Yukon Adventure

The Alaska highway and the Klondike

20 minutes

Hitch-hiking up the Alaska Highway through northern British Columbia in 1975 with my girlfriend Lake, we indulged in wonderful Deaf Smith County peanut butter sandwiches and handfuls of sprouts that we grew in bottles as we travelled. Hitch-hiking was easy. Though there wasn’t much traffic, most people with room would stop. We had the occasional meal at the infrequent cafes. The food was pricey, perhaps twice the price of the food in Alberta, but the portions were twice as big, and the food was wonderful. We would split a vast bowl of home-made soup with a great chunk of home-made bread and butter, followed by a massive slice of delicious home-made pie and ice cream. I’d been working in Edmonton for much of the summer, so I had not had much summer fun. But, I had not saved much from my 8 weeks work and Lake had less, and so we were quite broke. We stayed by the road in my $5 emergency tube tent –which was simply an eight foot long plastic tube, open at both ends, that I strung between two trees with a piece of parachute cord. Where we found fire pits, we started a warming fire, which also drove some smoke into the tent, and cut the insect attacks.

I had bought a fishing rod in Edmonton, and caught a delicious rainbow trout in a lake in the Rockies, my first fish, a great meal for two. (It was 15 ¼ inches long, I still remember!) My plan was to feed us fish for the rest of the trip, but even though I stopped every day and fished, I never had any luck. I’d talk to other fishermen, all along the Alaska highway, and learn what was the best lure for the local conditions, then continue on. I’d stop and buy another lure (they were on sale at every shop, cafe or gas station). Again, I’d catch nothing, because I always had the best lure for the previous spot, never for where I was.

It was early September when we got to Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon Territory, and it was already getting chill for camping. We went shopping for warm clothes, as we intended to continue up to Dawson city and see the Klondike, site of the infamous Yukon gold rush. We went into an old-fashioned hardware come outdoor supply store and asked if they had any Long-Johns. They produced some thin cotton ones at an enormous price. I told the woman serving us that we were camping, and planning on going north to Dawson city. I described our limited supply of warm clothing and asked if they had any woollen Long-Johns and she said they hadn’t had any wool ones in for years.

“They’re so much warmer,” I said. “Not the mixed fibre ones, but the thick woollen one’s everybody wore thirty years ago.”

“Wait a minute”, she said turning to her husband, “John, what happened to that box of woollen Long-Johns we had in the attic?”

Her husband went off to look, and came back with a dust covered box, which on opening was filled with the classic, old fashioned, extra thick, yellowed wool, neck to ankle underclothes, with a row of buttons down the front. There was a thick dust line down the top piece.

“They’ve been up there for over twenty years,” he said, “what made you think of them now?”

Perhaps it was pity for us poor, and clearly under prepared, hitch hikers with our cotton clothing, and ambitious plans to camp. We picked out a pair each and asked how much. They were marked with a price from thirty years earlier as they’d been old stock when they were put away. But they honoured the original price, so they cost less than a quarter of the almost useless cotton Long-Johns. When I put them on the next morning, they itched horribly, but the weather had turned colder, and they felt delightfully warm in the cutting wind. They were the warmest clothing I’d ever owned and after a few days I hardly notice the itch, at least not most of the time.

From Whitehorse we left the Alaska highway, which continues more west than north, and took the Klondike highway for 500km as it heads more directly north, generally following the Yukon river. Again the food in the occasional cafes was excellent, and the portions vast. Many of the people we met were genuine characters, and they were interested in us and our adventure. Many told us of their own first summer in the Yukon, even if it had been many years earlier.

Dawson City is a very small town with perhaps a few hundred summer residents and many thousands of summer visitors, but it has a tiny winter population. The tourist season was almost over, but the museum was open as was an ice cream parlour and a good cafe. An actor dressed as a sour dough played the poet Robert Service, who had written during the Klondike gold rush. He came out from the old post office several times a day and entertained the tourists with stories from the gold rush and recited his brilliant poems, such as The Funeral of Sam Mc Ghee.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Le barge I cremated Sam McGee.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45081/the-cremation-of-sam-mcgee

Dawson creek had had a population of 30,000 during the height of the Klondike gold rush in 1897/8, but had soon declined dramatically, when gold was discovered in Alaska. Here we met a young miner from a camp near town who boasted that he made the best sandwiches in the world from the camp food, and invited us back to try them. He drove us the 40 miles to a modern mine further down the river. He fed us for 36 hours on the most fabulous sandwiches, each one six inches thick and containing a most delicious and varied mix of meats and salads, and bought us numerous beers in the camp bar. While he was at work during the day, we walked the few miles down to Forty Mile on the Yukon river, where a half dozen uninhabited log cabins ranged along the river bank. Here we met an American couple who had spent the summer travelling down the Yukon on a rubber raft from Whitehorse and had planned to continue into Alaska. But the woman was pregnant and they were abandoning their journey. The raft was about twelve feet long, and covered in multiple patches. It had two paddles: one a rough handmade job, as they’d lost a paddle en-route. I bought the raft and their less transportable supplies for $20.

