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| The Alaskan Highway, Yukon Territory, Canada |
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| 9:00am Downtown Watson Lake |
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| 9:00am Downtown Watson Lake |
The sun rose above Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada and bathed the two dirt streets along this straight section of the Alaskan Highway with diffused light. It was still dusk at 9:00am. That's correct. It was 9:00am and just starting to get light. A stark reminder that we were closer to the Arctic Circle and not at home. A quick stop at the Native run convenience store, next to the only three motels in town lined all in a row, provided a breakfast for the road. Nine dollars bought a box of pop tarts and a very small orange juice. Another reminder that we were not in the U.S. any more. Food, gas and lodging are incredibly high in the small towns in this remote wilderness. The dirt, pot hole filled parking lot of the store was frozen hard and slippery where ice covered the ground. A conversation with a local had informed us that winter was late arriving to this part of the Yukon. Usually it would be colder and more snow would be on the ground for the remainder of the long winter.
Before heading out of town, we stopped at the Sign Post Forest. This unique park covered a three acre portion of the town and had walls covered with signs from all over the world. Road and highway signs were tacked on walls along with license plates from travelers passing through. A Pennsylvania Interstate 81 sign and a novelty front license plate from Nauvoo, a small village southwest of Liberty, PA brought back memories from home in Tioga County. If we had known about this park, we would have brought something from home to leave as homage to the infamous Alaskan Highway. It would have been fun to leave our mark as an indicator that we had passed through this remote wilderness.
The Alaskan Highway winding through the Yukon is ribbon of asphalt running between a wide corridor carved out of the pine forest. The highway is also known as Route 1. One of only four highways in the entire territory and of those, one of the only two that are paved. Originally built as a military haul road to connect Alaska to the Lower 48, the rough dirt road has been upgraded and is now paved. The pavement is heaved, cracked and patched as it winds over hills and across rivers. During the entire drive from Watson Lake to the territory capitol of Whitehorse, a total of 5 hours, we only saw two other vehicles going in our direction. There were many tractor trailers coming east. All had Alaska license plates and large grill guards on the front to protect the trucks from animal collisions. The trucks were an impressive sight as they topped the rises coming toward us on the highway. Their tall twin exhaust stacks belched smoke as black as coal.
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| Teslin, Yukon territory, Canada |
Over hills and rivers the highway wound its way through the wilderness. Pine trees stretched for miles in every direction backing up to high snow covered mountains. The road rose and fell with the terrain. Occasionally a long lake would appear through the trees or directly below the elevated roadway. The highway had been build on a base raising it thirty feet above the forest floor. The view of the tree tops created a carpet affect as you looked out the car windows. A couple of small villages along the highway were comprised of a few houses and junk cars. Sign and sign along the road advertised campgrounds with large closed signed across them. Lodging and fuel are a huge concern along the Alaskan Highway. The days travel must be carefully planned. Our destination of Whitehorse had been carefully chosen as the next larger town with lodging was Tok, Alaska eight hours past Whitehorse. There's very few villages between the two larger towns and gas stations tend to close early in the evening we were warned. Plus dark comes early this time of year this far north. The only safe choice for travel was Whitehorse. Between Watson Lake and Whitehorse the only fuel stop was Teslin. Two gas stations and handful of houses comprised this small village next to a large bridge crossing the Teslin River. The narrow open grate bridge was long and boasted a sign before the bridge that appropriately warned of a rough bridge deck.
Five hours after leaving Watson Lake and driving through a vast forest ringed by mountains, signs appeared for Whitehorse. Street lights began to line the highway and signs advertising local businesses dotted the roadside. Turning down the hill into Whitehorse revealed a town much different then what I had been told it was like in the 1970's and 80's. A small frontier town with a wild west feel back then, that proudly boasted the only paved section of road on the whole highway, now had a feel of a modern small city. I had heard tales of guys that had hung out in the town telling tales of wild partying, drinking and TV's being thrown out of the windows of the Yukon Hotel. Now it's a small city boasting Mcdonalds, Tim Hortons, Pizza Hut and even a Walmart. Even in the middle of nowhere the evil empire shows it's presence. For curiosity sake, a quick trip to the only Walmart in the Yukon revealed disappointingly that they in fact did not sell racks of flannel shirts and suspenders. Robert Service is probably turning over in his grave knowing that his tales of the Malamute Saloon has been replaced by goods mass produced by slave labor in China. I'm sure his Yukon is still alive up here somewhere but Whitehorse has changed much in the past 100 years. Natives worked in all the businesses and teenagers wandered the downtown streets enjoying the sunshine while they still could before winter fully set in. New modern architecture mixed with older buildings to form the downtown area of the small city. Territory government buildings were a looming presence in the one time wild gold mining boom town.
