I slept so well again, huddled in my sleeping bag. Sadie was by my feet and Zeke was in the driver's seat when I woke up at 7am. The town was already awake. I knew I had a drive to complete today, but the continued rain really dampened my spirits. I stopped in at the Tempo cafe for coffee. The men sitting in the cafe were all hardened hunters dressed in their winter hunting gear. People who live here fulltime are people who truly love the Arctic cold.
The drive from Watson Lake north toward Whitehorse honestly wasn't that spectacular. The highway in Yukon is of lower quality (more gravel) than in British Columbia and there are no shoulders. The median line is barely noticeable. The 4000' peaks are barren. The trees are barely surviving. The one thing I did notice was the cold. I felt like I was up in New Hampshire in October. More fog and drizzle followed me.
The mountains around me now were around 4000' and in Arizona would be considered hills. Some still had snow on the top. Locals here drive Ford or Chevy trucks. The only foreign vehicles I see are from the tourists driving through to or from Alaska.
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The one place of note was Teslin, a small community on Teslin Lake. I stopped here to let the dogs out to pee at the rest stop marina (watching them carefully) when a First Nation park employee drove up to clean the public washrooms and replace the trash bags. He saw my Arizona plates and asked me the dreaded question, "So what do you think about *resident trump?" He answered his question for me so all I had to do was agree with him. As a First Nation member, he's concerned about the land around him. I respect that. I just hope I don't become a constant target of Canadians because of trump.
I never got the man's name but I appreciated his honesty. He saw Zeke take a dump in the grass and I promised to pick it up (I did). A white employee would have ranted and hollered about my dog shitting on the green grass blahblahblah and citing some city code. I was honestly surprised about his cool touch with nature. There was a mutual respect in our interaction.
Whitehorse was another 160km away. When I arrived to town in the early afternoon I was actually relieved. The drive today didn't offer much for explorers unless they were hunters. The town expands along the Yukon River. I stopped at the city park to walk the dogs along the river walk, but also needed to secure a campsite for the night at the city's campground just outside the town limit and along the Millennium River walk. Sites here are small and CND22 for the night. Wifi is $5 extra and showers require loonies (Canadian dollar coins).
The campsite was very quiet, but everytime someone walked by our site, the dogs barked. At 1:15am I took them on the 2.8-mile loop trail around the Yukon river. The trail is visible as one drives into town from the east. It's heavily used, but at this late hour there were only three anglers on the north bank. It was bright enough to read a book by, but once back at the van, we all crawled inside to sleep soundly.
I drove 298 miles (30 in and around town), with a total of 3416 now.
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