Have Whitehorse, will travel

Today we explored Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory. We are spending three nights here, with some site-seeing and some errands.

We had a couple of ideas fall through today. We drove downtown first thing because Whitehorse has a lovely waterfront path where Greg could do his morning run. We parked at the SS Klondike, which is a steam powered paddlewheeler that was used to ferry people and supplies up the Yukon river to the gold country. It is no longer functioning but they have it set up as a historic site. They gave tours - in the past tense - because it is currently closed for a multi-year restoration to remove lead and make other improvements. It is not scheduled to reopen until 2028! So we had to settle for a view from the outside.

However the parking area had room for RVs with easy access to the downtown via that lovely waterfront path. We walked over to the MacBride Museum, a museum for Yukon history. It had a variety of items on display from gold rush memorabilia to animal hides to local photography and art. The museum was nice, though not as interesting as the George Johnston Museum that we visited yesterday.

The next place we wanted to visit was the Miles Canyon. We found an outfit that gives boat rides through the canyon. This was our second miss of the day. They didn’t answer their phone; perhaps they haven’t started tours this early in the season. Instead we drove to the canyon and took a hike. There is a foot bridge that you can cross to a series of criss-crossing paths on the far side.

Tomorrow, we will take a short trip to Carcross, at the top of the White Pass from Skagway Alaska to Whitehorse. Plus a bunch of cleaning chores to get ready to reach Alaska this weekend.