The North Pole, the El Dorado Gold Mine, and a brief Glimpse of the Alaska Pipeline

As we left Tok, we had the public reading of the top three moose poems, the voting, and the awarding of prizes.  My prize was the little guy at the left, who became my trusty mascot for the rest of the trip.

Once again, we were trundling down the road, this time heading for Fairbanks, with a couple of planned stops along the way.  And one unplanned stop.  Our coach pulled in to the North Pole.  North Pole, Alaska, that is.

Did you ever write a letter to Santa Clause when you were little, get your mom or dad to address it and stick a stamp on it and then drop it in a mailbox?  Mom and Dad probably thought you'd be terribly disappointed if they told you it just ended up in the dead letter office, so they didn't tell you.  They let you keep your dreams.

Well, it turns out you were right.  Your letter went straight to the North Pole, just not to the one up there inside the Arctic Circle, or even the magnetic north pole.  Those letters wind up here.  North Pole, Alaska might be just one gigantic gift shop and filling station, but its real charm is in the letters.  Take a look.

From the North Pole, we continued on to the El Dorado Gold Mine.  The El Dorado used to be a working gold mine but now it's a piece of history that earns its keep by boarding folks on to a little train that runs next to an old dredging machine, alongside a stream, through a gold mine tunnel, and winds up at a huge shed full of sluice-ways.  At that point, the passengers disembark and learn to pan for gold.

Dredge cross section

Inside the dredge

Dredge Close-up

During the train ride, we passed this reenactment of a Klondike miner, panning for gold

Our panning experience was more on the 'community' level -- several rows of would-be miners seated alongside several sluices.  After the water flowed into the sluice, we did our own panning.  I found $32 worth of gold.

 As with any tour, the train left us stranded at the gift shop for quite a while.  Once the El Dorado had finished 'mining' the tourists, we boarded our coach and headed off toward Fairbanks, with a brief stop at the Alaska Pipeline.

The permafrost that covers much of Alaska prevents the pipeline from being buried underground.  Were it to be underground, the annual temperature fluctuations would quickly break it apart.  After walking under and around the pipeline for a bit and reading the information signs, we headed toward Fairbanks.

Our stay in Fairbanks was brief and I took no pictures -- hotel rooms really do take on a sameness after a while.  So, next stop Denali!

Tok, The Hermaphrodite Moose, and The Great Toilet Paper Scare

As our plane flew towards Beaver Creek, I thought about the difference between the Klondike gold rush in Skagway the way it was handled in Dawson.  Skagway, which was then and still is part of America,  was known for its bars, gunfights, graft, corruption, whorehouses, and general air of lawlessness.  Soapy Smith pulled his scams with impunity until he was killed by vigilantes.  At the Canadian border, everything changed.  The first rule was -- No Handguns.  Hunting rifles were allowed, but all sidearms were surrendered to or confiscated by the Canadian Mounties.  Second, no one was allowed in without a year's worth of provisions (that famous 2000 pounds that required 20 or more trips up and down the steep Chilkoot Pass).  Third, theft, for example of another miner's cache as he made the numerous trips up and down the Chilkoot, was immediately and harshly dealt with by the Mounties.  At Lake Bennett, the Mounties found local people who could teach boat-building to the miners.  By the time they reached Dawson, the miners were a fairly civilized and orderly group.

There are numerous churches in Dawson and the brothels, while allowed, were regulated.  Bars were not open all night and were closed on Sundays.  While Skagway is proud of its wild west ways, Dawson is equally proud of the civilized manner in which it dealt with and kept under control the sudden influx of 10,000 or more newcomers into town.

Flying along the Yukon River toward Beaver Creek, we could see why the Yukon is referred to as a 'braided' river.  Its course changes constantly as glacial silt flows along and is deposited.  The silt settles, building up the river bed until eventually it becomes like a narrow island and the river must change course to go around it.

 Our flight took us south toward Beaver Creek.  At first, we could see the pale strip of the Klondike Highway, but it soon gave out and we flew over miles and miles of wetlands.

Everything was 'hurry up and go' in Dawson, so it wasn't until we landed in Beaver Creek that we could wander around and see the plane that had just carried us there.

The above two shots pretty well sum up our experience of Beaver Creek.  We were immediately whisked back on to our coach, which had been on the road all day long, traveling over double the distance we had just flown in order to get us back on schedule for our night's stay in Tok.

At first, we passed the time by searching through the windows for wildlife.  We were rewarded by beaver dams (above) and moose on several occasions.  Even a moose standing still is difficult to shoot from a bus moving along the bumpy Alaska Highway at 35 miles per hour, but I did manage to get one relatively clear shot of this cow, who only looked up from her underwater grazing long enough to make sure we were the usual sort of traffic.

