Dawson City

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En route due south to Watson Lake

I’m back in Teslin, being too exhausted to make it all the way to Nugget City tonight.

My departure from Dawson was the easiest departure yet, ironically enough. Everything was so under control that I partied hard at Gerties my last two nights, stumbling home in the wee hours of the morning. That happened to be past two yesterday, with departure slated for hopefully no later than noon. Let’s just say I wasn’t expecting to make it to Whitehorse till late, if at all!

To my surprise, I was up at about nine, had everything packed and ready to go by ten, took some things up to a storage locker by eleven, and was on the road by quarter to twelve. Shocking! 😀

The goodbyes were heart wrenching, but it’d be a lie to say that I wasn’t happy to be back on the road. I stopped at Mackenzie Petroleum for gas, 1.20$ per litre and then drove long and hard. The weather alternated between sun, rain, and mist. The mountains were covered in bright yellow leaves surrounded by lush evergreens. I have yet to tire of the Yukon landscapes.

I only had a quarter tank of fuel when I hit Carmacks, so I decided to gas up there, but was thwarted at both gas stations by selfish idiots parked in front of the pumps while they ate a meal! At neither location was anyone inclined to move until they were good and ready and staff didn’t care about the loss of a 200$ sale. Braeburn Lodge, a short ways down the highway, was happy to have my business. *shrugs*

Whitehorse was a welcome sight after 530km of driving. I was bone tired and just wanted to crash with a movie. I pulled into the Walmart and unhooked the toad so that I could park away from the road, went in for a movie, got some dinner, and I was done for the night. I went to bed at 10 and slept solidly until 7!!!

Today was nuts. Oh, everything went smoothly, but I had a million things to buy and it was unnerving to spend so much money! I had breakfast at Starbucks and then drove Miranda over to the Shell station for propane and fuel. The propane pump is oddly located, forcing the owners of longer motorhomes to park with their ass end in the laneway. Just that made it sensible for me to have unhooked, even though I don’t like to unhook when I’m Walmarting it. But I had a ton of errands to run, so it made sense to be parked centrally (the RV parks are all on the outskirts) and to have my car accessible. Propane was relatively cheap, 83 cents per litre, if I recall correctly, and gas was at 1.03$. I’m already under budget for gas, which is awesome! Once everything was topped up, I had to deal with my propane tank, which was leaking from the Extend-a-Stay opening. I quickly ascertained that this was because the opening was dirty. A quick swipe with a cotton swab solved the problem and allowed a proper seal with the cover.

The rest of my day went something like this, but not necessarily in this order:

I stocked up on a mega ton of groceries and a ton of beer, did some banking, and hit up Canadian Tire (found another oil heater on mega sale!), Staples (found an external hard drive on mega sale!),  Shoppers Drugmart (for the generator…), and Home Hardware (for something I’ll reveal in a later post). And let’s not forget the Walmart shopping spree for all the luxuries I’ve been rationing for two months, like toilet paper.

By the time I got home for the last time, it was mid-afternoon and I was sorely tempted to just stay the night in Whitehorse. But I had had my fill of that city with little charm and just wanted to get away from all the people.

50km shy of Teslin, I knew it would be my stop for the night. It would be dinner time by then; a push to Watson Lake would take me to at least 8pm. I was famished and exhausted and knew that by the time I said all my hellos and settled into a back in spot in Nugget City it would be past 9, maybe later.

As a compromise, I’m not on hookups tonight, paying 15$ to dry camp with access to the showers (which I’ll use seeing as I remember how clean they are) and the internet. I had a quick, but well-balanced dinner, and in short order I’m going to curl up with a good book and a mug of tea.

Tomorrow, I’ll be able to sleep in, enjoy the morning, and still get to Watson Lake at a reasonable hour.

Tired as I was last night, I still managed to find the energy to pen a few words in my journal, which I’ll quote verbatim as I tend to find myself funny when I’m this tired. 🙂

Back on the road!!!!!!!!!!

With Yukon plates!!!!!!!!!

With a Dawson City address!!!!!!!!!!!!

