Tombstone Territorial Park

The Continental Divide in Tombstone Territorial Park:
water from the lake on the right goes to the Arctic/Hudson's Bay; streams on the left go to the Bering Sea

So Dawson is fun, but, being me, I wanted to hit the high country. Consulting the weather report showed that rain would be coming in the next day, so I wanted to take advantage of good better weather and be outside.

Getting outta Dodge Dawson

Tombstone TP is about 50 miles north of Dawson on the Dempster Highway, a gravel road that goes all the way to Inuvik, a First Nations community above the Arctic Circle.

This is somewhere I want to return to. After a real debate with myself, I opted NOT to go all the way this time, and to leave something to call me back.

Every outhouse should be surrounded by flowers like this!

Like I need a reason, but still.

I may not have mentioned it, but the geography around Dawson isn't as mountainous as I thought it was going to be.

It's actually fairly unremarkable, except for the big Yukon River that has formed big banks on either side.

So I was really glad to see BIG mountains rising on either side of the gravel Dempster Highway.

Tombstone is also known as Ddhäi Ch'èl Cha Nän ("Ragged Mountain Land") by the First Nations peoples, who used this area extensively for hunting, travel, and socialization. It continues to be an important place for them today, and the land was saved in an agreement that preserves it for all people.

It is a privilege to be here.

The headquarters in itself is a well-conceived green building, in harmony with the surrounding landscape, and uses local materials as much as possible: stone, local concrete for the floor, unfinished recycled wood siding. It takes advantage of passive solar technology, although it does have an oil-burning furnace for emergencies, but I get the feeling that it's not used much.

Even the bees have fur!

Inside, there were informative displays; I especially liked the matching game: match the names of animals with their skulls, fur and tracks. Some were easy (wolf); some, like the skull of the giant beaver, stumped us (I was thinking, "Sabertooth?"). Furs were difficult, but then we don't have a lot of experience with fur! It was surprising to feel how thick these furs are: grizzly bear fur must be 3" thick at the outside, with half of that being a thick, soft, but at the same time sort of springy and wiry, undercoat. Black bear fur is silkier, shinier and shorter, maybe 2" thick, and not nearly so fluffy. Caribou has a definite grain to it, and also is surprisingly thick and dense. Sheep fur is soft as down, sort of curly, but MUCH slighter and softer than commercial sheepskin; lynx (at least I thought it was lynx) is soft, silky and fine. Beaver is soft, fine and thick, and also has some longer sleek shiny hairs. I did't see any moose, but then, what would I know? I also have not heard of moose fur being particularly valued; it's the moose HIDE that is known to be really thick and long wearing — it's used for mukluks and moccasins.

I wish I knew more about this. Maybe it's time to sign up for one of the BOW courses in Alaska!

So, I went on a couple of little hike: one that featured native plants with traditional uses, the other to some beaver ponds. I'm getting to really, really like beaver ponds. They're a locus for all kinds of bird and animal activity, although on this trip I was more focussed on big scenery than animals.

Fireweed and wild rhubarb bloom along an old abandoned road

Moss with small-leaf Labrador tea

As always, I did learn things: bluebells are a member of the borage family and are edible. There is a thin-leaf (alpine) version of Labrador tea, and "some people prefer it." Spruce sap has a variety of uses (chewing gum, poultices). Spruce cones are also useful for tea and is high in vitamin C (who knew?).

There were all sorts of things to look at: spiders, mushrooms, mosses, lichens, spruce cones, rushing water, wildflowers.

When I returned back to the car, I was totally surprised to see a kestrel perched on the handlebars of the bike!!

American kestrel perched on bike!

I couldn't believe it!

And then a SECOND kestrel came and joined the first one.

I watched them for awhile, probably from about 20 paces away. They were just looking around, pretty calm, although at one point one took off, wheeled around and came flying straight at me!

I was so surprised — I didn't know what to make of it, and sort of screeched in surprise and ducked. I wish I'd gotten THAT on camera, but the image of the bird, wings outstretched, beady eyes and head tilted to the side, is an indelible memory.

