Whitehorse to Moose Creek

Leaving Whitehorse, we drove North up the Klondike Highway, roughly following the Yukon River which widens a few miles out of Whitehorse to form Lake Labarge. Lake Labarge was made famous through Robert Service’s poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee” (which took place on the “marge of Lake Labarge”).

The road (paved) was pretty good, with some sections under construction. The ‘bumps’ were well marked.

We stopped at Carmacks, site of an old trading post from the fur-trading days and a roadhouse from the days of the winter stage coach road. These road houses were found about every 20 miles to feed and water the horses as well as provide hot meals and shelter to the passengers.

We took a walk on the boardwalk along the Yukon River. Gino posed in front of some pretty rose bushes for me.

We also stopped to read the signs and take pictures at Five Fingers Rapid. This major hurdle for river navigation occurred where five large rocks divided up the Yukon River into channels. The stern-wheelers had to use a steel cable which was anchored in the rock to help them avoid wrecking.

We stopped for supper at Moose Creek Lodge. It’s a historic lodge full of interesting stuff and known for its excellent baking and home-cooking. We had beef stew, rice and carrots.

Just another kilometer down the road, we settled in at the Moose Creek Campground for the night. Took a walk on the hiking trails then built a campfire and made smores. Yum! This the first time we’ve run into lots of mosquitoes.

There are lots of wild-flowers in the ditches and around our campsite: fireweed, roses, lupines, goldenweed, bunchberries. At times, the fireweed fills the ditch on both sides of the road. Very pretty but doesn’t show up well in a picture.

This is a picture of fireweed:

This picture shows lupine in the front and bunchberries/dogwood in the background: