Dawson City to Homer

The drive from Dawson City, Yukon to Homer, Alaska was a treat. The northerly route we'd planned to take via Tok, Alaska was not possible as the Top-of-the-World Highway and its border crossing was closed for the season (on September 20 already). This meant we had to retrace our steps a bit and travel through Whitehorse. We remembered Whitehorse as a rather sleepy place that I think still had dirt streets on our last visit many years ago when we arrived by railroad. What a difference today. It's a wonderful little town with all the services you could want. Unlike other northern towns, such as Yellowknife, whose downtown is tired, rough around the edges and displays its social problems on every streetcorner, Whitehorse impressed us as clean, full of new businesses, young people and bursting with promise. Pride of ownership and community spirit was evident everywhere. We stayed a couple of nights and enjoyed our visit very much. About 70% of the entire Yukon population lives in Whitehorse. It's a little jewel surrounded by accessible wilderness.

While in Whitehorse, we also took the opportunity to install four new winter tires. This unexpected cost wasn't in the plan, but, the snow was coming right behind us and there were many mountain passes we'd have to cross on the way south with potentially treacherous driving conditions. We also learned that chains, or, snow tires are mandatory on BC highways from October 1, so, we would be breaking the law without them. We didn't want to just throw away our still-good summer tires and were in a quandary about what to do with them. Another example of great small town service was that the shop would store our summer tires for us and we can pick them up for reinstallation on our way north next spring!

Once on the road again, we passed through stunning mountain scenery. Actually, I stopped taking photographs as there were just too many wonderful vistas at every bend in the road. As you can see from the photos below, the unbelievable weather continued, just look at those clear blue skies, we could only wonder, how long can it possibly last?

Thompson Pass - on the way to Seward, AK. The poles are for snowplow orientation during heavy winter snowfalls.

Leftmost photo is Kluane National Park, rightmost is Thompson Pass,

Sea otters are very endearing creatures.  We'd never seen one before coming to Alaska. They lay mostly on their backs. Once in a while they'll roll over and dive to the bottom to pick up a fresh crab which they then audibly crunch with long rodent-like teeth.

Exit Glacier, Seward Alaska.  It was an easy walk to the glacier snout, but, the weather was no longer ideal.

Mile 0 of the historic Iditarod Trail, Seward. Alaska. In our posting about Nome, you may recall seeing the photo of the end of the Iditarod Trail sled dog race held every year.

We're now back in Homer finishing up Gjoa's winterization and collecting a few things prior to heading south. Homer is a great little town also. At first, we didn't like its totally decentralized structure, but, now that we have a vehicle it's much easier to get around. The scenery is spectacular. Kachemak Bay is currently full of whales. You can go to the end of the Spit and see humpbacks, minkes and even orcas blowing and breaching. It's actually kind of late for the whales to be here, nobody knows why they're still around this year, but, we're enjoying them while we can. It's been another few days of wonderful weather and we got our bikes out for a tour along the Spit's paved bike path.

We recently saw an interesting bumper sticker on a car that brought a laugh:

"Homer, AK, a quaint fishing town with a Subaru problem."

It's true! The first thing we noticed about Homer is that every second car is a Subaru Outback. Haven't a clue why...