This DC-3, a workhorse in the Yukon for years, went nose down twice, skidding the icy runway, and landing in too deep snow using tires instead of the attachable skis. It also sunk once when it landed on melting lake ice, and broke through. Now it swings in the wind outside the Yukon Transportation Museum.

Inside, the museum documents the myriad transportation options relied on in this harsh winter environment. My favorites are the businessmen waiting in Whitehorse for their “taxi”, a dog team….

The arctic wind often blows upriver allowing this enterprising fellow to dispense with the dog team and hoist a sail on his dogsled to carry him over the ice.

Walk through history, following the wonderful poetry of Robert Service describing the lust for gold in 1987, and the hardship and risks faced in the extreme weather, herein the first and last stanzas of his most famous poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee.

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold; The Northern lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was the night on the marge of Lake Labarge (sic) I cremated Sam McGee.” “And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm in the heart of the furnace roar, and he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said, “Please close that door. It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear that you’ll let in the cold and storm – Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

Klondike Fever

One million laid plans to go to the Klondike. One hundred thousand actually set off and about thirty thousand made it. One tone of goods and a hard grind up the Chilkoot Trail got you into the Klondike. Gold seekers were required to pack and carry their goods over the Chilcoot Pass. The list of supplies required for each person weighed a ton, and included 400 lbs. of flour, 100 lbs. of beans, and 100 pounds of sugar, to name just a few. This took 40 trips of 33 miles each, equalling 2600 miles up the icy stairs in sub-zero temperatures to the summit. This took most gold seekers at least three months before they got to the Yukon River.

The novices were called “Cheechakoes”, and after surviving one winter, became “Sourdoughs”. Initially, lashed logs, canoes, and every manor of boat that could survive the Class III rapids tried to float the 440 miles on the Yukon River between Whitehorse and Dawson City. We lucked out and arrived in Dawson City in time for “Yukon River Quest”, a four day race in canoes and kayaks covering the same distance. It has remained for 16 years the longest distance canoe and kayak race in the world, this year enrolling 66 teams from 13 countries. This year’s race started out in horrible conditions with high winds and 6 foot waves in Lake Laberge, the hardest part of the race even in good weather. Even with two planned safety stops, providing 10 hours of rest, 15 teams withdrew, and the rest paddled two fully lit nights and 3 full days to arrive in Dawson City.

Another grueling trip deserves mention as well. Two sweet guys from the Distrito Federale (Mexico City) rode their bikes 4,560 miles arriving here in a rain and wind storm yesterday. I know how much they (and the kayakers) appreciated the day of very intense sun we finally got today. Viva Mexico! Viva Hidalgo!

The featured image is a shot of sunset over the Yukon River… photographed at 10 minutes before Midnight last night! We sleep for a few hours in twilight before the sun rises again around 4 AM, about 20 degrees off the location it set 4 hours earlier. Weird. It feels a lot like jet lag the next day.

Due to the long dark winters, this small town erupts with activities celebrating the longest day of the year. This weekend we are parked near the 30 bands playing the “Sunstroke Festival”, the Farmer’s Market, and the Millennial Trail to narrow Miles Canyon where the Whitehorse Rapids claimed many river travelers lives during the Gold Rush, and created the name for the town. Now flooded out by a downstream dam, the water still roils with eddies, whirlpools and strong currents. There is a very personal memorial riverside, celebrating the life of a 20 year old boy who drowned here one year ago rescuing his dog. My first illogical thought was, “I would kill MY 20 year old son for doing something so stupid”, before I felt that boy’s mother’s deep grief and loss.

The other wonderful event this Solstice weekend was a gathering of First Nation people at the Kwanlin Dun (“People of the Water running through the Narrows”) Cultural Center, celebrating Aboriginal Day. As it was mostly First Nation people attending, it felt like sitting in on someone else’s big happy family reunion. We enjoyed the drummers who performed at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, several dance troupes, and elders in traditional dress teaching First Nation culture by way of storytelling.

The Truth and Reconciliation Project had the saddest story to tell; the Canadian government forced assimilation of First Nation people by removing their children and raising them in large residential institutions. The last institution closed down in Saskatchewan in 1996, so a generation of aboriginal people have no knowledge of their history and culture, no experience of family and parenting, and thus no First Nation pride… just the bigotry against “Drunken Indians” that runs rampant in parts of Canada.  In fact, I heard a security guard at the Sunstroke concert tell a First Nation Family on their bikes standing at the fence enjoying the music, “Your indian party is over there”.  For more information on the Canadian Residential Home Program, read personal accounts of the experience in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission book, “They Came For The Children”.

