Dawson City and the finish

Dawson City is awesome.  A recreation of the gold rush times with lots of old or recreated buildings and dirt streets.  Bit like Skagway but better.

First stop was the paddlewheel graveyard. On the opposite bank to Dawson, it is the last resting place of about 6 paddlewheel boats that, having served their purpose, were pushed up on the bank and left to rot.  Despite their condition it is pretty cool

Dawson city buildings are pretty neat too

Not far out of town is the lasts resting place of Gold dredge number 4.  These are amazing pieces of technolgy for their day.  Costing $11 million in todays money these giant 4 story mining machines extracted billions of dollars of gold from local riverbeds.

And so the the main point of being here. The sourtoe cocktail.  They are down to their last toe so I feel lucky to have been able to do this.  Given the amount of people that do it (at $5 per person plus the drink) I can see why they are keen to get a new toe cause the one they have is deteriorating rapidly!!

Down to the Downtown Hotel and a shot of Yukon Jack.  In goes the toe and I am member number 56251.

Just after my shot a guy showed up and displayed his missing big toe while another punter had his shot.  Not sure what was said but the guys wife who was photographing the event was not too impressed.

I had to do the toe twice because although I got a video of the first attempt I had no stills.  The second night I returned and got the Captain to take a few shots without all the pagentry


Went down to Diamond Tooth Gerties to check out the show.  Nice recreation of an old saloon but the can can show was a little ho-hum

Visited the old Dawson City cemetery.  Some graves going back to mid 1800's and a section for Civil War veterans but as most graves were unmarked or headstones weathered beyond readabilty is was hard to tell.  Particularly poignant was the childrens section.  Many graves were done with a cot or bed surrounding the grave.  Very sad.

And so to the return journey.  Through the Poker Creek border crossing which, like almost all of the Taylor highway, sits on the ridgeline of the mountain range (green buildings right centre of this photo).  Great view but very remote and, I suspect, quite boring as jobs go.

A brief stay in Tok and then on to Anchorage via the beautiful Glenn Highway which passes a dozen glaciers and the Wrangell - St Elias National Park.

Some people may have been distraced by the scenery with ordinary results

Lots of RVs and pickups towing ATVs unloading or camping at the side of the road.  Curiosity got the better of me and I discovered that it was hunting season opening in 2 days and these people were heading off to the bush to set up camp ready for Day 1.  I reckon every 3rd car coming from Anchorage was equipped with an ATV (and probably lots of guns!!).

So got to Beluga Point south of Anchorage in time for the bore tide which is supposed to generate a wave.  The massive outflowing tide from the Turnagain Arm inlet meets the incoming king tide.  Was interesting to watch but  not as impressive as the wave generated down the Amazon river for instance.  It is still one of the biggest tides in the world and fun to watch

On to Anchorage to watch the fisherpersons in Ship Creek. On the high tide the Salmon travel upstream into the heart of Anchorage and local fisherpersons take advantage.  The bridge over the creek has become a viewpoint for tourists to watch the action. Fishing was good with a salmon being taken every few minutes.

And finishing my Alaskan adventure was a flight to Honolulu via Seattle (thanks Alaskan Airlines for dropping the direct flight!!).  The only good thing was the chance to see some amazing scenery so I selected a window seat on the left hand side and got to see some great glaciers and mountains.

Off to Hawaii's big island for 5 days.