someone erected a dam. Apparently, the
fish lobby got the attention of the river engineers and they built a
series of locks that lift the fish in stages. It is not highly
technical, but it is very functional.
My next stop was at the Klondike for a tour of a sternwheeler that
supplied the growth and prosperity of Dawson City during the gold rush
of 1898 to the early 1900s. The Klondike continued to make the run to
Dawson City until 1955, the last paddle wheeler to steam the Yukon
River.
After a tour of the visitor’s center and a film about the Yukon, I
returned to the hotel for a much needed rest before attending some
local entertainment, The Frantic Follies. It was a hoot, with music,
comedy, skits, dancing, and all around good fun. They acted out some
of the poems of Robert Service the poet laureate of Alaska in his
time, circa 1900-1930. They did “The Cremation of Sam McGrew,” and
“The Ballad of the Ice Worm Cocktail.” Hilarious.
On my way out of town I stopped at the Beringia Interpretive Center to
get a little more understanding of what life was like in the Yukon
30,000 years ago. Fascinating…more at
http://www.beringia.com/01/01maina.html
This
is about as stressful as it gets.
Fly in to Ketchikan commercial and take a boat or airplane taxi.
As I mentioned, we have talks in the observation lounge. This is a Coast
Guard Captain talking about his assignment of patrolling the Bering Sea.
It seems like you are in a foreign country, but there are reminders.
Another version of riding off into the sunset.
Petersburg
in the background. Tina and Jay will recognize the "Mortwear."
All of Tommy Josephs works are commissioned. This is his current
design.
And, he still has a lot of work to do. I was able to get a 30
second video of the two of them working. It is amazing what he can
do with that adze.
