Forest fires near Tok Junction on our
way to Dawson City, Yukon Terratory.After our late night out, we slept late and rose at about eight for coffee and then breakfast. We talked for awhile with the occupants of the only other plane in the campground, two men who work for Beech Aircraft. They had a magnificently equipped Bonanza which belonged to the employee's flying club. They rented it for $20 per hour or something like that. Envy.
It was still our hope to fly to Barrow. My general plan was to fly to Bettles about an hour's flight north of Fairbanks and refuel. Then we would cross the Brooks Range and fly direct to Barrow (about two hours, 287 nm), if Barrow, which is on the coast, was socked in, we could fly back to Umiat (45 minutes south of Barrow) or we could make it back to Bettles to refuel.
The appeal of flying to Barrow was of uncertain origin and was certainly not justified for the rewards awaiting us in Barrow as tourists. But Tory was enthusiastic too, so it was probably just the desire to go as far north as we could and see the most unusual things we could.
Since we didn't have a car anymore, we packed the plane and taxied down to the flight service station (about a mile away from the campground). One check of the weather told us all we needed to know. Barrow was still zero-zero in fog. It had been so for three days and was likely to remain so. So our trip to Barrow was not practical. We had a little caucus to consider our options. We had just about exhausted Fairbanks (in one day). Arctic Circle Hot Springs was inaccessible due to the smoke. Perhaps it was time to turn around and head south, that is home.
So we decided to head for Dawson City in the Yukon Territory, the site of the 1897-1899 gold rush. It was supposedly an interesting well preserved town and was on our list all along. We filed an instrument flight plan to Dawson City. We took off at 9:43 am and were shortly climbing out in the smoke. We leveled off at 9,000 feet mostly in the clear.
Our route took us south east over Tok Junction to Northway, and then over rugged mountains to Dawson. The first part of the flight was uneventful. We were in the clouds perhaps a third of the time. Around Tok we were in the clear long enough to see several widespread fire areas. We looked for fire tanker operations but could see none.
Forest fires near Tok Junction on our
way to Dawson City, Yukon Terratory.
After Northway (11:20 am) we left the security of the Alaska highway and the relatively flat lands around it and headed due east over some rugged looking mountains. We were also back to the primitive ADF navigation. The distance to Dawson was 100 nm and before we had totally lost Northway VOR we were getting a good signal from Dawson NDB which is on the field. The weather had deteriorated and we were continuously in the clouds and it looked like we would be doing an NDB approach into Dawson. As we descended we began to break out and, as it turned out, we arrived over the field with pretty good visibility straight down although there were rain showers in all quadrants. We dodged another plane that was leaving. After the usual "Check gear down" greeting we descended in several steep spirals to land to the east on a 5,000 foot gravel runway (sorry again Mike). Actually, it was in good shape. We arrived in Dawson at 1:05 having lost an hour as we crossed into Canada. We were now back on Pacific Standard Time, almost home.
The airport at Dawson is on the Klondike River about 15 miles up river from where the Klondike merges with the Yukon. As we descended to the airport we could see that the ground on both sides of the river was all churned up. It looked like hundreds of enormous intertwined earthworms with the worm's bodies being fifty feet or so across. This feature of the earth extended inland perhaps half a mile from the river's edge until the way was blocked by the steep hills on either side of the valley. We learned that these were the result of dredges that floated around in canals chewing up the gold laden earth from which was extracted the gold. The detritus was spit out the back of the dredge and formed the earth worms we saw from the air.
We taxied to the main ramp and went through Canadian customs conducted by a pleasant roly poly youngish woman. It turned out the gas attendant had to come in from town 15 miles away and that would take half an hour. We asked about camping at the airport. That caused several deep frowns and general cluck clucks of disapproval. Someone suggested that we cross the highway, and walk a few hundred yards to the Klondike River which, we were told, was very pleasant. This did not please us but we taxied down to the gas pumps and had lunch while we waited for the gas attendant to arrive.
In due course a lady arrived and gassed us up. We asked if she could give us a lift into town. We were surprised by a half negative answer but after some discussion, she finally agreed and we piled into the cab of her pickup truck. As we talked, she warmed up and was actually quite nice and helpful. In retrospect, I think her reluctance was due to not wanting to interfere with the taxi cab concession. We learned later that transportation in the Dawson area is big business.
Dawson is on the bank of the Yukon River as is Whitehorse, four hundred miles up river to the south. The two towns were linked by river boat until a road was pushed through in the thirties. The town is dominated by a big mountain to the north with a characteristic scar of bare rock. All the buildings have a turn-of-the-century gold town look and are in a remarkably good state of preservation. The town really spreads out quite a bit (during the gold rush, it had a population of over 30,000 people. Today I would estimate that there are three hundred buildings standing. Its year-round population is under a thousand people.
The streets are unpaved. In general, the town didn't look that busy. We did not see dozens of tour busses (or even one) in spite of the fact that the principle industry is tourism. Apparently there are still active mining interests in the Yukon Territory.
We noticed signs advertising a combination salmon barbecue dinner and river boat tour that sounded interesting. It turned out they were all booked up so we couldn't do that.
So we checked in at the main tourist center/museum to see what was the best way to see the sights. They recommended a free walking tour that was just getting ready to leave. So we latched onto the tour which was led by a pleasant young man in period costume with a bowler hat. He started out in quite a long winded way that I feared would be frightfully dull and short on facts. But he soon got into his stride and the tour was actually quite interesting.
We started off at the water front where the guide described river boats and how the miners arrived in Dawson after a 1,000 mile trip from Skagway, over Chilkoot Pass, and down the Yukon from Lake Bennett. We walked around several streets looking at period buildings including the main commercial bank, the post office, and the red light district. Here we heard an anecdote about a benevolent madame who was finally closed down in 1950.
