Alaska-Yukon Cruise Tour

Dawson City, Yukon Territory

Pictures:  Dawson City  Ι  Tombstone Park  Ι   Tintina Trench  Ι  Robert Service

History:  Dawson City History  Ι  Tombstone Park  Ι  Dempster Highway   Ι   Robert Service 

 On July 16, 2008, we arrived in Dawson City and stayed 2 nights at the Westmark Inn.  We discovered the Midnight Sun Hotel, about 2 blocks away, that served very nice meals with reasonable prices - and the people were enjoyable to talk with.

The first evening's entertainment was at Diamond Tooth Gertie's for a show with the Gold Rush Girls.  This was the joint that enticed the Stampeder's to bet and lose most of their money.

On July 17, Kirsten and John booked a coach tour on the Dempster Highway through Tombstone Territorial Park.  The area is named for the mountains in the park.  The park is jointly administered by First Nation and Canada.  It's about 12 million acres.  The park goes from deciduous trees to alpine area.  We went all the way to Chapman Lake.  Our guide was Mark, and Darren took the hikers.

The park is sub-arctic tundra.  Animals we saw were:  golden eagle, long tailed jaeger, female moose, trumpet swans, ptarmigan, musrat in small lake, red fox cubs, yellow webler.  The most common plant we saw was the Fireweed – epilobium angustifolium latifolium.  The plant was all over Alaska.

After returning to Dawson City we went up the hill at 7 p.m. to the Robert Service cabin for readings and to hear about his life history.

July 18 was a light rain as we transferred to the Yukon Queen II riverboat on the Yukon River for 100 mile boat trip to Eagle, Alaska.   On the riverboat we were served lunch.  We were allowed in the wheelhouse and found out the Captain was from Eagle, AK.  The trip on the Yukon River was about 3 hours.