Haven

by

Backroads of Dawson

My friend Nathalie is currently in vacation mode with a lot of time off AND she has a 4×4, high clearance vehicle perfect for driving on washboard routes. So, she has been very content over the past two days to show me some of the far reaches of the Dawson area that she discovered over the course of her winter here.

Our adventure started last night, with a bit of a tangent. We went out just before 9 and spent so long trying to decide what we wanted for dinner that our only inexpensive option wound up being the casino. The dining choices in summer-time Dawson are incredible! We didn’t realise just how big the variety is until we started the whole “Greek?” “Nah. Italian?” “Nah. Fish and chips?” routine. We wound up getting pizza at the casino and then sharing a veggie dog from the hot dog cart. 🙂

We left Gerties just before the 10:30 show because we were in a talkative mood. Nathalie suggested we hop on the ferry so she could show me the location of west Dawson and Sunnydale, two neighbours on the other side of the Yukon River where homes are 100% self-sufficient. She and I are sort of interested in buying property in the area and have pretty much narrowed our options to west Dawson, so we also spent some time looking for and at empty lots.

West Dawson feels like a remote suburb–houses are fairly close together but there is quite a bit of tree coverage for privacy. Sunnydale, though, is isolated. Roads are maintained in west Dawson so folks can go to town in their vehicles in the winter via the ice bridge, but Sunnydale residents rely on snowmobiles and dog sleds. There are a few businesses on that side of the river, including a kennel and the Top of the World golf course, but otherwise it’s still almost pristine wilderness.

Let me pause here to get back to the buying property topic since I know that raised a few eyebrows. I’m entertaining the idea of buying a small chunk of property that I won’t need to build on just to have a physical address of my own to firmly establish my ties to Canada and Yukon. I would like for it to be RV accessible so that I could use it as an RV pad. I started to think about this last year, and the idea continues to grow on me. If I choose to buy in Dawson, the time to do so is now as prices are starting to sky rocket. This is still very much a project written in sand.

Today, we were going to go gold panning again, but decided instead to check out the gold fields route. I will come back to this route in greater detail when we go again since today was really a scouting mission with no time for pictures. As a teaser, I will say that this route has you climb up so high above the Dawson valley that rivers were still choked with ice and there was several feet of snow in places even though the mercury was at over 30 degrees!

I can’t get over how big this country is, country in terms of the wilderness expanses. There is just green as far as you can see with a swath of golden road cutting through it. I have to say it–it’s like driving on the yellow brick road through the Emerald City!

We’d been driving for over an hour when I started to get concerned about returning to work on time. The landscape was always the same and we hadn’t seemed to make any progress, so I was happy when Nathalie recognized a landmark and told me we were 45 minutes out, giving us an at home ETA that would give me a half hour to spare.

Throughout our drive, Nathalie shared her tales of life in winter Dawson and told me about a really colourful local character. I may come back to him if I get to meet him and he agrees to give me a formal interview. He officially made life in Dawson feel like a novel. 😀

In other news, the weather is HOT and DRY and SMOKY. The fire season is almost a month early this year and it promises to be a bad one. Anyone heading north better keep on top of road closures. A very bad fire just west of Tok closed the road between Tok and Fairbanks and nearly took out a full community. Meanwhile on the 40km up the Dempster highway a huge fire broke out today and will most likely close down that road within a few days. Interestingly enough, it’s the same customers who complain that we’re in a territory-wide fire ban (What, no fire pits?! You guys suck!) who also complain that there is poor visibility on the Top of the World and Dempster Highways. *shakes head*

It’s been a couple of full days and I can’t believe that we’re about to roar into June!

by

Winding Down

It is difficult to conceive that two weeks from now, my time at Pacific Border RV Park will be over. It has been a cushy four months, but I need to go back to a less luxurious way of life!

I’ve contacted a few RV maintenance places to get quotes for a small tune up for Miranda as well as a generator inspection. It would be brilliant if I could get all of this done in one place on May 2nd, but I’m not holding my breath. I really doubt that I’ll actually be heading north by this time in two weeks, but that’s only because I’m too lazy to take the rig out next weekend to get things done! The only problem with my having to stick around for a few days at the beginning of May is that there does not seem to be many places where I can boondock in the Vancouver area, but I’m researching my options.

I feel so differently about the GVR than I did four months ago, even four weeks ago. It’s taken a long time, but I have fallen in love some parts of Vancouver and the surrounding area, parts where it would be possible to build a life without having to stray into the parts I dislike. The end of the road, whenever, and if ever, it comes, could very well be English Bay or White Rock or Cloverdale or North Van or a number of other locations. This region is so much more than the sum of its parts; in fact I feel that it needs to be judged by the parts of its sum!

It has come to my attention in the last few months that, deep down, I am seeking a ‘forever home.’ The more I travel, the more the definition of that becomes clear to me, but I have not found the place yet and I don’t think I would even recognize it until I get many thousands more kilometres behind me.

by

Waitin’ on the Mail

I was supposed to be heading Saskatoon way tomorrow, but my mail hasn’t arrived yet, so I’m staying at this park until Friday. If the mail isn’t in by then, I’ll move to a fancier park for the weekend, one with internet and laundry facilities. At least, there are worst places to be stuck!

The park where I’m staying does have wi-fi, but only at the owners’ home, where I’m sitting outside freezing my butt off watching an amazing prairie sunset. Unfortunately, my laptop is much to slow to do any real surfing, so replies to comments and updates with photos will have to wait until I can get online with my iMac.

I had a great time in Moose Jaw yesterday and an equally good one today at the RCMP heritage centre, but write-ups will wait until I can provide pictures. 🙂

Being out here on the prairie fills me with such peace. There is something about the plains that has always made sense to me. When I first encountered them in North Dakota back in 2005 I found myself wondering if it’s possible to come home to a place you’ve never been before. Everything out here is amplified: the blue of the sky, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the wind… Mornings and evenings are bitterly cold in the fall, but the days are hot. Yesterday in Moose Jaw, I could have have closed my eyes and sworn I was in Las Vegas in June, it was that dryly hot out.

Regina is a nice little city, comparable to Winnipeg. It confirmed to me what it is exactly that makes Winnipeg so special to me as Regina has all the same criteria but one, no strong French community.

The ideal year, it would seem, would be a summer spent in the Prairies, an early fall spent on the Shield, and then a winter somewhere warm and dry.

I cannot believe that I am already a full two weeks into my adventure and that I need to be in British Columbia no more than three weeks from now! I want to spend two nights in Saskatoon and two each in Edmonton and Calgary, so that’s another week eaten up, not counting travel time between the cities. And I thought I’d have time to go to Yellowknife! *laughs* I don’t mind being ‘stuck’ in Regina an extra night or two, but I really hope to be gone by Saturday just because I’m getting to be a little too comfortable here! But after the last two weeks of learning and driving so much, it’s nice to be parked somewhere for a spell and take some much needed time to breathe.

But the road beckons and I know that within the next day or so, I’ll be itching to leave. It’s lovely to know I can, and helps me to enjoy these peaceful moments even more.