Going to Vancouver Island!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With a guaranteed job next summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Culinary Inspiration

The onsite restaurant closed this week and tonight surplus food was brought over to the motel. I helped myself to oranges and huge onions that inspired me to ask the owner if she could spare two eggs. She sure could and she also handed me sour cream, which fit in well with the fate I decided to reserve for those onions, as well as a few other items. I decided to turn them into a crustless quiche!

Quiche à la Rae is one of only two egg dishes I eat (the other is French Toast à la Rae). Quiche à la Rae involves lots of flavourful ingredients to mask the taste of eggs, namely strong cheese and plenty of sweet, caramelized onions. Tonight, I substituted sour cream for the skim milk I usually use, and I also added some basil I’d bought earlier in the summer and frozen. I baked the whole thing in a casserole dish and it came together quite nicely. I served the dish with hot buttered toast and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. This is going to make a fabulous breakfast tomorrow or maybe lunch. If it’s anything like regular Quiche à la Rae, it’ll be even better cold!

Inspiration

Inspiration

Other goodies: butter, oranges, radishes, and lemons

Other goodies: butter, oranges, radishes, and lemons

Two eggs, sour cream, fresh frozen basil, salt, pepper, grated old cheddar

Two eggs, sour cream, fresh frozen basil, salt, pepper, grated old cheddar

What onions are supposed to look like

What onions are supposed to look like

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Good-bye, Farewell, and Amen

It’s a strange atmosphere here this week, frantically busy even as the tourist season is shutting down. We’re hosting the road crew paving Front Street, so the motel is bursting at the seams while the RV park is eerily empty. Nights are cool and days are sunny.  People are leaving in droves by RV, helicopter, motorcycle, truck, car, even horse. No one’s left by garbage truck yet, though. Points if you get the joke/reference on that last one. 🙂

Dawson is quickly shutting down. My favourite restaurants are closed, including the ice cream parlour. It’s very sad to go into town on a sunny afternoon and not be able to get a cone of Rolo ice cream to eat while I watch the ferry go back and forth across the Yukon!

At work, the staffing calendar marks Saturday as my last day, with a big frowning face with tears running down its cheeks; the manager’s attempt at making me feel guilty even though I stayed three months longer than planned!!! I’ve had four jobs since I left last year. One failed miserably, one was tolerable, and two were winners. I have high hopes for my winter on Vancouver Island.

I still have some preparations to make, but for some reason detrenchment this time around is feeling very easy.

Today, I took advantage of the manager’s very generous offer of the industrial washers to wash all my bedding. While that was tumbling around, I cleaned the ‘bedroom’, getting rid of a mountain of books and magazines, dusting, vacuuming, mopping up water on the sills with my Bissell carpet cleaner (for which I have discovered another purpose), and getting rid of the curtains seeing as I discovered that the window-side of them was mouldy!!! I’ll do without proper curtains for now seeing as a complete makeover of that area is in order this winter. The cats were delighted with the new open space and spent the afternoon spread out on their blanket enjoying the 180 degree view of the park.

The generator is probably fixed; a fresh tank of fuel will confirm this. I’m ecstatic!!! Learning how to do proper maintenance on this thing is making me eager to learn how to do the oil changes on my vehicles as well.

The next big RV chore on my list is to flush out my water system with chlorine and then fill the onboard tank completely seeing as I hate the water in Watson Lake. 🙂 It’s pretty bad here (overly chlorinated) but that’s better than the iron-rich water down south that stains everything!

Inside, I’m doing a major cleaning and purging so I can take advantage of the Free Store. I already have a huge bag of clothing and sundry items to take there. I’ve been donating extra books to the RV park book exchange seeing as I’ve made full use of it this summer.

Sunday, I’ll pull out when I pull out. I hope to get to Whitehorse, but I won’t push myself. I’ve been working six hours a day seven days a week and I’m beat. I might make it to just shy of Whitehorse on Sunday, allowing me to get into the city early enough Monday to run errands and be on my way again. There won’t be another decent grocery store until Prince George, so it would be wise to stock up especially since I’ll be in Watson Lake a couple of weeks.

My bank account is much too lean for the journey ahead, but I will make do. Things will be so different next year when I leave Vancouver Island knowing just when my next pay cheque will be. I can finally budget properly.

This new life of mine is slowly coming together. My Klondike summer might be drawing to a close, but a new adventure is not far ahead and this satisfies me greatly.