(Note:  This is not the hermaphrodite moose listed in the title.)

Not long after leaving Beaver Creek, we had a couple of brief stops at the United States/Canada border.  One stop was to allow the customs officials to check our passports.  The other stop was to look at the world from two countries simultaneously.  The border is very well marked.  In fact, you can see it for miles and miles, stretching out on either side of the road.  With another hundred or so miles to go, we settled in to watch the world go by, little knowing that our creative tour guide, Juli, had something quite different in store for us.

Juli began handing out half sheets of white paper to everyone, along with a colored marker -- a different color for everyone in the coach.  "We're going to play Moose Crossing," she announced, "In the lower right corner, write your name."  We all looked a little skeptical but nobody wanted to disappoint Juli and, after all, what else was there to do?

Here's how the game is played.  Juli would shout out a body part for us to draw.  Just one part.  Then we were to pass our sheet to the person in front and grab the drawing from the person behind and each time we passed the sheet, everyone would yell out "Moose Crossing!".  It went on this way with Juli shouting out parts and us drawing, until we were about two thirds of the way through drawing our complete moose.  Okay, now take a quick peek at the final results and you might see why suddenly the words we were calling out were changed to "Moose Abomination!"  The drawings were getting more and more silly, especially as we followed the direction to 'give your moose a gender'.  Some people chose one and some chose the other.  Of course, this was well after we'd been told to add the antlers. . . . do you see where this is going?  (Hint:  males don't have udders and females don't have antlers.)

At the end, we all retrieved the sheet we had started with.  But we weren't done.  The next task was to study our moose -- deeply, thoroughly, becoming 'one with the moose'.  "Now write a poem about your moose."  My poem took a bit longer to write because I had one of those very, very special moose that seldom, if indeed ever, occur in nature . . . . .

Here's my moose and my poem (it did win first prize later on in the trip or I wouldn't be bothering you with it).

The poem goes like this:

The night was hot
And so was he
He sniffed the air
"Ah, yes!  A she!"
He turned and turned
Round and round
That dagblamed cow
Nowhere to be found!
The moon came out
He looked around . . . .
Only to find . . . . that he
Was a she!

And so we rumbled on along the Alaska Highway, looking forward to whatever awaited us in Tok.  Meanwhile, Greg, the driver, was carrying on a serious and low conversation over the two-way radio in the front of the bus.  After a bit, Juli and he had a conference and Juli stood up quite seriously and said she had an announcement to make:

"You probably heard Greg talking on the radio a little while ago.  He was talking with the hotel manager and they have a little bit of a problem.  Tok is way out in the middle of nowhere and everything they get has to be trucked in.  Now, they've got just about everything they need to make your stay comfortable and I know these folks go out of their way to entertain you, since there is absolutely nothing else to do in Tok.  So, first of all I want to tell you that they've extended their annual Christmas in July celebration to August, just for your benefit.  On the downside though, they have run out of one item.  The truck that was to bring in the toilet paper hasn't arrived.  They expect it some time during the night.  But right now, they've asked us to pass out whatever is left on the bus and have you each take what you think will be sufficient for your needs this evening."

The usually ebullient Juli was clearly dead serious so we dutifully passed the roll around and then sat there each contemplating his or her small wad of the precious commodity.  When we got into Tok, the manager came on board and also apprised us of the situation.  He encouraged us to each take a sheet or two from the roll of paper towels he was holding.  So, we did.

Greg, with the last of the supply from the bus.

 We got up to our rooms and pretty much all went through the same process.  First, you pulled your luggage inside and then you stood there wondering just how long you could 'hold it'.  In my case, I happened to look over at the sink vanity area and noticed a box of facial tissues and thought, "well this isn't really so bad. . . "  Then, on a hunch, I went into the little room where the toilet paper was and -- two full rolls!  I think we all made our discovery simultaneously because all around the central hotel courtyard I suddenly heard a lot of whooping and laughing!  We'd been had.

In the end, it was Juli who paid the price for her prank.  She got into her own room and -- no toilet paper -- anywhere!  It wasn't until she went to bed that she discovered two rolls under the pillows.  Turns out someone at Tok has a sense of humor, too.

As we had been warned, there was very little to see or do in Tok.  However, they tried hard to make it up to us. . . . the food was amazing and the decorations very, well, very seasonal. . . .

Before we went to bed we were served hot chocolate (neat or 'otherwise') from a trolley that rolled door to door.

Next stops:  The North Pole, the El Dorado Gold Mine, and a brief Glimpse of the Alaska Pipeline.

