After leaving Fort Nelson we made a planned stop at Liard Hot Springs.  This is a well reported “must” stop along the AH (reference to Alaska Highway hereafter).  Unlike the Radium Hot Springs these have not been “bottled” into swimming pools to serve the masses.  The spring descends through a series of pools created by modest damming with logs.  The board walk to the pools and around them is a substantial, but plain boardwalk and the changing rooms are Spartan to say the least. We entered the water at turned out to be the midpoint of its temperature range.  Moving up stream a few feet raised the surface water temperature a few degrees and a like move downstream lowered the temperature a bit.  The surface water is hotter than the bottom water so if it felt too hot I could just reach down and circulate the deeper water up to mix with the surface to moderate the temperature.  Although I had no thermometer with me the temperature was reported variously as 108 to 110 F.  To other travelers along the way:  This is indeed a must stop and if we pass this way headed south we will stop again.

Although we made several more stops to ooh and ah over the vistas and to acknowledge bison, bear and other critters along the road we eased in to Watson Lake, YT late afternoon and set up camp at Downtown RV.  This was as described a large gravel parking lot with hookups and right in the center of town. During the day’s drive we had noticed a clanging, banging noise which turned out to be a loose part on a rear wheel cover.  Three of four rivets had come loose and the center section was wobbling and clattering.  I spoke to the campground owner who directed me to the Home Hardware which was through the Signpost Forest and across the highway.  There Homer guided me to the correct bin of nuts and bolts and advised me to add some Loktite to make sure they would hold.  Returning to the campground I set up my repair shop – tool kit next to chair in the sun in front of the coach to make my repair.  This attracted a neighbor who we joined later to see the Northern Lights Show.  Yeah, I know we are in the Land of The Northern Lights, but they are hard to see when the sun has not set at 10 PM and rises before we awake at 4 AM.  So we had to see the video of the Northern Lights in a very nice planetarium facility across the street form the campground.

The next day, as we were rolling toward White Horse, we decided to take a side trip recommended by several people.  At Jake’s Corner we turned down route 8, The Tagish Highway toward Carcross.  Yes, there is a crossing there, but it is not cars.  It is a Caribou Crossing.  After much fiddling around and struggling to find the visitor center we were guided to the Carcross Campground.  The signs we had passed seemed to lead us to driving down the local airstrip, not generally a good idea.  It turns out the road to the campground is maybe 100 yards off the centerline of the strip and then disappears into the woods.  Here we set up camp for two nights with no electric, water or sewer.  There is phone service.  There were only two others in the campground for the night.

Our visit to Carcross included a walk in the Carcross Desert.  A one square mile of dunes left over from prehistoric times. It really isn’t technically desert as it is too humid. It is quite strange to see lush conifer stands in what appears on the surface to be desert and no cactus to be seen, they would never survive the sub zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures of winter.   The town itself is torn up, as the roads are being realigned to make it easier for tour buses to drive through and stop.  Also many of the important structures from times long gone are being restored.  This is not a preserve area so major restoration is more a matter of money than permits.  Walking around in some respects was like walking though a Disney back set before the place is ready for guests.

Day 5, Wednesday, we set off early in the morning (for us) in the car to drive 65 miles to Skagway, one of the premier cruise ship stops on the inland passage.    Before we got very far out of Carcross we spotted two bears on the side of the road sparring.  They were distracted enough that I was able to back the car up a 100 yards or so after going passed them and stop on the side of the road across from them and spend several minutes photographing for me and for Carol.  We signaled to another car what we were seeing and as they stopped we drove on.   The rest of the trip was engaged in much oohing and aahing over the incredible scenery and mountains still enrobed in snow and ice.  We climbed past the Canadian customs, 7 miles from the border and ascended to the border with the US and then descended 7 miles or more to the US Customs Post.  Those 14 miles are so inhospitable that no one wants to maintain a permanent post there.  Oh yes, this is where the Gold Rush Stampedes of 1898 had to climb to to get to the Klondike Gold Fields in Dawson City.  They had to travel 600, that’s six hundred miles from the ports of Skagway or Dyea. 

Before turning into Skagway we took an eight mile side trip to Dyea town site.  This was one of the two primary launching sights for the gold seekers to reach for Dawson City and the Klondike Gold Fields.  The town grew from a native village of a few hundred on a tidal flat to a substantial town that hosted tens of thousands in a year!  Today almost nothing remains but clues for archeologists.  A wharf they constructed that reached a mile out over the mud flats is now a few remaining posts out in the flats and some indents in the ground at the shore end. The largest warehouse is crumbling remains that need to be defended from the bears which like to tear the wood apart for the grubs that it hosts.  The rows of trees planted to define the roads and a line of stumps. 

We turned from there to Skagway which survived only because a rail link to Whitehorse was constructed there at the peak of the of the boom and together with the deep water harbor these made Skagway a coastal link to the interior.  Today it is filled with cruise ships and tourists and the streets are indeed lined with gold in the hands of the passengers from the cruise ships waiting to be exchanged for all kinds of goods and services the merchants are prepared to sell.

The day ended with an uneventful drive back to G2, tucked away in the woods.  We never did see dark at the campsite even though we stayed up until 11 and got up at 4 ish for nature calls.