We returned to Dawson City and bought several bicycle patch kits, and supplies for ten days. We were warned that it was dangerous to be out on the river, as moose hunting season started the next day. This was worrying, but all we could do was buy bright orange vests, and hope for the best. Hitching back to Forty mile we spent the night in one of the row of abandoned cabins by the river. Two cabins down from us, two hunters got noisily drunk, then one of them started shooting round after round across the river from his cabin window. This went on and on, and we spent the several hours cowering under our window sill, the gun blasting away. It was a horrible feeling, realising that any fool could show up with a gun, and seemingly endless ammunition, and shoot at random. Next day, we heard the two hunters, badly hung over, arguing loudly. Then they packed up to leave. The shooter had used up all their ammunition and completely ruined their hunting trip. This was a frightening warning of the danger of being on the river during the Moose hunting season.

After the mad shooter had left, we loaded up the raft and put out onto the vast, brown, fast moving river. As we pushed off into the current in the much patched rubber raft, I had the strange and unpleasant sensation of my stomach dropping into the bottom of the boat. We were poised on two inflated pontoons. If one of the two pontoons burst, our clothing and supplies would be dumped into the river and we’d have to swim and push the raft to an unknown shore with dubious chances of a quick rescue. The Yukon flowed really fast, with a frightening power, but at least there was no need to paddle as we moved along at a terrific pace.

We were heading into the vast north, which was both exciting and terrifying. There were just two settlements until we reached the arctic circle. We had some kind of a map, but no real idea where we were on it once we had travelled for an hour. The banks were covered with trees, as we moved through what seemed like an endless forest. We carried on until the late afternoon, then paddled for the densely treed shoreline looking for a campsite. I strung our eight foot plastic tube between two trees and we made a fire and cooked dinner. The black flies and mosquitoes were voracious, and after an evening of fending them off, we retired into the tube, with absolutely no protection against the mosquitoes which whined in our ears all night. Lake was particularly troubled by bites.

Our limited larder required that I use my new fishing rod and provide us with at least some of our dinners. However, I didn’t catch a single fish in spite of a daily hour or more casting from the bank and many hours trolling as we swept down river. In fact the only things I hooked were the trees behind me, frequently, my shirt at least once, and most horrifyingly, just below my eyelid. I was alone when that happened, and had to make my way a hundred yards back along the densely treed shoreline to the camp, to get Lake to unhook me. On one of these fruitless excursions along the shore, I met a moose at very close quarters on the densely wooded river bank.

After a couple of days, we thought we would cross the border. Lake was laying naked in the warm September sun, and I wanted to cross the border naked too, so I stripped off my shorts. and we carried on into the late afternoon. I was expecting some kind of sign on the shore at the border, but as the sun dropped it got suddenly cold and we needed to put on clothes, so we stopped and camped. Next morning, immediately after putting in the water, we turned a bend and there was Eagle, Alaska. So, we had not only crossed the border the previous afternoon naked, we had crossed the US border naked and unawares! Or is that naked and unbeknownst.

Eagle Alaska is tiny. We pulled in to the shore and asked a passer by where we could register and were told to go to the post office, but it was closed. We went for a walk around the small community until a man cycled up to us rather frantically with his shirt hanging out below his uniform and asked if we were the tourists who had just arrived. He took us back to the post office, which doubled as the immigration office, and stamped my passport. He asked me how long I wanted to stay and I asked for a month as the winter was on the way. He said, “are you sure you don’t want three months?” For some reason I refused and settled for a month. Lake was for abandoning the river trip at this point and carrying on by road, but I was set on continuing to Circle Alaska and crossing the Arctic circle. We had pie, ice cream and coffee in the cafe, and after some persuasion, Lake agreed to continue down the river.

We spent days of idyllic travel, floating on the great river, with no effort. Sometimes we had beautiful vistas of low hills with their deciduous trees turned bright yellow.

The days were consistently sunny and we snacked, lazed and read as we moved along silently, but swiftly. But the nights were a hellish torment from the mosquitoes and blackflies in our open tent. I had a scare when I went for a dump. Getting up afterwards, I had no idea which way the river was. I imagined getting hopelessly lost and panicked for a moment. Calming down, I carefully marked my place and took three short sorties, returning to the spot, then trying another direction until I saw the river through the trees and felt my heart stop pounding.

A day or two later, we saw a hunting camp by the riverside and paddled over. Three middle aged American moose hunters were sitting around a camp fire and we shot the breeze for a while, until one asked me if I’d like a beer. I sure would. It was a beer I’d never tried, called Hamm’s, and I was sure it was the best beer I’d ever drunk. With a little patience, I kept the conversation going long enough to get offered another beer and then we were on our way.

By now, Lake was really having problems with the blackflies and mosquitoes, and her arms were swelling up. We had to make it to Circle, and get away from them. However, there was a bit of a problem. Before Circle the river divided into numerous braids. We had to make sure that we kept to the left and didn’t get on a channel that bypassed the town. As we had just one good paddle and the raft was hard to steer, this was going to be hard. We carried on for several days, and started to worry we had missed the town. The evenings were more and more painful, being bitten on top of swollen arms and necks. And our supplies were almost out. If we missed Circle, the next stop was many days later at Fort Yukon. After a worrying day or two, we saw a settlement. We paddled frantically and made it to shore before we were swept past.

Unfortunately, Circle is misnamed, and is south of the arctic circle. It was one of my ambitions to cross the arctic circle, and to do it by boat would be a coup. So I was for stocking up again and carrying on, but this was met with very determined opposition, and so we disembarked after ten days on the river, bundled up the trusty raft, and hitched a ride in a pickup truck, to Fairbanks, Alaska.

The first thing I bought at the corner store was a 6 pack of Hamms. For some reason, it wasn’t as good as I remembered.