Day One: arrive in beautiful sunny Whitehorse around 1pm (PST) and start the trip with a warning from the ground crew to not stop on the tarmac (don't they understand about the pictures?!). Rent car (Sangria red!) and turn it on. I don't know what I was expecting from the radio but it certainly was not MIMS. Yeah, that soon became the catchphrase. Check into hostel, where we'll spend two nights as well as our last night in the Yukon. Have lunch at the Klondike Rib & Salmon, where we ingest the MOST DELICIOUS BURGER EVER! Seriously. Musk-ox in that spicy chipotle sauce they got going... god damn it. We talk about that thing for the rest of trip. But time was catching up and fast - we had been up since 5am EST and I began feeling like a walking zombie. Pub for Yukon Gold potato skins. Body cannot reconcile its sleepiness with the bright bright sun. 11pm, with the sun still shining, we head to bed.
Day Two: wake up and ask AnCe what she thinks these red spots are? They don't look like mosquito bites. Does she have any? We conclude it's probably just a heat rash as it was boiling in the room last night. I take an antihistamine just to take care of the spots. We pack up the car and head off to Kluane National Park. I kept calling it kloo-ayne when it's actually kloo-AHH-knee. Live and learn. So, a little background: Kluane is in the Elias range of mountains, the youngest part of the Pacific Coast Ranges which stretches along the Western length of North American continent. It is home to Mount Logan, a peak so young that it's still growing at a rate of 2cms a year. I love me some mountains, so I'm excited to be off. We pick up lunch on our way out.
... Of course, we get a wee bit lost (also a theme for this trip) but eventually find our way into the heart of Kluane. There's really not much I can write about except to say that it's beautiful and awesome and humbling. Pictures do it some justice, but you can't photograph that slight feeling of short-of-breathedness that comes with staring up a rock so big that it's outlasted the dinosaurs and will outlast everything else this planet has to throw at it. We eat lunch on a rock outcropping over Kluane Lake and I have a little moment.
...We begin driving back and that's when I start to notice a redness along my arms and the back of my knees. In fact, my body is hot to the touch. Ruh-roh. Guys, I think I'm allergic to something. No worries, we're heading home, with only a quick pit-stop for dinner. Maybe a 20-minute hike in Haines Junction. In the restaurant, AnCe and Nish see what I'm feeling and there's no question about it, we need to get back to Whitehorse on the double. I am miserable.
...The local-business-killer is still open at 2115, and I buy the biggest bottle Benadryl I can find along with a sleeping bag, pillow and towels. Maybe I'm allergic to the hostel detergent? Who knows? I take a cold shower, quarantine my clothes and pop four pills. Sleep in new sleeping bag, on new pillow. Like the dead.
Day Three: pack up the car and make our way to Dawson City, with a pit-stop to see the famous Tombstone Mountain. On one of our hghway stops, I get out of the car only to have my hands explode in hives. Okay, so I'm allergic to the Yukon; we conjecture it is more than likely the lovely fireweed that dots the territory and is ever-present in everything around there. I will admit to sleeping most of this drive after Tombstone, thanks to drugs, so the journey didn't seem very long. It was a lie. It is very long. Check into the lovely Aurora Inn (three single beds = no pants!) and check out the town. We go to the ($6!) can-can show at Diamond Tooth Gertie's - which gives us three shows (2030, 2230 and midnight) and a good time. The show (all three) is(are) great and we leave the establishment at 0130 and begin blinking ... yes, it is still bright as heck outside. I put on my sunglasses. Sleep.
Day Four: Mexican breakfast at Klondike Kate's (Gertie's rival) before we begin the grand drive up the infamous Dempster's Highway. It's my day to drive and, due to the more northern climate, not as many fireweed, so I skip the meds and get ready to pedal-to-the-metal. Back in Whitehorse, we had visited the local Canadian Tire to purchase the much-recommended spare tire for this trip. First, the guy said they didn't have a tire in the size we needed; then, when he found out we're buying it for a rental and had no intention of taking it back with us to Toronto, he told us just to get some emergency foam and a tire repair kit and we should be fine. AnCe and I decided that we'd keep this info to ourselves and just tell Nish that we didn't need a spare after all. With this memory swirling in my brain, I'm off.
...Eight hours of beautiful but bumpy driving later, we're in Eagle's Plains. We saw two moose at Two Moose Lake (and a lone moose in the fields, possibly visiting from Lone Moose Lake). My palms actually have blisters from the shaking steering wheel. But we're there, incident free. Check into our uber-expensive, Bates-esque motel, grab a sandwich before we're back in the car on our way to our real destination: the Arctic Circle. Just 50 kms north of the motel, it takes about 45 minutes to get there. We roll in at 2355. Snap snap, (wretched) Crystal Skull vodka shot, mandatory FB profile pics with sign, sigh about how wicked cool this all is, trundle back to motel. Front Door locked. Find side entrance. Figures. Sleep.
Day Five: the drive back looms. Breakfast first, (with sunny-side-up eggs, of course!) Nish driving back. Not far from Eagles Plains, we see a WOLF in the middle of the road. A real wolf (not a wolf-elk at all!) He saw us, he walked into bushes to assess the situation, decided we'd make for a great lunch and then stalked us for a good kilometre or so before taking a shit and staring us goodbye. Ten minutes later, a lone Black Bear is walking down the middle of the road toward us. if it weren't for a very stupid and loud pick-up truck, he, too, may have stayed. But alas, our relationship was fleeting.
...Many many hours later, we're back in Dawson City, this time to stay in Bombay Peggy's. We stayed in the "Sweet" (which had to be the Madame's if for the size alone). It's beautiful. At Around 2300, Nish and I head out to the Dome for some Solstice action. It's pretty drizzly and grey, so we have low expectations for a view; we are mistaken. It's gorgeous with the sun and rainbows and the party people. Love. Head to the bar for a nightcap before bed.Day Six: Breakie at Sourdough Joe's, located on Dawson City's first lot. And no, we did NOT partake in the Sourtoe tradition; personally, I think it's a trick to get eager tourists to do stupid things and provide a laugh for the locals. More driving, back to Whitehorse. Of course, the roads all seem so smooth and easy after the Dempster (it really is the last great road trip). As we approach Whitehorse, I feel itchier. Definitely the fireweed. An uneventful stay in Whitehorse (returned our unused emergency road stuff; had more musk-ox, but in stew form, snuck in my sleeping bag, despite the blatant sign telling us not to). Sleep.
Day Seven: a 0530 start. Ugh. On the plane(s) I watch many movies (Valentine's Day, How to Train your Dragon, Sex and the City, Shutter Island). During our stopover in Vancouver, I overhear this conversation in the washroom:
Mom (of very young, still being potty-trained, boy): just try a little, honey, just a little *tinkle* good boy! you are so good at this! Now it's Mommy's turn. Just wait right there, okay?
Boy: Okay.
*tinkle*
Boy" Oh, Mom, you're very good at this too!
(Almost died laughing)
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