We are parked at Polson RV Resort on Flathead Lake in Montana. We decided to amend our Alaskan adventures to include more trips. Today we visited the nearby National Bison Range where we were fortunate to see a black bear,

many bison, mountain sheep, pronghorn antelope, and mule deer. It was so much fun to see all of these animals on our two hour drive.

We arrived in Redmond Or where we left the motor home and started our trip to Alaska…. 9208 miles later and over 2 months ago. It was a great trip. Everyone must take this trip by road. Not air, not ship, The Road.. And don’t be afraid to go into the boonies.  Looking back, water in various forms, size, temperatures, flowing, still, colors, snow, ice  etc was the most viewed and photographed . Combined with the mountains and lush greenery, the trip is full of wow moments. We left behind many unphotographed  areas as they were so spectacular a photo could do them no justice. ….We got along famously in our 7×8 home with shower and john and kitchen and loft and occasionally a TV.  We spent a lot of time outside in our lawn chairs. We also checked out many eating spots with great results. Also sampled as many different brews as we could find…at least I did.  Linda likes her scotch ..on our way back heading south we came upon more population and more traffic and both of us at the same time didn’t like the feeling of leaving such a wonderful easy pace and the land of the midnight sun.

Robert Service was a British born, Scottish raised, Canadian poet who became famous for his Klondike Gold Rush writings. He actually arrived in Dawson City 

    

  

  

  ten years after the gold rush but was inspired by the recollections of those who had participated. He is best known for “The Cremation of Sam McGee” and “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”.  

This will be our last night before crossing the border into Washington State. Hope is surrounded by spectacular mountains on the Frazier River. It’s hot here!  97degrees. Two days ago we were wearing jackets and running the heater. What a shock. I miss the northern wilderness.  

 This has been a truly wonderful adventure. I have seen and experienced some of the most beautiful places in the world. I have also learned many new things like the value of driftwood in the arctic where there are no trees, how to spot an avalanche slope, that halibut have both eyes on one side of their head, that glacial moraines still have a lot ice underneath the brown surface, that glacial rivers run grey, and that Tom is a darn good Alaska tour guide. Just to name a few. 

The Yukon River is the third longest in North America. It flows from northern British Columbia through the Yukon Territory and Alaska and empties into the Bering Sea. During the Klondike gold rush it was the major route to the Dawson gold fields.

The richness of salmon is dependent on the length of the river they travel from the ocean to their spawning grounds. The Yukon, 1,980 miles in length, is home to four varieties of the best salmon in the world.

In order to reach Dawson City from Alaska is is necessary to cross the Yukon. A free ferry affords transportation across the river 24 hours a day in summer. It can be quite a wait during busy times.

The crossing only lasts a few minutes but the loading and unloading is time consuming.

The previous post about gold being discovered in the Klondike relates to this post, as that was the reason for the Chilkoot Trail. 30,000 people climbed this 33 mile trail    packing enough supplies for a year which made for many trips. Now people do this in the summer as a adventure. The beginning where we were at was quite overwhelming I put some pictures of then and now on this. I know some people that have done this and they said it was one of biggest achievement in their life.  Then

We drove up from Dawson a few miles up Bonanza creek to the spot where gold was first discovered that created Dawson City which swelled to 30,000 people.  Now it’s right around 1900. It’s a cool spot and a person can really feel  the history. It was called Rabbit creek till gold was discovered and Bonanza took over. The  ravage of mining  is all grown over now in this spot. But mining is still going on big time in the area and there are miles of rock from dredging. I seen people mining the old tailings.

Yesterday we passed through Chicken, Alaska on our way across the Top of the World Highway and on to Dawson City, Yukon.  The town was originally called Ptarmigan but the residents couldn’t agree on the spelling so they named it Chicken because everybody knew how to spell it. Currently the full time population is seven.

Linda had been in Texas helping her daughter with the birth of her 4th child. So I thought I would head for Wasilla and hang out with Sara. We looked for Russia but couldn’t see it from her house. I find out it was SNL that said that. But we did fly to the Arctic Ocean and played beer pong. Took a snow machine to Denali and made a quick climb to the top. We took a ATV to the north of Fairbanks and arm wrestled a Grizzly. We took a fishing boat out to Kodiak and almost sunk the boat with the weight of all the halibut and salmon we caught. And for a topper we slid down the entire length of the pipeline and did a swan dive into Prince William Sound at the end. But I must say, Sara is Palin comparison to my Linda.  We will be back on the road in a few days with some ” really” exciting adventures 👍

Linda is in Dallas Texas helping out her daughter and family as they just had a new baby boy today. She will be back Tuesday. So I think I will throw pictures on with no rhyme or reason except they are from Alaska.