Tomorrow it's on to Tok, Alaska further along the Alaskan Highway. The border crossing back into the U.S. should be interesting. Hopefully, we're not picked for a random search as the car is packed so tightly it might not be possible to repack. Two more days to arriving in Anchorage and the end of this segment of the journey weather permitting.
The Shooting of Dan McGraw
| A bunch of the boys were whooping it up
In the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box
Was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game,
Sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love,
The lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below,
And into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks,
Dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave
And scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar,
And he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face,
Though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink
Was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes,
And hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me
Like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare
Of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass,
And the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was,
And wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head -- and there watching him
Was the lady that's known as Lou.
His eyes went rubbering round the room,
And he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell
In the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink;
There was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room,
And flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt
He sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands --
My God! but that man could play.
Were you ever out in the Great Alone,
When the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in
With a silence you most could HEAR;
With only the howl of a timber wolf,
And you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world,
Clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red,
The North Lights swept in bars? --
Then you've a haunch what the music meant . . .
Hunger and night and the stars.
And hunger not of the belly kind,
That's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men
For a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are,
Four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy,
And crowned with a woman's love --
A woman dearer than all the world,
And true as Heaven is true --
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, --
The lady that's known as Lou.)
Then on a sudden the music changed,
So soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean
Of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved;
That her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you
Was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair,
And it thrilled you through and through --
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere,"
Said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost died away . . .
Then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay,"
And my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong,
And it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill . . .
Then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned
In a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt
He sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin,
And he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me,
And none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight,
And I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell . . .
and that one is Dan McGrew."
Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out,
And two guns blazed in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up,
And two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead,
Was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast
Of the lady that's known as Lou.
These are the simple facts of the case,
And I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch",
And I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys,
But strictly between us two --
The woman that kissed him and -- pinched his poke --
Was the lady that's known as Lou. |
Before heading out of town, we stopped at the Sign Post Forest. This unique park covered a three acre portion of the town and had walls covered with signs from all over the world. Road and highway signs were tacked on walls along with license plates from travelers passing through. A Pennsylvania Interstate 81 sign and a novelty front license plate from Nauvoo, a small village southwest of Liberty, PA brought back memories from home in Tioga County. If we had known about this park, we would have brought something from home to leave as homage to the infamous Alaskan Highway. It would have been fun to leave our mark as an indicator that we had passed through this remote wilderness.
The Alaskan Highway winding through the Yukon is ribbon of asphalt running between a wide corridor carved out of the pine forest. The highway is also known as Route 1. One of only four highways in the entire territory and of those, one of the only two that are paved. Originally built as a military haul road to connect Alaska to the Lower 48, the rough dirt road has been upgraded and is now paved. The pavement is heaved, cracked and patched as it winds over hills and across rivers. During the entire drive from Watson Lake to the territory capitol of Whitehorse, a total of 5 hours, we only saw two other vehicles going in our direction. There were many tractor trailers coming east. All had Alaska license plates and large grill guards on the front to protect the trucks from animal collisions. The trucks were an impressive sight as they topped the rises coming toward us on the highway. Their tall twin exhaust stacks belched smoke as black as coal.
Over hills and rivers the highway wound its way through the wilderness. Pine trees stretched for miles in every direction backing up to high snow covered mountains. The road rose and fell with the terrain. Occasionally a long lake would appear through the trees or directly below the elevated roadway. The highway had been build on a base raising it thirty feet above the forest floor. The view of the tree tops created a carpet affect as you looked out the car windows. A couple of small villages along the highway were comprised of a few houses and junk cars. Sign and sign along the road advertised campgrounds with large closed signed across them. Lodging and fuel are a huge concern along the Alaskan Highway. The days travel must be carefully planned. Our destination of Whitehorse had been carefully chosen as the next larger town with lodging was Tok, Alaska eight hours past Whitehorse. There's very few villages between the two larger towns and gas stations tend to close early in the evening we were warned. Plus dark comes early this time of year this far north. The only safe choice for travel was Whitehorse. Between Watson Lake and Whitehorse the only fuel stop was Teslin. Two gas stations and handful of houses comprised this small village next to a large bridge crossing the Teslin River. The narrow open grate bridge was long and boasted a sign before the bridge that appropriately warned of a rough bridge deck.
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