Moose Creek to Dawson City on the Klondike Highway

Confluence of Moose Creek and the Stewart River

I am in awe at the size of the land here. The rivers are huge, swiftly-flowing monsters, moving great quantities of water, mud and silt downstream. The vistas are vast; you can see for miles. There is no way to capture this feeling — the expanse of the mountains and rivers, the scent of the forest, the patter of rain and the warmth of the sun — in a photograph.

A few days ago, I visited a photography exhibit at the college in Whitehorse. The photographer, Fran Hurcomb, had come to the Northwest Territories with a simple camera and never left (except for temporary respites to Hawaii and warmer climates with resources earned by fame and fortune). She was enthralled by the land and the people, graduated to an Olympus OM1 (great choice!), then a digital point-and-shoot camera. She continues to capture the world around her with "professional" digital cameras and a GoPro.

More than anything I've seen or read since, she really captures what it must be like here in the Far North during the winter. It's hard to imagine –40° with crackling white snow and ice when it's a balmy 70°F with green grass and gaily blooming flowers.

Check out her work here: Fran Hurcomb

Squirrel nibbling on a spruce cone

Moose Creek surprises

So, I may not have been all that enthralled by Moose Creek, but it was good to take the trail out to the Stewart River. Slathered with DEET, armed with bear spray and a firm singing or conversational voice to ward off surprising a bear (alternately hoping there might be someone else out and hoping there was no one to hear my inane warblings), I set off.

The forest was dense, the mosquitoes annoying, and Moose Creek itself was choked by vegetation and grasses. Positively a lovely environment for wildlife and wild fishes, but not all that lovely for photography.

I really wanted to see a moose — after all, this was Moose Creek, right?

Lichen and moss covers downed trees

Alas, no moose. Squirrels chattered from the trees. They are quite entertaining, stopping to scold and "chip-chip." Some of them will even dart toward you when you approach! I'm going to remember this if I'm ever stranded in the forest: dumb squirrels = tasty stew.

There was a random cabin at the confluence of Moose Creek and the Stewart River. Nothing fancy, just a ramshackle plywood structure, maybe for fishing or shelter or who knows what. I imagine these are all over the area.

Not sure what these berries are!

In the absence of moose, or bear, or any large creatures, one is forced to look for smaller things that stay in one place.

The forest floor is alive with small treasures. Mosses and lichens make small fairy gardens that are just beautiful up close.

I am constantly amazed at all the different berries here, growing and ripening at a terrific pace. Berries are black, red, orange, yellow, salmon, and peach colored. Already the buffalo berries (aka soapberries) look red and ripe.

The summer season is passing quickly.

Gray jay on the bike!

I did see a mother duck with about five ducklings, but the underbrush made it difficult to get a definitive photo, and well, I'm ashamed to say it, but female ducks with their camouflage feathers pretty much look alike to me. This one did have a distinct eye stripe, but I really couldn't get a good enough look at her to figure out what she was. And I didn't bring the binoculars or bird book along this hike.

Coming back from the hike, I was surprised to see a gray jay had appropriated the bike as a perch!

Gray jays are fun, saucy birds. Their black masks give them a piratical appearance, and they have a personality to match.

Beautiful Granite Lake

Scaup and babies at Granite Lake

Birdwatching at Granite Lake

Yes, there are so many things to do.

There was an expansive highway rest stop at Granite Lake, and it looked like a good place to do some birdwatching: nice big lake, calm waters and lily pads. Unfortunately, the light was poor (still hazy from the fires), which made for a lot of water glare and high contrast, which gave disappointing photographic results.

Still, it was fun to get the scope out and see what could be seen. And there were no mosquitoes, which had to count for something.

Buffleheads?

A scope always gets people asking questions: "What are you looking for?" or "What do you see?"

(It doesn't help that half the time I have no clue what I'm looking at, but that's a topic of conversation, too.) I finally concluded that I was looking at scaup (could not tell if they were greater or lesser), but that really didn't seem to matter. All of them had little scauplings(?); one of them had about TEN babies. Without the scope it would be hopeless to see them, as they are all bobbling around, far out on the water, all of them looking just like so many little black dots. It didn't help that they seemed to be perfectly at rest, sleeping with their heads tucked under their wings.

Cranberries!

After I'd given up and put the scope away another couple came by and got their scope out. Turns out they were visiting from New Brunswick; the woman's brother lived in Whitehorse, so they were touring around before going to visit him. They had taken the Dempster Highway up to Inuvik, and highly recommended the trip.

