Alaskan Highway – Whitehorse- Day Two

Milepost 918

Sunrise 4:28am; Sunset 11:32pm

June 13 Wednesday Woke up early today expecting to get back on the road heading north, but discovered we had no 110 power in the RV. We contacted Coachnet (service equivalent to AAA for Rvers) and spoke with a technician who walked us through several possible solutions. However nothing worked so he gave us numbers for RV service facilities in the Whitehorse area. Fortunately, Fireweed RV Service was just 6 miles south of us. They were great! They got the RV in at 8:30 and called us by 11 to say the problem was diagnosed and fixed at a fair price. We really can't say enough about the service we received. Thank you to David (manager), Kate (cookie lady & front desk) and John (technician). They were prompt, professional and courteous. If you are ever on the Alaskan Highway near Whitehorse with RV trouble- we highly recommend them.

Coat made with the feathers of 70 ducks - waterproof and warm

While we waiting to hear about the RV, we headed into Whitehorse for breakfast and decided to tour the MacBride Museum. This has many, many artifacts from the gold mining days, a room full of native animals, and the actual cabin of Sam McGee who was memorialized in a poem by Robert Service “the bard of the Yukon”.

Queen of the Yukon

Since it was so good the day before we headed back to the Klondike Rib & Salmon Barbeque to get some more of that yummy halibut chowder. After lunch we toured the Yukon Museum of Transportation—this was an amazing museum which documented the modes of travel from the earliest days of men trying to maneuver the difficult terrain of the Yukon. Also included the growth of aviation and railroads to open the Yukon to the world.

Scimitar Cat

Next door was the Beringia Museum, which covered the time period 20,000 years ago when the land mass stretched from eastern Siberia through Alaska and the Yukon Territory and people were able to migrate to North America from western Beringia, the lost sub-continent which remained untouched by glaciers.  During this time  huge animals roamed the area including woolly mammoths and bison. The first people migrating to this area followed these animals and were resourceful and well adapted to hunting them.  Ultimately, they survived them. Many fossils have been found preserved in the permafrost.

We ended our stay in Whitehorse with tickets to the Frantic Follies show which was a vaudevillian type show with Yukon flavor. Two and a half hours of a lot of fun! Very talented folks and it included a very entertaining re-enactment of the poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service.  If you haven't 
read the poems of Robert Service...look into them- great stories of the gold rush times of the Yukon Territory told with a sense of humor.