Sometimes you wake up with a dead battery. In our case this is not a metaphor.
Whoever said the best laid plans often go awry has obviously been to the Yukon. We packed the night before for an early departure. Up the Al-can, into Alaska, through Tok and Chicken, with a ferry crossing back into Canada and two days in Dawson City to provision for the drive up the Dempster. We woke, we dressed, we hooked up the T@G and Boss burped, “No thank you.”
Eric is resourceful. He planned for a dead battery. He learned a valuable lesson in Newfoundland and again in Big Bend about how a car battery gets drained looking for connectivity. He pulled the Stanley quick charge out of the back seat, freshly charged from the day we left. Dead. Useless piece o …. Plan B.
T@G has a small RV battery on the frame to power the fan and LED lights. It charges every time it’s plugged into Boss. Get the jumper cables, connect the RV battery and we should be on our way. Surprisingly, when the battery dies, the truck tailgate doesn’t open. And this model does not have a keyed entry. Hmmm. The Starlink is in the bed, can’t troubleshoot or call a Ranger. And then it hit him, wedge his fingers under the soft cover and pop open the top. Plan B delivered. T@G saved the day and our best mapped plans changed. Back to Whitehorse, the cradle of Yukon civilization, for a new battery, and while we’re at it, a shower and groceries.
The drive-by of Whitehorse on the way to Kluane did not give a favorable, we need to return and check this place out impression. They did have a Ford dealership, Walmart and other auto supply outlets. Fully 3/4ths of the people who live in the Yukon, live in Whitehorse. Leaving Haines Junction, we stopped at the too cute Village Bakery for coffee, quiche and a cinnamon bun which made the 140 mile trek so much easier.
Whitehorse Ford is located on the meth side of town. It’s sad to say, but it is not unusual for remote, industrial places to have a visible drug and homeless population. After successfully procuring and installing a Motorcraft BXT-65-850 and returning a DieHard purchased in Newfoundland summer of 2024, we headed to Canada Games Center to see about a shower.
One thing these remote towns do right is build a well equipped recreational facility. Kids were playing indoor soccer, volleyball and gymnastics while adults were swimming, hot tubbing, track walking and ellipticizing. Purchasing the $8.15 day pass, we found showers in the Aquatic Center and Eric found drop in pickleball on the multi lined sport court.
Pickleball on gymnasium floors is not the greatest, mostly because they paint lines for four sports all on top of each other. Typically, the floor accommodates pickleball, badminton, paddle tennis and basketball. Eric joined in a game and called a ball out only to be aggressively challenged. It turns out, the good folks in Whitehorse are using the lines associated with paddle tennis. Who knew? Pickleball is a very social sport but it’s still not a good idea to mention to the local crowd that they are using the wrong court. And … mentioning that you are from Florida does not help. No worries. I’ve played on stranger courts and we all still had fun – kinda.
With final stops for groceries, propane and gas, we backtracked to an alternative route to Dawson City, up the Klondike Highway in the heart of Yukon Territory. Like the Al-Can, Stuart-Cassier and Yellowhead highways, it is 250 miles of virtually nothing but pine trees, lakes and rivers from here to there. The news was reporting that the Klondike road was in the worst condition of its life and we would have to agree. Construction, dirt roads and potholes tested our axles and patience and we were fortunate not to break anything. But we saw a big mama and an itty baby bear and that’s all we can remember now.
Exiting the Klondike Highway into a rustic territorial park short of Dawson, the welcome committee came out to greet. We have been in some high density mosquito locales in the past, but this raised the bar. The weather cycled between sunny and 60 and raining and 40 over and over again as we donned net gear to make camp. You learn how to be hardy in the Yukon. It is a vast expanse of wild things that all want to eat you. There is satisfaction in carving out a reasonably comfortable existence where you are not too wet, too cold, too dirty, too tired, or too bug bitten. When you get a chance to look around, it is truly a gorgeous, untamed country.