They concurred that the birds were scaup, so I felt good about that! They also spotted some buffleheads (there was a brief discussion about goldeneye vs. bufflehead, but the bufflehead ID won out). Such is a birder discussion!

You  just never know what you're going to find. On a bit of a wander down by the lakeside, I found wild cranberries! These are the first that I've seen (I've seen plenty of plants, but not with berries) so I was pretty excited. They weren't ripe, so I didn't taste them; besides, they are also reputed to be sweeter after the first frost. Hopefully, that's more than a month away.

The Palace (theater) in Dawson City

Dawson City

I wrote a little about Dawson in my last post. It's the biggest "city" around, although with a population of just over 1,300 people (in 2011), that's not saying much.

One's perspective on what's a "big" city here changes markedly.

Of course, the population does burgeon in the brief summer season. Breakup along the river is usually in May (sometimes as early as April); freeze-up is in November (sometimes as early as October). The main tourist season is July to mid-August, after which it tapers off, and after Labor Day, the cheechakos leave the City to the permanent residents.

There is a second city, "Moosehide," just downstream from Dawson that is a First Nations community. The First Nations people, here the Dänojà Zho, originally had a transitory fish camp at the Dawson City site, which was used during the summer months. Of course, when the gold rush happened, the stampeders took over the prime floodplain location, and Chief Isaac, a much-beloved leader at the time, moved his people's village downstream so they would have a separate living space away from the madness of the gold-crazed Americans.

One of the big hotels downtown: restaurant or saloon below, rooms above

I might note, that the Dawson City site is great for a itinerant fish camp in the summer; it's not so great in the spring. There have been five floods along the Yukon here, caused not by upstream rain, but by ice-jams during breakup. The ice cracks into floes that move and shift and create ice dams down river, thereby backing up the waters and causing flooding upstream.

To protect agains this, the river was diked once, flooded, and diked again, so that it is now supposed to withstand a "200-year flood."

The old-timers are unhappy about the unsightly nature of the dike, as now it's harder to see the river from the town, but it does protect businesses from flooding. It does make a pleasant river walk in the summer and is used for dog-sledding and skiing in the winter.

St. Anthony's, built in 1901, is torqued every which way by ground movement
and is no longer used as a church

Dawson is a very picturesque town, with dusty, unpaved streets and historic buildings. It is proud of its history and architecture, but river flooding is not the only challenge to structures here.

Permafrost lies just underneath.

It's hard to comprehend the power of water freezing and unfreezing, but the effects are everywhere.

Think about when you put a bottle of water in the freezer — it expands quite a bit when it's frozen. The same thing happens in the ground. Then, when it melts, the ground above collapses.

Dawson City street scene: at 10pm

When this happens over and over, this has understandably severe consequences for any structures above, whether roads, buildings, or pipelines. Permafrost even affects trees growing above, resulting in "drunken forests" of black spruce growing at odd angles. It even affects the ground itself, creating "pingos," which are mounds of frost-heaved soil.

Permafrost is taken into consideration in modern construction methods: roads are built with insulating layers below them; buildings are put on open floating foundations that allow air movement beneath. I suppose this also allows for adjustments when the inevitable ground movement happens. Despite preparation, frost heaves create constant headaches for highway engineers, but employment for lots of Canadians.

Naturally, a big concern here is climate change, and how this will affect the underlying permafrost, and consequently the structures on top.

Dawson has a lot to offer. The Parks Canada visitor center gives several walking tours every day with costumed leaders. Not to be outdone, the First Nations center offers films, artifacts and beadwork, classes with elders, and a gift shop. There are shops, hotels, galleries, grocers, saloons, bars, restaurants (from Asian/Thai to Greek to Wild West natural), a library, school, hospital, and RCMP headquarters, as well as establishments purveying mining equipment or offering welding services, towing, auto and windshield repair.

The Yukon Spirit still operates as a tour boat on the river

There are two paddle boats in Dawson. One, the Yukon Spirit, still operates as a tour boat, blowing its steam whistle prior to leaving port, which can be heard all over the river front. It's a sound that brings back good memories to old-timers, as this was the sound that signified news coming from up or down river as well as mail, food, general merchandise, and, of course, liquor.

The other paddlewheeler, the SS Keno, is similar to the SS Klondike, a stern-wheeled paddleboat, but is considerably smaller. It also is dry-docked, but is open for occasional tours.

It's a very happening place. I wonder what it is like in the winter?

The Yukon Rose at sunset (maybe 11pm)?

I have one more day to catch up on, a lovely day in Tombstone Territorial Park, but that will have to wait for more battery power!