Dawson, the Destination of the Klondike Gold Rush

Even today, the Yukon, Dawson and the Klondike River, as well as tiny Rabbit Creek, are remote.  A hundred years ago, it was an arduous trek just to get in or out, accomplished largely on foot.  It took nearly a year for word of the strike to reach the outside world.  Once it did, though, tens of thousands of people world-wide simply stopped what they were doing and headed for the Yukon.  One of the most popular points of embarkation was Seattle, where people could board ships headed north.  Almost overnight, all sorts of more or less seaworthy vessels were converted to carry passengers.  For the vast majority, the destination was either Skagway or Dyea.  There were other routes, but they were either much longer or prohibitively expensive.

So prospectors, mostly people with absolutely no mining experience who were ill-prepared for the rigors of the far north, streamed onto the ships, headed out over the Chilkoot or Whitehorse trails, floated down the Yukon in hastily made boats, and arrived in Dawson.

The Yukon River, full of glacial silt, which gives it a brown-gray color and gritty texture.

On the left is the Klondike River.  Fed by mountain run-off and springs, it is sparkling and clear.  In the top right-hand corner, it meets the Yukon River.  Interestingly, the two rivers don't mingle easily and a clear line of separation can be seen between the two waters for quite a distance down the river after they join.

The water on the bottom of the picture is the Klondike, with the Yukon above.

When the Klondikers reached Dawson, they were in for a devastating surprise.  The Yukon was not empty.  Even before the Rabbit Creek discovery, there were many people there, both from the First Nations and pioneers from other parts of the world.  Virtually all of the claims along the Klondike and its associated creeks had already been claimed.  There was nothing left.

Dawson today survives chiefly by selling its history to tourists.  As such, it has been preserved in its 'glory days', making the entire town a living museum.  A walk around outdoor Dawson reveals almost nothing (apart from vehicles) that is new.  The streets are spread with fresh sandy soil, rather than being paved, for example, although this may have more to do with climate than history.  The harsh conditions imposed by periodic deep freezes alternating with warming make asphalt and concrete buckle.  Packed earth and raised, wooden walkways actually make more sense.

We didn't have any alternate excursions planned, so spent a great deal of time simply walking around town enjoying the photographic 'eye candy'. 

Above three pictures, The El Dorado Hotel, a photograph inside the hotel taken in around 1898 and the way it looks now.

The Masonic Lodge (above) just looks like it's built of stone.  However, stone doesn't do well in a land where the temperature goes between -80 degrees F and +90 degrees F.  This building, and one other less well kept building in town, are faced with sheet metal that has been formed around wood to give the appearance of stone.

The local radio station.

A mural on a wall.

Many establishments consisted of bars on the ground floors, with a brothel above.  To give the same feel, one finds provocatively clothed manikins in the upstairs windows of several buildings around town.

A shop window.

Diamond Tooth Gertie's puts on a really fun 1890's musical review.  Note the woman and little girl on the left -- they were practicing Tai Chi.

Diamond Tooth Gertie

The old post office is only open to people who sign up for the tours that start from the Palace Grand Theater.  The same is true for the original British bank and the El Dorado Hotel.

 The residential area shows signs of both the past and the present, along with a lot of northern ingenuity and whimsy.

The poet Robert Service (perhaps most famous for "The Cremation of Sam McGee") lived in this cabin on the edge of town.  The cache above is adjacent to his cabin.

Being a photographer, I insisted we spend a little time inside the camera obscura, letting our eyes get used to the dark and viewing the world outside in full color and motion, but upside down.

On our second day in Dawson, we took a walk up the road leading out of town, looking for the old cemeteries.  There is one right on the last street before one heads into the woods, but there are also several more along the roadside higher up.  They include two Masonic cemeteries and a Jewish cemetery.  Most of the headstones and wooden markers are now quite old.  However, the air in Dawson is so dry that a lot of the wooden markers can still be read.   Here's a brief glimpse.

People came to the Klondike from all over the world.  This stone was erected in memory of a man born in 1855 in Denmark.  He came to the Yukon in 1886, well ahead of the gold rush, and died in 1900. 

Our hike up the hill and a short hike out to Crocus Bluff gave us a breathtaking view of Dawson, the Klondike, and the Yukon. 

From Dawson, we flew to Beaver Creek, which gave us an amazing view of the Klondike River and the results of all of the mining that's gone on there to get the gold.  The piles of earth are 'tailings' from mining operations -- the residue as dredging equipment moves along the river in the quest for gold.  It was so extensive, that they are visible from very high altitudes, as you can see.

The view from our little plane.

A shot from Google Earth.

And still higher up (also from Google Earth).  The Klondike is the dark line just above the massive, worm-like piles

We landed in Beaver Creek and were immediately transferred to our coach, which would take us on to Tok.

Next installment:  Tok, The Hermaphrodite Moose, and The Great Toilet Paper Scare.