Saturday 14th June Tok to Whitehorse

We had a 6.45pm departure this morning heading for Whitehorse. Our first stop was the America/Canadian border. We had lots of fun posing for photos with one foot in the USA and the other in Canada. We continued to travel along the Alaska Highway and follow along the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. We stopped for lunch at the Talbot Arms in Destruction Bay. Destruction Bay is on the shores of the Kluane Lake, once a meeting place for crews constructing the Alaska Highway and has a population of 25. There was a spectacular view of the rugged mountains of Kluane National Park, home to Mount Logan 5981 metres high, Canada's highest peak. We spotted a grizzly bear and then a little further along another grizzly bear sighting. The unsealed road through Kluane National Park was very bumpy and Les our driver played Shake, Rattle and Roll over the speakers, which everyone roared with laughter.

Mike from Hawaii who was sitting in the very back row of the bus was rolling all over the place, it was hilarious.

We stopped at Miles canyon which is a spectacular feature of the Yukon River. The canyon was carved by thousands of centuries of swift moving water. There is a suspension bridge called the Robert E. Lowe Bridge where the river meets the Schwatka Lake. Once a spot of treacherous rapids and lost lives during the Klondike Gold rush. Whitehorse was named after the rapids (for their resemblance to the mane of a white horse) in the Yukon river which gold stampeders including Jack London had to negotiate in their flimsy and laden craft. The river has since been dammed and rapids are no longer, but you still get a sense of what it must have been like back in the day.

Whitehorse is the capital and largest city of Yukon and the territorial headquartrs of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We checked into our hotel, the High Country Inn, for the next two nights.

Pete and I walked around downtown and had dinner at a nearby Chinese Restaurant. Bed at 10pm, its been a long day.