Earlier, on my way to the nearby “indian party”, I came upon a First Nation man, clean and well-dressed, passed out in the parking lot with a bleeding nose, while adults and teens walked and drove by him offering no assistance. He did not smell of alcohol, and his pin point pupils, non-reactive to light suggested opiate overdose. Perhaps he was neurologically impaired due to a blood sugar issue or some other medical issue? Once I ascertained he wasn’t dead (good pulse and respiration) and got him turned on his side so he wouldn’t asphyxiate on vomit, I found a security guard to call the paramedics, who arrived quickly and moved him out on a gurney. The security guard said he was not surprised at the lack of response from the disinterested passersby, “It is a sad and shameful response, but it’s so common in Whitehorse to find drunken First Nation men injured from falls, that most people here just don’t care, and don’t respond anymore.”  It’s almost impossible to re-educate bigotry when stereotyping is enforced by repetition in daily life. We enjoyed that many young First Nation people were involved in the arts and music presentations today, especially great hip-hop/rap artists that were so percussive, they were really swinging!

We donned our hard hats and safety vests and toured the inner working of the dam creating the 3rd largest artificial lake in North America, Williston Lake. It is so large it took 55 million cubic feet of dirt to build the dam and five years to fill the lake with inflow from two rivers after the dam was installed. We lucked out and toured the facility while one side of the powerhouse was shut down and wide open for installation of new rotors (feature image). The powerhouse is buried sixty stories under ground and from bottom to top is almost as tall as the Eiffel Tower. The transmission station is on the surface as we stand on the top of the 610 foot tall dam, all the more amazing as it must be both 1/2 mile wide at the bottom to support both the slender road 1/2 mile road along the top of the dam,  and the weight of the water.

The dam’s 10 turbines generate more than 13 billion kWh annually. To put this in perspective, our  1100 sq. ft. roof in Albany, CA is covered in solar panels and generates 1800 kWh annually; we generate enough electricity to meet our needs and still sell back electricity to the utility company. However, unlike Canadians, we don’t need electricity to survive freezing winter temperatures and darkness between 2 PM and 9 AM.

If all ten turbines ran at the same time 1.4 million litres of water surge into the turbine runners (water wheels like the one above) using 93% of the dedicated water to turn huge shafts that then spin the electricity producing rotors in the photo below.

The water is released to flow down the Peace River to another hydroelectric station with six turbines, and then onward to the Arctic Ocean. As this dam produces 40% of British Columbia’s energy needs, and is renewable, the cost to build and maintain the dam seems negligible compared to the benefit…unless you value the plant and animal biodiversity destroyed by flooding 375,000 acres of prime forest. Also the displacement of the Tsay Keh Dene First Nations residents, the Ingenika, caused, “Isolation, alienation, dependence and illness”, clearly severe environmental impact. At least Canada paid the Aboriginals a $15 million lump sum and a $1.6 million inflation adjusted annual payment. Although that creates dependence and dislocation, I wish we, our US federal government, had at least tried to contribute fairly to our displaced tribes, instead we gave them the genocide called the Trail of Tears, the massacre at Wounded Knee,  and life on “The Rez”, eg. chronic poverty, alcoholism, disease, and such crummy quality land that casinos are the only way to make a living on most Native American Indian reservations.  Shame on us.

We are big fans of a hot soak; we seek hot springs out everywhere we go. Soaks under 104 degrees F. qualify as “warm springs”… and just don’t cut it. Our favorite hot spring, Pah Tempe in Hurricane, Utah was taken by legal action last year due to taint of the flavor of city water.  Fortunately, we have a new favorite in Liard Hot Springs, British Columbia, Canada.

Like it hot? Swim up towards the 136 degree F. source. Too hot? Swim downstream through cooling temperatures, all the way to chilly snow melt run off. It has very clean and clear water due to the volume production so you want to just keep moving up and down the current, finding your bliss point. Too wrinkly? Get out and hike up to the “Hanging Gardens” with waterfalls and orchids.

Too crowded? It is open 24 hours/day so you can go in the early morning and only run into the staff sweeping the rocks on the bottom with brooms to keep the pools clear of algae, and the water clear (feature image).

We jammed north, breaking up long driving days with brief visits to friends and family in Portland OR and Vancouver BC. We camped for a few days at a former airstrip on the side of a mountain (below) near Whistler Village with a glacier view, allowing us to dine with Steven’s lovely neice Samantha, who resides there now, after a childhood in Greece and early adult years in Australia.

Whistler is very “well coiffed”, and feels a bit like a tasteful retail version of Disneyland in the mountains…until you see the throngs of muddy, trashed mountain bikers careening down the slopes. We more sedately enjoyed 3 hike-in waterfalls on the Sea to Sky Highway (Nairns Falls below) before reaching the AlCan Highway 97 again (we touched its’ Southern Terminus in Weed, CA).

With many delays for road repair (we’re told to get used to it in the North as summer is the only time to repair a year’s worth of winter snow/ice damage) and having a front row seat watching a tow truck try to maneuver a big rig that went over the edge (he gave up and let us through while he got more tow trucks), we finally got to Chetwynd on the first day of the International Chainsaw Carving Contest.

You can hear the competition from all over town as competitors from Japan, Germany, Australia, the US and Canada hack massive wood stumps with 6 different sizes of chainsaws and weed wacker looking machines on long wands. The Japanese competitor has won 3 first places here in years past and is working on something very tall with lots of soaring eagles.