What could possibly top that??

Apparently 1/1,000th of a second isn't fast enough!

The Divide

By this time I had pretty much decided NOT to go to the end of the road, but it was still tempting. Part of the decision had to do with weather — rain was supposed to be coming in, and driving on a gravel road peering at scenery in the rain is okay, but was another tick in the "don't do it now" column.

But I did decide to drive to the end of the park and back.

It's really hard to describe.

The scenery is magnificent and wild. It's BIG, open and vast. Mountains upon mountains, cloaked in low-growing green bushes with bright dashes of chartreuse moss, are divided by broad open valleys. Within each group of mountains are sharp v-shaped valleys and avalanche chutes with lighter rock trails. There are few trees here.

Tombstone Mountain is the sharp, cloud-enshrouded peak in the center distance. The Cloudy Range is on the right.

Tombstone Mountain is syenite, a plutonic rock similar to granite, but lacking quartz. It is hard and tough, thereby forming the steep crags that are so picturesque and characteristic of the range. Several thrust faults go through this area, as well, but I'm not going into that! There are also some relatively recent volcanic rocks in the area, too.

This is another place to come back to and hike in, but in the company of other people I think. Natural prudence (and bear awareness) is kicking in, although I keep reminding myself that First Nations people lived in harmony with all the animals here (we just don't know the stories of the people who didn't).

Unfortunately, the weather deteriorated faster than "tomorrow" so by the time I got up and over the divide, it was really raining, and I decided to turn back before getting to Chapman Lake.

Jaeger Lake, just north of the Continental Divide (north/south); Cloudy Range on the left.

Beaver Pond, second chance

One tends to lose track of time when one is out here. Time, and the sun, seem to stand still. Right now I'm writing this outside, it's 10pm, and the sun is still a handspan above the horizon. So I have no idea when I actually made it back to the beaver pond that I was at earlier in the day.

I took a chance from a different viewpoint, and was treated to all sorts of activity! Not many words are needed!

One of my favorite pictures from this afternoon: a tree swallow flying in to feed a chick!

Anybody know what this bird is? I do NOT think it's a gray jay
White, not gray breast; brown, not gray wings; downward curving beak?

And the beavers were out! They are just fun to watch, and I was seeing activity that I had heard tales of, but not actually observed. 

One of the beavers was dragging a freshly cut branch; well, it was actually probably a whole tree. You can even see the trunk in the beaver's mouth in the photo below. The beaver swam around with this for awhile, then fussed with it a bit. In retrospect, I think it was trying to line it up for easier handling. Then, all of a sudden, the beaver took a graceful dive under the water, carrying the branch, leaves and all, underwater with it! It looked like the branch was being sucked up by a whirlpool or going down a drain. Of course at that point, I did realize what was happening: beavers store leaves and branches in an underwater cache, so that when the ice covers the pond in the winter, they have a pantry where they can go get food! It was just awesome to actually see this happening. 

And... then... there were two beavers, one much smaller than the other. Such a treat to see!

Beaver dragging freshly cut branch

Mother(?) and baby beaver

The drive back was uneventful except for the fact that some stupid yahoo with a pickup truck, white canoe on top and a fiberglass trailer swinging wildly behind came careening down one of the steeper grades on the Dempster. We passed at the bottom of the hill, and BANG! It sounded like a BB shot, and I now have my first windshield ding to show for it. 

Fortunately, Toyota does build a tough truck, and it's a very little ding — it looked a lot larger until it started to rain again and washed the pulverized rock dust off. I'll probably still have somebody look at it when I get to a bigger town, as I don't want it to grow. There are experts in this type of repair out here.

So now I'm caught up again! Time to go do something else tomorrow! A Dawson tour, visit to the Dawson City museum, submit my Yukon passport for a chance to win a 1/2 troy ounce of gold, a bit of shopping (I have my eye on some mammoth ivory feather earrings), a ferry crossing, and then on to Alaska!

Can you believe it?