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The Dawson City Youth Hostel (and miscellanea)

Before I talk about the Dawson City Youth hostel, I just have to share a picture of a find I made at the thrift store last Saturday after the outhouse race! There is a special at the thrift store the first Saturday of the month where you can stuff (and I do mean stuff!) a grocery bag with anything and pay just $5.

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My keyboard preferences are set to French-Canadian, which more often than not makes my numeric keypad useless since it converts the period to a comma. Moreover, have you ever tried to do bookkeeping on a laptop keyboard?! A ‘proper’ calculator has been on my list of wants for a long time, but I just couldn’t justify the cost for the use it’d get. What a find!

So, that complete randomness aside (I’m trying to combine posts due to my limited online time), today I went to visit my friend Gé, who lives with her husband in a 20′ school bus. They are on a two-year honeymoon! Their first year was spent getting to Dawson by way of just about all of Canada and Alaska (or so it seems) and now they are off to spend the winter in Costa Rica! They completely outfitted the bus themselves, using whatever materials they could find. The result is a rustic and cozy cottage.

My favourite part of their bus conversion is the mini woodstove! They stow it away when it’s warm and then reinstall it when it gets cold:

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The stove is installed safely with a chimney:

the chimney adds an adorable touch of whimsy!

the chimney adds an adorable touch of whimsy!

Since they don’t rely on hookups, they favour more rustic parking locations. After spending some time at Bonanza Gold (where we met as colleagues for a brief time), they have moved across the Yukon River to the youth hostel located in West Dawson.

The hostel has to be seen to be understood. From a distance, it looks like a pile of bric-à-braque, but the set up is really very well done. There is no running potable water or electricity, but there are interesting bathhouses, seats with a view, and plenty of opportunities to chop wood. I didn’t get to see the cabins, but I think tenting there would be very nice even if it’s one of the more expensive places to tent near Dawson (Bonanza Gold is the cheapest).

This is the shower! Creek water is pumped into the barrel to the left and used for bathing after...

This is the shower! Creek water is pumped into the barrel to the left and used for bathing after…

being heated in this wood stove! (guests chop their own wood!)

being heated on this wood stove! (guests chop their own wood!)

Gé loves this system, saying that the water heats up quickly and makes the room very hot and steamy.

The owner has thought of everything to make his guests’ rustic stay more comfortable:

a covered drying area

a covered drying area

lockable cubbies for long-term tenters

lockable cubbies for long-term tenters

comfy chairs to

comfy chairs to

take in the view

take in the view

Finally these signs caught my attention:

I can cross off numbers 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, and 16!

I can cross off numbers 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, and 16!

Off my list now are 18 and 21 (26 would have happened if they operated on normal and not Dawson time; ie. if they were open when the schedule says they should be open!)

Off my list now are 18 and 21 (26 would have happened if they operated on normal and not Dawson time; ie. if they were open when the schedule says they should be open!)

Done are 28, 30 (my favourite thing to do in Dawson!), 31, and the bonus!

Done are 28, 30 (my favourite thing to do in Dawson!), 31, and the bonus!

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And the countdown is on…

I’m leaving Dawson in no more than exactly two weeks from now as I’m expected back at Nugget City around the 23rd.

I’d hinted last spring that by September I would have a major decision to make regarding Watson Lake, and that decision was made months ago. I was so fortunate this summer to get adopted by two wonderful hotel/RV park/restaurant complexes that have made my decision to use the Yukon as my homebase so easy. But when you live on site, you need a place to go to to unwind. Watson Lake really doesn’t have much to offer in that regard; no good restaurants, no cozy pubs, no entertainment. It’s ugly, poor, and crime ridden. Dawson is the complete opposite. Watson Lake is a place to stay, Dawson is a place to live. If the two towns were even remotely comparable, the decision of which to use as a homebase would have been gut wrenching rather than easy to make.

Depending on the weather at Nugget City and the amount of work there, I’ll stay anywhere from two to three weeks as I’m expected in Campbell River on October 23rd. I’m hoping to take a slightly different route south and to spend a day or two in Vancouver, but the pace to Campbell River will definitely not be leisurely.

I look forward to my new adventures, but, darn it, it’s tougher than I would ever have imagined to say goodbye to the Klondike.