Observers eat picnics in the viewing stands or don safety glasses and get close…and covered with wood chips and sawdust, like us.

The 13 winners leave their sculptures each year for the town to exhibit in indoor and outdoor public spaces. There are 130 sculptures around town.

We are fine-tuning our trip North balancing the need to get to the START of the 300 mile gravel road to the Great Northern Arts Festival by July 1st, but not wanting to travel too fast so that we arrive before the ice has broken up, and before the ferry service on the rivers begins. As it just snowed last week in Dawson City, YT arriving immediately is too early. We were in a local restaurant discussing the wisdom of taking a long gravel road as an alternative route north. Two different tables near us overheard our conversation (do you think Steven and I might just be a little LOUD?) and jumped in to tell us how stupid we would be to take that route (truck drivers), especially as it is not that pretty (locals). The truckers drive the ice roads to Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Ocean all winter. Apparently there is a TV reality show called, “Ice Truckers” that features guys like him. Without four-wheel drive, we must take the more conservative route and opt for more of the (paved) Alaska Highway. I am sure that it is a lot more pleasurable to watch a tow truck haul someone else’s flipped over rig out of a tricky situation than your own…

WHERE ARE WE?

In the tradition of Click and Clack of Car Talk/NPR, we have a puzzle for you. Look at the feature image taken yesterday of our Roadtrek and note the following clues:

1) the blue truck is on Hwy #97, the Alaskan-Canadian Highway, AKA: the “Al-Can”;

2) there are glaciers in the background;

3) the totem pole is a First Nation carving with a copy in Delta Junction, Alaska on the Al-Can; and

3) it is 7:00 PM and the air temperature is 91 degrees Fahrenheit……really.

Answer: We are still in California, on the first day of our trip to Inuvik, NT Canada, the Arctic Ocean, and Alaska.

Weed, CA sits under Mt. Shasta, a glaciated dormant volcano, at the Southern Terminus of the Alaska-Canadian Highway. Thus the totem pole….and the very hot, drought plagued California summer.  The Al-Can will wind its way north along the “Volcano” route  through California, Oregon, Washington within the U.S., and through the Canadian Provinces of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory to its Northern Terminus in Delta Junction, Alaska, 1367 miles above the US/Canada border.

Instead, we’ll meander north using alternate (slower routes) and gravel roads, to allow maximum camping and hiking. We won’t jump on the Al-Can until Dawson Creek, British Columbia when we will follow it to the Yukon Territory. The final 400 miles will be on gravel roads in Canada’s Northwest Territory, arriving in Inuvik for the Great Northern Arts Festival in Mid-July.  There, we will work as volunteers, and enjoy the daily workshops taught by the First Nation Tribes. A short plane ride 45 miles north will bring us to a swim in the Arctic Ocean….and then it’s all driving south from there…through the Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia 3,130 miles back home. Whew! The lengths we will go to to avoid the drought in California this year…..and catch the Northern Lights and the Midnight Sun!

We visited Athens, Georgia last year, so why not Athens, Greece this year? We just completed a 5 day trip to Athens to handle Steven’s Greek family business. We relied heavily on our niece Mel, a Greek attorney and MBA (below) to help translate for us during a 5 hour appearance before the Supreme Court of Greece sitting “en banc” (eg. 8 men and one woman in funny hats), and several long meetings with the assigned attorneys.

However, we had some free hours to enjoy the full moon over the Aegean from our waterfront hotel balcony, great food, lively family, and a few delightful tourist experiences:

Gorgeous marble on the public buildings (and see feature image)…

Dionysos strutting his stuff at the Acropolis Museum (removed from the East Pediment of the Parthenon)…

Fresh Mediterranean seafood, and grilled Haloumi Cheese, a hard, brined Cypriot cheese…

The winner of the Monty Python funny walk contest…the changing of the guard at Parliament…and even better….the 10 minute, “Knifing the Pleats” performed by a senior officer while the boyish guard got his skirt fiddled with, without even a tiny smile or giggle…

Swimming in a collapsed limestone cavern in warm clear mineral spring water, complete with a fish pedicure by the Garra Rufa fish at Lake Vouliagmeni…

and the simple enjoyment of strolling narrow streets below the Acropolis on a quiet Sunday morning…

including a visit to the Greek version of the Guitar Center…

hearing part of a mass at a Greek Orthodox Church…

and a stroll past the 4 story McDonald’s with uberstylish Eames knock-off seating.

With almost a million residents, Athens is a big city, not the predicted location for street dogs. The oddest thing though, is the existence of LOTS of street dogs downtown and at the metro stations. Unusually, all are overfed, and all of them are of the very BIG DOG variety eg. over 60 pounds.  They don’t beg for food, just lie in the sun and sleep. There were no dogs needing rescuing, none dodging traffic, and some of them even had collars. The Greek economy remains in sorry shape, but the street dogs are thriving…maybe that is some kind of sunny economic indicator?