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20050617 Teslin BC 38/79 Cool in the morning, warm in the afternoon. Picture Link
We left Dease Lake behind most of the mob but caught up with them up the road, in the final gravel section. For a while, we were fifth of six rigs in a line going north. When we reached Jade City, the others turned in to investigate; we've been there and didn't need to look at Schlock North again. Incidentally, the mine outside town produces 75% of all the jade in the world.
We continued at a reasonable pace. Sometimes reasonable was 80kph (50mph), sometimes it was quite a bit less. When we reached the Yukon border, things improved. Very soon after that, 37 jointed Yukon 1, the Alaska Highway or Alcan Highway, whichever you prefer. We refueled there and headed west for Teslin.
A word on fuel prices. We've been paying the equivalent of about $2.55/gallon in Canada - not that much different from Oregon & Washington. As we get north, however, transportation costs run it up. At Dease Lake it was $3.33 and here in Teslin $3.20. This is partly offset by the low campground costs; tonight's was $17US.
The only four-legged wildlife sighting was a rodent - some sort of ground squirrel.
The Alcan is in much better shape than the Cassiar. In fact, it's better than most two-lane roads in the US. We hummed along at 65mph without problems. The problem is that you don't see much wildlife with the amount of traffic the Alcan carries.
We turned in at the Yukon Motel, Restaurant, and RV Park just across the bridge at Teslin. The breeze was nice, since it was quite warm and there are a bunch of mosquitos (wet spring). We started taking pictures around the campground when a pair of bald eagles flew in and attached themselves to the very tops of two pine trees.
Dolores set the camera to maximum resolution (for better post-processing) and shot many pictures of them. They were very impressive.
We drove west in the truck to the Teslin Tlingit Native Center, a modern place just west of town. The Tlingits are ususally coastal people, but part of the group came up here from the Juneau area and settled. Their story is familiar - living in peace, subsisting on the resources of the region, trading the furs they trapped, and little other contact with the outside. Then WWII and the Alcan highway changed their world; a measle epidemic nearly wiped them out, fur prices went through the bottom so their trading was devastated, and alchoholism and other vices came in. Now they're coming back.
The video shown us was very good, focusing on George Johnston of the Tlingits, who was a real leader. We looked at the exhibits and gift shop. Then we left and returned to the campground.
Then we spoke to some fellow Floridians parked next to us. They're from Putnam County (Palatka and such).
After that, we went out to dinner at a place Dolores had seen set in a Sue Henry novel east of Teslin. We found it, a restaurant/campground/motel combination named the Dawson Peaks Resort, and had a great meal of halibut with hollandaise, rice & vegetable mousse. As we were paying, we asked the owner if he was "Dave", to which he replied affirmatively and pointed to his wife as the wife named in the book (Charlotte?).
A person there introduced himself as being from Punta Gorda, Florida. He said he got his hurricane-damaged roof work done only a few weeks ago.
We returned to the campground and turned on the air-conditioning (temp in the trailer was 85). We finally turned it off at 9:30 when the outside temperature went down to 76. We did the photograph transfer into the PC and organized them. Dolores is alternating between reading and watching the "First Nation Station" or APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network?).
Tomorrow, we're into Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon. We can do church on Sunday and do some other things, including eating at Pandas - our favorite.
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