Come Follow Us – Page 17

Feb 07 2016

The Dempster Highway

On Saturday morning we left Dawson City for Eagle Plains just past 7am. It was dark as sunrise was at 9:42am. Once there was light, Jeff and I started reminiscing about our trip along this highway a couple summers ago.

As we were driving along, Jeff shouted “Look ahead”! There were 2 caribou ahead and we stopped the SUV, but you can’t really stop on a dime when the roads are icy. The caribou were 20 metres ahead of us and were trotting away. I wish had captured the caribou moving as it had the most unusual trot – with its hind legs swinging outward, it was quite comical. Maybe it’s because of the icy road.

Moooove….

After that caribou encounter, we saw a small herd of caribous. I think there were probably close to 20.

Porcupine Caribou Herd (I think)

Further down the road was another group, probably part of the same herd. A few minutes later, we saw a moose and her calf laying on the snow, just chilling, but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to snap a pic, besides we won’t be able to stop the SUV in time in a safe manner.

Apart from the gorgeous sunrise, sunset and and the desolate but beautiful landscape, that was pretty much it driving to Eagle Plains. We counted less than 15 vehicles through this section.

Resident Golden Retriever at Eagle Plains

We arrived at 1pm and had a hearty lunch at the restaurant. And then for the next few hours we had cabin fever, lol. There’s nothing to do or see at Eagle Plains and the WIFI was down. So, it was a lot of reading and TV watching. Jeff was ~~happy~~ satisfied watching his “man shows” on the Discovery Channel.. I flipped between reading my book, watching TV and taking a nap. Ashleigh went to read in the general area of the hotel.. I guess it’s the lobby. Her reading was constantly interrupted by random people wanting to chat with her.

As we were so bored at Eagle Plains, we can’t see ourselves spending another night there on the return journey. We decided to make it a long day of driving from Inuvik to Dawson City on Tuesday.

The next morning we headed out to Inuvik after breakfast. The road was as good as it can be.. As we were driving in the darkness, I saw a pair of eyes in the distance.. as we approached it, it ran across and voom! Before you know it, it was gone! We think it might have been a wolverine.

The next animal we saw was a red fox! The fox is so cute.. after it crossed the highway, it just sat there and posed for us.

Red fox

We did two ice river crossings today – The Peel River and Mackenzie River. Such a surreal experience knowing that we had previously made these crossings on a ferry.

The lowest temperature on the road today was -36C at Fort MacPherson.

When we arrived at the Arctic Chalet, the temperature was -28C and boy, it’s cold alright. The cold air just cuts right into your nose, it feels like your nose is seizing up and it gets quite uncomfortable – well, at least that’s what us girls feel like.

We finally have clear skies and this might mean a chance to catch the northern lights. Judi, the owner of the chalet said 2am is a good time to try and see it. She said that if she sees at in the middle of the night she will call us… we have set our alarm for 2am and are hoping for the best…

As I was writing this blog (around 7pm), Jeff decided to go out and look for the Aurora Borealis. He went out and was back in again to let us know that the lights are visible. I got dressed quickly, unpacked my tripod, dug out the camera remote control, the balaclava and headlamp. I have to say that I was so excited to see it. It’s just incredible! We’ve never seen anything so beautiful. It’s not as brillant because it’s not that dark yet, but I take what I can get. It’s worth the painful fingers and frozen eyelashes. Not the most spectacular shot, but hey, I’m still learning how to use my camera!

Aurora Borealis. Northern Lights

We will drive on the ice road to Tuktoyaktuk tomorrow to meet our local guide. Stay tuned!

Feb 05 2016

The Yukon

We arrived in Whitehorse yesterday at 1:30pm. The flight was uneventful and after picking up the luggage and rental SUV we were off to Dawson City. The drive to Dawson City is 530kms.. fortunately for us the road conditions were good and the sun was shining. The sun hung around till almost 6pm and the drive with the sun setting was simply spectacular. Snow covered trees against the reddish sky..

Klondike Highway #2

We drove through a few small communities before the sun finally set.

The community of Pelly Crossing in the distance

We arrived in Dawson City at around 8pm. We checked into our hotel – Aurora Inn, the best hotel in Dawson City, more on that later…

The next day, as in today, we woke up at 7am and Jeff and I decided to take a walk around town. It was still dark. Despite a temperature of -9C, we didn’t feel that cold. On our way back to the hotel, I slipped and fell, if I was any older I probably would have shattered my hip.

After breakfast, the three of us decided to partake in a tourist activity – sightseeing around town. The first stop was driving part way to the Top of the World Highway. We were there a couple summers ago and crossed the Yukon River in our truck and 5th wheel on the George Black ferry. Well, the George Black is off during the winter season and you can see him parked with a piece of wood propping up its ramp.

George Black ferry that operates across the Yukon River in the Summer

The George Black ferry that operates across the raging Yukon River in the Summer

Driving across the Yukon River was kind of surreal. There’s a “pirate ship” that is frozen in the river. It is some art installation by one of the art schools in town.

