Pelly Crossing to Mayo to Dawson City

Welcome to the town of Mayo

The North Klondike Highway is narrower and rougher, in general, than the Alaska Highway. We encountered numerous short dirt sections, and one long one, about 6 miles. Other sections of the highway had patching done. All of these contributed to keeping our average speed somewhere around 40-45 mph, although there were sections where we were able to maintain 55 (90 Km), the posted speed limit. I have to give credit to the road crews, the road may not be smooth, but where there are serious bumps, the kind that would send us flying out of our seats, they have placed signs or cones to warn us, and I was careful to take heed. It appears that they are widening the highway for many miles, north of Pelly Crossing, as a wide clear strip appears along, with wood from clearing in various states from piled to burned.

Wildlife was hiding from us along this highway. We saw nothing along the road that moved. The fireweed, daisies, roses, crown vetch, and other wildflowers were just as abundant as the day before.

Evidence of other forest fires were marked along the highway, one dating back to 1958, where the vegetation appeared mostly normal, except that the fir trees had not fully recovered.

Another Mayo Clinic

We took a side tour up to the town of Mayo, about 35 miles up to the east. Mayo sports a very active historical association, with a downtown walking tour highlighting the old structures, and a restored 1920 house filled with artifacts. Mayo is situated along the Stewart River, and came to fame by being the shipping point for silver ore (galena) mined upstream. Tons or ore would be piled along the riverbank in the winter, waiting for the river to that and the steamboat to arrive. We found the museum interesting, but had doubts about the 60 mile side trip to see it.

100 miles farther up the road we came to Dawson. The road eventually paralleled the Yukon River, wide and fast in these parts at this time of year. Other areas along the highway appeared to be quite swampy. Close to Dawson, the road is lined for several miles with tailing piles from the dredge that worked though here along the river.

Cheap camping in Dawson City

We thought we would stay in an RV park called GuggieVille, but could not find it where we expected south of town on the highway. We did see 3 others, one that appeared to be all braggadocio (Bonanza), one fronted by a gas station (Dawson City), and one sign advertising “Off Road RV Parking $10.00”, fronted by a construction equipment repair shop. We went into the city, turned around and came back, and found GuggieVille stuffed in the side of Bonanza, actually part of the same park. We went to register, found that they had dry camping, but did not allow generators, which would not work for us. Besides, the lady was quite arrogant about it, wanting to upgrade us to their most expensive site. So we left and pulled into the construction repair place, built on top of the mine tailings. I found the owner quite friendly, paid him for one night. We had a flat empty gravel lot of about 5 acres all to ourselves, free to run our generator at will. As it turns out, our electrical use has been quite controlled, and we didn't even need the generator until the next morning. And in retrospect, Dawson is a working town. It's appropriate that we park alongside some of the equipment that put this place on the map. At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Views from our campsite

After we parked, we went into town to get some supper. We drove around first, checking out the restaurants, and decided on a Greek restaurant. However, when we checked the posted menu, we discovered that we would be paying $50 for supper, more than we wanted. (OK, those readers that think we're too cheap can choose another blog here...) We looked further, and found Sourdough Joe's, which had great pea soup, fish (salmon) and chips, or (salmon) burgers. Tasty, and much kinder to our wallet.

We went home to finish the evening playing Scrabble (Consuelo beat me... again!) and watching more Johny Carson on DVD.