Saturday, September 1, 2007

Day 8 -- Watson Lake, Yukon, to Whitehorse, Yukon

I spent my night in Watson Lake nursing myself back to full health, so when I hit the highway in the morning, I found it hard to keep myself in the car and away from the hiking trails.
It was a 4.5-hour drive that took me 8 hours, but it felt like 2. I guess that means I averaged about 6. I'm always too lazy for math.

Either way, I spent more time in places like this ...

... than places like this:

Of course, this brought a few adventures. While at Rancheria Falls, I saw some fresh bear tracks, so I quickly snapped the following picture and got the hell back to the Kia. That ended what I calculated to be a 50-minute romp aside the Lower Rancheria River.

There are places where the highway cuts into a hill, leaving a steep patch of dirt. It's customary for people to leave their mark with stone symbols, like this:
Naturally, I put my own twist on it.
Twice.
Whitehorse was a much-needed change from the highway outposts I had been staying in recently. It was my first "real" city since Regina, and it was nice to soak in a little culture after a full day alone on the road.
"Little" is the appropriate term. Below is the central government for the Yukon Territory. All three branches. And the Whitehorse library. There are stalls in the Bradenton City Hall's bathrooms that are bigger than this thing.
Whitehorse's best feature was its historical promenade by the Yukon River, where I sat and watched the water flow for a while.
Later, I ate some fresh Halibut at Klondike Rib & Salmon BBQ. Since there was little room, I shared a table with a physician from New Mexico named Jim. He warned me about the high levels of alcoholism among Native Americans in Fairbanks, something I got a taste of on the walk home.
A drunk Inuit approached me, claiming to be a tribal elder. He tried to take my hand so I could pray with him, but I dodged it with a pat on the shoulder and said my family would be worried if I didn't get back to the hotel.
Not ready to turn in, I found a seat at the hotel bar and shot the breeze with some of the wait staff. I ended up at a karaoke bar with a few of them later that night. We drank and traded stories until about 2 a.m.
You know you're in good company when you say "make a funny face!" and they make the same face as you.

So Canada bid me a fine farewell. I'll be back, and not just because there's nowhere else to drive.

3 comments:

Millie Torres said...

I've been following your experience from day 1 and enjoying every minute of it. Your vivid descriptions make me feel I'm there with you. Thank your lucky star I'm not :-)
Know your friends, parents, ... are already missing you.
Wish you the best of the best.

Guido said...

Beautiful scenery man. I would have like a bear attack photo but I might just be being a little picky. I would like to know how the BBQ salmon was though. For some reason that also greatly entertained me. Beautiful self shots man. By the way, the stone tripod will be my background until I can find a bottle of beer to put it on...

lanastasis said...

Oh, I know I didn't just see the word "culture" in a blog about Canada.