June 15, 2010 by Rae

Level Headed

The topic du jour at the Escapees forum is electric levelers. This is what I had to say:

I have a class C without levelers. Leveling for me involves parking in as flat a spot as possible and then going inside to see where I’m tilting. I then eyeball how many levelers I might need (mine are wood and custom made by the previous-previous owner). I drive onto the levelers, then go back into see how I’m doing. Come back out and make adjustments (which usually involves kneeling in mud). Back, forth, up down, ha, perfect! Then when I get ready to leave I have to drive off and pick up the levelers (usually buried in mud or frozen to the ground). Sometimes the ground is so soft the levelers on the passenger side jump up and jam against my exhaust pipe. Once I have the levelers in hand (and am covered in mud), I have to put them away. They take up a whole compartment and become a home for spiders and other critters, so pulling them out is always an adventure.

Needless to say, my next rig will be one that has electric levelers. When I hit the road, I thought those things were frivolous. I was so naïve (and much less mud splattered).

June 15, 2010 by Rae

Improvements to the 9th Ave and Lookout Trails

The Dawson parks and recreation folks have been busy making wonderful improvements to the 9th Ave and Lookout Trails. I borrowed Oz this afternoon and set off for the Lookout to see what was the same and what was different.

Oz all gussied up in his new harness

these stairs lead up from the ninth ave trail to Mary McLeod Road, a vast improvement over a slippery almost vertical slope!

the trailhead for the Lookout Trail used to be very hard to locate, but now there’s no mistaking it

looking down the Yukon River towards Alaska

Dawson from the Lookout

ferry and Top of the World Highway from the Lookout

There are three changes to the Lookout Trail:

1) the trailhead is now clearly marked and easy to find;

2) the Ninth Ave trail follows the Lookout Trail for a spell and then branches off to the left; I’ll need to come back to see how far it goes;

3) the Lookout Trail is slowly being extended up towards the Slide. There was a bit of a trail last year, but now it is obviously being turned into a proper, maintained, trail.

Good job, parks and rec!

Oz was great; curious but not to the point of tugging at his leash and willing to match my pace. I love our dates! 😀

June 14, 2010 by Rae

The S.S. Keno

The S.S. Keno is a paddleboat that hauled cargo up and down the Yukon from the early 1920s to the mid 1950s. When the road to Keno City was built in the ’50s, paddlewheelers fell out of favour. For one thing, they were using wood at such a rate that there was a risk of running out of trees! The completion of the Klondike highway to Dawson City was the nail in the paddlewheelers coffin.

On August 23, 1960, the S.S. Keno began her final journey from Whitehorse to Dawson City where she would be dry docked forever and turned into a museum. Today, she is a National Historic Site.

the interpreter thought it would be funny to wear a life jacket today 🙂

Laura Berton was the mother of Pierre Berton’s mother

I wouldn’t have wanted the cabin with the beam running through it!

My favourite part of the exhibit was the movie! It was filmed in August 1960 and documents the S.S. Keno’s final voyage. It answered one of my most burning questions about the Klondike: how did ships pass through Five Finger Rapids? The movie is also good for comic relief when a man waxes poetically about how much easier life was then compared to the 1920’s since modern technology had brought about DDT and mosquitoes were no longer a problem…

Visiting the S.S. Keno takes about an hour and fills in yet another gap of Dawson’s history.

June 14, 2010 by Rae

Red Spheres of Deliciousness

I asked a friend who has a small farm with greenhouse if he could bring me some tomatoes. Sure!

This is what I found on my porch last night:

Give a gal tomatoes, you feed her for a few days. Give her tomato plants and you feed her for a summer. 🙂

There’s already one on its way:

I was told to repot and stake the plants when they get bigger:

My outdoor shower lines up with the end of the porch, so the plants are in perfect position for watering. I was told to keep them nice and wet, so not having to deal with watering cans and whatnot will make it so much easier to get into the habit of keeping Larry, Curly, and Moe happy.

(yes, I’m silly, but I’m not going to change at my age. 😀 )

June 13, 2010 by Rae

The Commissioner’s Residence

After the Robert Service program I headed back to Front Street for an ice cream, then went to visit the Commissioner’s Residence.

Territorial administration is a little different from that of the provinces and I’m not quite up to speed on it. If I understand correctly, the Commissioner of Yukon is the Queen’s representative in the territory, similar to the role of the Governor General.

At the time when Dawson was the capital of the Yukon territory, the commissioner resided in a grand house on Front Street. It was grander once upon a time, but burned down during a Christmas fire and was rebuilt much more simply.

Today, it’s possible to tour the house and grounds at your leisure. There isn’t much information provided, so it’s not the best value attraction in Dawson. I’d do it as part of the Pick-a-Pack and consider it the ‘free’ option.

Like many buildings in Dawson, the gorgeous bright yellow exterior of the house is a façade belying the fact that most of the interior is a wreck. The front bottom half of the house was restored to Edwardian splendour and reminds me of Rutherford House in Edmonton, decorated in the same era. The back bottom and top halves of the house are almost in ruins. This actually adds a level of interest to the visit. In the second incarnation of the home, it was used as a hospital run by nuns, so wandering through the house you can see all the layers of history associated with it. I loved that I could open just about any door and peak inside, but was disappointed that the third story is off limits. My favourite part of the house was the huge second story porch. I can just imagine sitting up there with binoculars and watching steamboats go up and down the Yukon River.

A notable resident of this home was the Honourable Martha Black, Canada’s second female Member of Parliament (MP) who took on the mantle after her husband died in office. Mrs. Black came over the Chilkoot Pass with her brother and is one of the most famous women associated with the golden age of the Klondike.