Destination Circle: Day 25

June 7, 2016

Commercial tour bus on outskirts of Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway

The morning was overcast so lingering over coffee was the plan. Whitehorse has two Starbucks. Quelle surprise!  While I was reading and drinking coffee, a young girl with Down Syndrome started her shift. She put on the green apron and was walking around holding the ties when another employee, an Asian girl, came up to her and gently took the ties, turned her around and tied the apron. It was a sweet gesture.

I had oil on my mind. In Dawson City, when I asked for a recommendation on where to get this done, I was advised it might be best to "wait until Whitehorse if you can." So I presume people in these smaller towns in the north take care of car maintenance on their own because surely they don't drive several hundred miles for an oil change.

I first walked in the Auto Service area in Walmart. Two guys were working with their backs turned toward me but it was noisy and after waiting 60 seconds with no acknowledgement, I left and went to EnviroLube where I drove right in. The place was spotless, and while two guys and a girl attended to checking and changing and topping off fluids, a third guy spent the whole time trying to get the bugs off my windshield. For these services, they charged $172.00! I was shocked and berated myself for not asking up front what it would cost but also was relieved I didn't have any issues, as nearly every time I took the Subaru in for routine maintenance the past year, something was wrong: brakes, rotors, head gasket, catalytic converter, heater issues, malfunctioning door-open light, total loss of navigation system. It was like waiting in a doctor's office for dire news.

Quaking Aspen leaves: healthy and leaf miner at work

Yukon Arts Centre - Whitehorse YT

Boreal Chickadees have also been on my mind lately, so I researched eBird and went to the campus of the Yukon Arts Centre and walked around for an hour, peering into the conifers and listening for this northern chickadee with no success. It's not uncommon up here, but birds have nesting and parenting going on so aren't as active and vocal as other times of the year. While poking around, I crossed the TransCanada Trail, passed a young mom pushing a baby stroller with one hand and holding bear spray in the other, and admired the outdoor sculptures. The Centre is situated in a pretty spot on a hill overlooking the town.



Before I left Whitehorse, I also went to a museum on the eastern edge of town dedicated to Beringia:

thecanadianencyclopedia.ca

"Beringia is a landmass including portions of 3 modern nations (Canada, US and Russia) and extending from the Siberian Kolyma River and Kamchatka Peninsula, through Alaska and Yukon Territory, to the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories. Near the centre of the region is Bering Strait, for which it was named. Today, this strait links the Arctic and Pacific oceans, but in the past lowered sea levels, resulting in part from growth of continental glaciers, exposed portions of the continental shelves to form a broad land bridge between northeast Asia and northwest North America.

The importance of Beringia is twofold: it provided a pathway for intercontinental exchanges of plants and animals during glacial periods and for interoceanic exchanges during interglacials; it has been a centre of evolution and has supported apparently unique plant and animal communities. The history of Beringia is important not only in the evolution of landscapes but also in that of plants and animals."

Yukon Beringia Interpretative Centre - Whitehorse, YT 

All afternoon I drove east and the sun came out late in the day. Just west of Watson Lake, I drove five miles back into the equivalent of a state forest campground and went around one of the camping loops twice but didn't stay. It was dark and lonely with few other campers and minimal facilities. And too early to just go to sleep. So instead of paying $12, I paid $35 at a city campground in Watson Lake. "We don't allow tents," said the campground manager, a robust man with an Australian accent. "People leave food out and it attracts the animals....There's an electrical outlet if you want to charge your devices. You're near the bathrooms." He put me in a spot between an RV from Germany and a sedan pulling a small camper from Florida with a bumper sticker telling people that Trump will Make America Great Again. I didn't see or talk with either of my neighbors. The RV from Germany was spotless, their shades were drawn, and it appeared, from the decals on the side, that these travelers were going around the world. A lake across the road had a Nature Trail with signs and information about dragon- and damselflies for which the area is known.

I ate at Tags, a gas station / truck stop that also featured free condoms in the rest room. I had minestrone soup (so-so) and a good BLT wrap, freshly made. The dining area was the epitome of utilitarian, with no charm whatsoever...a painted concrete floor and fluorescent lights in a large space adjacent to an open kitchen. But it was clean. The attached well-stocked grocery store was impressive with all items perfectly arranged on shelves, a good selection of fresh fruits and vegetables and the expected miscellany of road travel, non-food items. One just never knows when expectations will be exceeded, and most of this trip mine have been. 

Like the Sign Post Forest across from Tags. Incredible! Currently, there are 77,000 signs from places all over the world. While it seems tacky, somehow it wasn't...

Sign Post Forest - Watson Lake, YT