It's not "junk"

Tuesday September 15

Skagway, AK to Tagish, YT: 281.2 km

Cumulative distance: 3205 km

Maximum speed: 112 km/h

Average speed: 65 km/h

We get away from Skagway in good time, around 8:00 a.m. There is a steep rise up to the pass leading out of Skagway and the weather is socked in. The higher we climb, the denser the fog: Nan is having trouble seeing me from the back of the bike.

This is a very famous Skagway area. First, the Chilkoot Pass is thirty minutes out of Skagway. Established as a route to the Klondike in the 1890s, it was a tortuous pass that humbled even seasoned “stampeders”, the name for people heading to the Klondike searching for gold. A common list of supplies generally recommended for a winter in the Klondike typically consisted of two tonnes of goods that literally took months to get over the pass. We have seen a famous photograph of the route up in which hundreds of men were lined up taking materials to the top of the pass. For some, it took months to get their supplies over. Others just gave up.

Another is Dead Horse Pass. This was meant to be an alternative to the Chilkoot but was less successful. And as you might guess from the name, it had dire consequences for some that attempted it. The remains of over 3,000 horses have been found along the trail, those that perished from exhaustion or disease.

Lastly, there was a very important rail line built in the same valley, which is still in use today. Not sure what the route is but we heard trains through the night.

The pass is not much over 1,000 metres, which doesn’t sound like much to those used to hiking in the mountains in western Canada but well above the alpine here. We get above the tree line and, along with the pea soup fog, we find there are several small lakes carved into the escarpment, surrounded by rocky peaks coated with newly fallen snow.

Later, we head to Whitehorse; I have my own personal agenda, which is to get some business done which I have been hampered from completing due to the difficulty of getting good internet on this trip. I program into the GPS the Whitehorse branch of RBC Royal Bank: I am going to present myself there and beg for the mercy of the branch manager to use a computer there and get onto the RBC network.

Here, I would like to shout out to the Manager of Client Care Sabine M. After meeting a little resistance at the branch level, Sabine swooped in on her unicorn and bailed me out. She was totally sympathetic and supportive, and gave me an office of a staff member away on holidays. This allowed me access to the computer and I was able to log into my own profile at DS, complete my work in about two hours, and then get out of her hair. Sabine, thanks, you are a life saver! See you in Edmonton in November.

Meanwhile, Nan was out doing her level best to support the Whitehorse economy. She had the guys in tow but I think they had their own agendas.

Later, we stopped and had dinner at Jake’s Corner which is, as you might guess, just a corner. Or, more accurately, an intersection. There is a gas station and a diner but it wasn’t even apparent that the diner was open. We were heading to a village called Tagish but we didn’t know if we would be able to find anything there to eat, so we ate at the diner at Jake’s Corner.

As has so often been the case on this trip, we had quite a pleasant surprise. The special was Nono’s favourite, spaghetti and meat sauce, which turned out to be outstanding. Plus, they had fresh, home baking for dessert, which we limited to cookies due to insufficient room to plunge in anything else.

At Tagish, we were heading to Six Mile River Resort. “Resort” might be a bit of a stretch but what it lacked in resort-type amenities, it was more than redeemed with many extras. S.M.R.R. is basically an over-the-top B&B, with four individual cabins, three new and one “classic”. The three new cabins looked like they had been built in the last few years, the classic sometime in the last century however, it had a ton of character and they all had a ton of charm. The cabins and resort are decorated with “stuff” that only our friend Al, from down the street, could really appreciate; it looked like it had been collected at every garage sale and auction over the last 30 years. In our cabin, there was an antiqu There are animal skins on the walls, antique books, a settee, beautiful throw carpet and a view. The bed (not from a garage sale) had probably the best mattress that we have experienced on this trip but get this: Egyptian cotton sheets. If there was any one place that I wanted to just lay around in bed, it was this place. This was about the best bed I have had the pleasure of sleeping in for a long time.

The place is owned by Mitch, the resident head chef and Doug, the decorator and fishing guide. Doug has a 38 pound lake trout tamed and preserved on the dining room wall. They have a person helping in the kitchen but they basically run a full service restaurant, though it is late in the season and only one person comes for dinner. Out of guilt, we choke down quite a few appetizers and a generous quantity of red wine.

Awesome spot and totally worth your visit next time you decide to go to the Yukon Territory on holidays.