Frozen pirate ship. (Sorry, bad pic)

We drove a few kilometers past the river and turned around before the snow got too deep.

Here’s a video of the drive across the Yukon River back towards Dawson City.. The 45sec mark is where we were driving on the river.

The next stop was the Dome – the viewpoint where you see all of Dawson City. We were told by the hotel owners that we may have to park and walk as the road is not plowed all the way to the summit. Once the snow was deep, Jeff reversed the SUV down the mountain before attempting a 3-point turn. Well, that 3-point turn turned ugly. We slid into deep snow and there we were – stuck!

Always a reason to take a pic – Ashleigh always smiling, but Jeff wasn’t too pleased.

Well, the good news was that despite the sketchy cell coverage I was able to call the hotel to get a tow truck for us. Meanwhile we started clearing snow with our boots. We didn’t have the shovel, it was in the hotel room! Duh! (So….. kids, that’s why Jeff and mommy didn’t want you to tag along because a situation like this is not good.)

The owner from the hotel came by with a tow strap to pull us out of the bank, but alas, that wasn’t successful – it snapped! (But if you look closely, the strap was not in the best condition)

So back down he went to get his buddy and some chains.

Just so happened, a snow plow was coming up the hill to clear the road. He was so nice as he pushed the snow and cleared a path down to the gravel for the SUV to drive out. When the hotel owner returned with his buddy – who is also the town’s tow truck driver, he was quite sure we were able to drive out without hooking up the chains – and what do you know, it worked! After thanking everyone we headed down and drove straight to the hotel. At the hotel, we asked the other owner, aka the wife, what we owed everyone that helped. She said nothing.. because we are guests of the Aurora Inn. Also, in a small town, everyone helps out each other as the next time it could be someone else needing our help. Such an awesome place! If you are visiting Dawson City, I highly recommend this place! And the restaurant is pretty good too!

After a short rest – we headed out again, but this time on foot. We did the walking tour of Dawson City and learned more about this interesting place.

Fifth Ave

The frozen Yukon River

Tomorrow will be a long day of driving to Eagle Plains. I like to think of Eagle Plains as… in the middle of nowhere. Jeff bought a jerry can and filled it up with gas as this is the sketchy part of the journey where there are no services for quite a distance. We’re hoping for good road conditions. And no Aurora Borealis in sight yet…

Dec 28 2015

The Usual Drive

I don’t have any trips to blog about but it doesn’t always have to be about special trips right? Jeff and I made our usual trip to the valley to visit family and I took advantage of the opportunity to capture some eagle pics..

The photos turned out better than I expected. I wasn’t expecting much, in fact I didn’t even bother downloading the pictures onto the laptop until the next week because, one, I had problems with lighting, two, the birds were too far and high, and three, I really haven’t figured out how to use my camera… ya, bag of excuses.

Here are a couple of the eagle pics, which I think I may blow one up and get it framed. Still figuring out which is the best pose and how best to crop it.

This one is out of focus.. still not too bad.

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There is the bear along Highway 7 between Dewdney and Deroche that we always look out for. It used to be brown, until someone decided to burn it. (But on closer examination, maybe it was an intentional burn…) In the summer time he had a lei around its neck, so it’s only fitting that it is looking all Christmassy now..

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BaldEagle, Bear
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Oct 19 2015

Thanksgiving Weekend Camping

So.. Thanksgiving is our last camping trip for the year before we winterize the 5th wheel. We were off to Tunkwa Lake again – I think this will be our new tradition.

We probably experienced some of the wrath of Hurricane Oho during this trip. We had a large tent that ended up with bent poles after it came apart from the strong winds. The tent was meant to provide shelter for our potluck Thanksgiving dinner. As you know, Murphy’s Law – we had strong winds and heavy rain at dinner time. Our home on wheels became the buffet cart, families took turns coming in and grabbing their dinner. The wind was so strong that the person coming in had to hold the door open for the person leaving otherwise a slammed door with a plateful of yummy Thanksgiving food would leave quite a messy scene. After dinner Shauna decided to make a Thanksgiving casserole with the leftovers – all the good stuff covered by the mashed potatoes. That was to be our lunch. As luck would have it, the rain stopped after dinner and everyone got together and huddled around the campfire. I thought it was a good time to try a sky lantern… but that didn’t go down too good. The wind picked up every now and then and knocked the sky lantern to the ground – yeah, I’m not for starting a forest fire and losing the shirt on my back so that was the end of that misadventure.

The next day we had lunch together – the leftover Thanksgiving Casserole which was quite yummy. It was good as we all finally sat down together as a group.

Most of the foul weather during this trip happened late in the evening or overnight. This gave us the opportunity for other activities like fishing and hiking. We hiked around Leighton Lake one day, and another day we hiked around Tunkwa Lake – which was quite the unplanned adventure as we had to crawl under barb wire, cross a tiny creek while balancing on a skinny log and rock hopping and not forgetting avoiding the many cow patties.