8,019 Miles

Here's my picture just so my readers know I am alive and well. As a matter of fact, I have never been better. It's been two months since I had to go to the groomer, and that in itself is better than a t-bone. And I have been on the best walks of my life since mom bought the long line.

Starting with Valdez, I walked the bike path with a mowed expanse adjoining it, but not so mowed that there weren't places to find smells of other critters,like birds, and fuzzy little things. Once Mom walked the whole circle path around the town and I came home pooped out. It didn't rain till we left Valdez, so that was great. I got morning and night walks.

Then we drove up the Richardson Highway through the rain, looking once again at the incredible waterfalls in Keystone Canyon, and took the Tok cutoff to Tok. There, Mom walked me to the post office, which was about a mile one way. I was once again exhausted coming home. The Post office is next door to Burnt Paw, which has sled dogs and sled dog equipment. I was whimpering with eagerness, but mom said no way. No more 120 dogs barking at me as far as she was concerned. The Burnt Paw sod roof log cabin had a lawn mower up on the roof. Pretty funny looking.

Next day we took off on the Taylor highway for Chicken, Alaska. Chicken was named chicken because the miners didn't want to have to spell ptarmigan. Dad said mom got to choose one dirt road for the trip, so this is the one she picked. All the cars coming toward us were pretty brown, but she said the scenery of the Top of the World Highway was going to be worth it. I thought Chicken would be a big deal for me, but all I got was a quick relief walk and then I had to wait in the RV while Mom had chicken noodle soup for lunch and shopped in Chicken Mercantile. It was pouring rain, which dad said would mean we wouldn't have any dust on the road.

I thought it was scary. The road had no guardrails, and it was twisty and windy. And muddy. Teregram was chocolate dipped. Later on mom and dad would discover there was mud inside every storage compartment. When we crossed into Canada, the road was paved, and it really was on top of the world. All those mountains we had driven around on switch backs from Chicken to the border? We were driving on top of them now. They were glacially rounded and incredibly soft and green, kind of like Montana was. Right on top of the world we drove, with no guardrails on either side, and steep drop offs if you messed up. It wasn't raining any more, so you could see what would happen if Dad didn't pay attention. I started biting my claws, I was so nervous.

About halfway to Dawson City, the road began to alternate dirt and paved, and it began to rain again. Mom kept laughing about how she picked this road for the scenery, and all she could see was the road, sort of. Then it got really exciting. The road ended at a river, the Yukon. There was a bit of land jutting into the river, and Mom said was she really supposed to drive on that little spit of land? Onto that tiny ferry? The river was boiling. Really full outside of its banks, and brown muddy. And it was still raining. It looked very unfriendly, but it worked out okay. We made it to the other side of the river to Dawson City and I started breathing again.

Now, I don't mean to be critical, but Dawson City looked old. Like saloon girl days old. During the gold rush in 1898, 60,000 people lived there. Now there are 2,000 or so, all of them walking around in period costume like a century hasn't passed. Walking in the mud of the dirt streets. Sure, they have wooden sidewalks, but to get from one sidewalk to the next is MUD. Peeling paint, some things restored, some not. And the lady at the RV park said we would want to stay a week. I have this feeling she likes to gamble.

Mom said we would go to the museum, but that was all she wanted to see. She says she is not into either gold mining or gambling. So she and dad went to the museum and learned more about the gold rush and saw some miners put on a mock trial. They saw a movie about the city too. I got a walk in the morning when the rain finally stopped, and there was grass, so I was just fine with Dawson City.

Next day we started down the Klondike Highway. It follows the Yukon all the way from Dawson City to Whitehorse. Do you know that is 500 miles? All those prospectors, after hiking from Skagway up the Chilkoot Trail 45 degrees vertical, with 1000 lbs of stuff, would build boats on Bennett Lake and then in the spring, they floated 500 miles to Dawson City.

Something else funny about the Yukon. It used to flow the other way. Then the Tintina Trench opened up and some land came over from a sea bottom, and all kinds of things that just amaze me how the world could do that, and then the drainage reversed. Is that wierd or what? Of course that was a long time ago, before I was born, and before the ice ages too. How on earth did geologists figure that one out? Who knew about plates and such? The trench sits on the biggest fault in North America. Scary to think the earth could rock like that again while I am in the Yukon.

Tonight we are in Carmacks. Carmacks is one of the few towns that survived after the Klondike highway was built. Before the highway, steamers made the trip from Whitehorse to Dawson City downstream in 36 days. Took 80 to return. It was the highway of the territory,that river. Towns were built on the river. Then the highway was built, and Carmacks survived because it happens to be on the highway as well as the river, but the other towns died away when the steamers stopped running. Do you know that downstream is north? That seems backwards if you are from Texas.

Views are wow (that's what mom says when she looks out), looking down into the valley with the river pouring through it. It's a wide and mighty river, the Mississippi of the Yukon Territory. The Yukon is spitting distance from Teregram tonight, and there is an incredible boardwalk for a couple of miles along it. Mom walked me till I cried uncle tonight. She can outlast me with this new long line thing. Then she made me a bucket of ice water and gave me a new rawhide. Life is pretty good here in the Yukon. I am on my best behavior the next day or so, because we are going really close to Frank Turner's Muktuk Kennels, and I sure don't want to be left there with his 120 dogs.