There was an odd side story here. One member of the tour was a nice looking young man probably about Tory's age traveling alone. When the story about the Madame began, he grumbled to us about how disgraceful it was that we had to listen to this garbage which "glorified the exploitation of women". We looked at him as if to say we thought his comment was a little strange (which we did) so he went off to complain to some other more receptive listener. He probably did no better with any one else since he soon walked off outraged. Tory and I discussed it and found his behavior inappropriate since prostitution in Dawson (and in all mostly-male communities) was a fact of life and a part of the history of the town. We were not here because we this was a normal small town. We were here because this town has an unusual and interesting history, and we wanted to hear about it. In fact, the anecdotes were very mild, non sexual, and generally presented with humor. Oh well, it take all kinds of people to make up the world.
We realized that we had forgotten the camera and could not record our impressions of Dawson.
Dawson, more than any other place we visited, was a tourist attraction. And in spite of an obvious commercialism, it was most enjoyable, Both the tour and the museum were free and everybody was eager to help.
At about this time, Tory announced that she wasn't feeling too well. It sounded like she had a touch of flu or just a cold creeping up due to exhaustion and lack of sleep. We decided to forego dinner in town or any further activities and to return to the plane and set up our campsite.
Had Tory been feeling well, we probably would have hitchhiked the 15 miles back to the airport. Instead, we inquired about a taxi and got hooked into the $24 dollars ride back to the airport. The taxi really was a tour van and the taxi driver was dressed up to look like a 1900's vintage snake oil salesman. We were miffed about the fare but kept our irritation to ourselves.
We arrived back at the airport and unpacked our critical gear. We then carried it in 3 trips about two hundred yards across the highway to the banks of the Klondike River. The scene was really quite idyllic, on a little rise above the banks of the river. We were far enough off the highway, known as the Dempster Highway (I keep remembering "Dumpster"), that the occasional 18-wheeler was hardly heard. The only problem was that we were on what seemed to be a heavily traveled dirt road which looked like an excellent teenage "parking" place. We were wondering if somebody might accidentally drive over our tent in the night (forgetting that there really was no night).
Our campsite on the banks of the
Klondike River near Dawson City.
We set up camp. I then set out to catch dinner. The Klondike river was perhaps 100 yards wide and divided into two main channels. The smaller of the two ran in front of our tent. This was easily crossed. The bigger channel was on the other side of a fifty yard wide gravel bar was quite wide (75 feet), swiftly flowing, and deep. The water had that familiar brown grey look and was very cold. I fished for some time to no avail. Then Tory came by and took over with no better success. Not even a nibble. We assumed that our remaining lures were not appetizing to the local fish. Tory, incidently, managed to lose a lure in a tree branch so we really were down to the last bits of fishing tackle.
By this time it was perhaps seven o'clock and the skies were looking very very threatening. The occasional drop from the heavens encouraged us to return to our tent and to button up. We got there just as a nasty thunderstorm hit. It was thrashing the tent all over the place and the tent stakes were pulled out of the ground. In fact, one tent stake strap in the front, completely ripped off and the tent started flapping around quite noisily. This required a solution, fast. So I went to the river bank and carried up eight big smooth rocks (about 5-8 pounds each) and put them in all four corners and the mid points of each side of the tent. This kept the tent attached to the ground but as the rains started, the rocks, which were touching the sides of the tent, acted as wicks drawing the water through the tent walls into the tent. As the night progressed we found ourselves awash within our own tent.
We didn't know it at the time, but this was the beginning of fourteen hours of continuous rain. It didn't stop till mid morning of the next day. And it rained hard with occasional bouts of wind and thunder and lightning. We were in the tent (except for damp calls of nature) for the duration.
We cooked dinner in the tent forgetting all the cardinal rules designed to discourage bear attacks. We ate in the tent, and then placed our dirty dishes out in front of the tent. (These are absolute no-no's in bear country. We were not thinking !!). But it's raining out there, we kept telling ourselves.
The hot chocolate ritual to ward off
the evil storm raging outside our tent.
After bedtime hot chocolate, we turned in and I, for one, tried to ignore that the lower half of my sleeping bag was soaking wet. The trick was for avoiding the water was to huddle up in the middle of the tent as far away from the walls as one could get. Anything that touched the wall caused a steady stream of water to come in and usually got soaked itself (if it was soakable). The problem was that all our gear, milk crates, table, stove, chairs occupied the middle of the tent. So we had a night where people and things were competing for a small patch of dry ground in the middle of the tent.
I had a cold, wet wretched night's sleep that was far more miserable than my cold night at Watson lake. I had three demons haunting me. First was the cold and wet. Second was the imagined bear population lurking just outside the tent. And third was anxiety about the weather and flying the next day. I imagined ourselves being in Dawson for a week as the rain and thunderstorms kept us out of the air. I did not fancy flying in the weather that surrounded us now. I had not expected it from the forecasts and did not know how long it would last.
The morning finally arrived and it continued to pour. We took this opportunity to turn over, check the rain, look for a dry spot, and catch another half hours sleep. By our standards, we really "slept in". It was after nine o'clock before we roused ourselves. And wonder of wonders, the rain was letting up.
We had a leisurely breakfast and plotted our plan of action. The first step was a walk over to the flight service station. It was surprising that a dirt strip like Dawson had a very good FSS. Air Transport Canada is really quite remarkable in that respect. Very unlike the US where the FSSs are being closed as fast as they can be.
The FSS staff was tearing their hair out with the weather forecast. It appeared that the weather guessers in Ottawa had no idea why it was raining in Dawson when the weather was fine in all directions. The problem was getting out of Dawson.
I filed an IFR flight to Watson Lake. Our route of flight was Dawson direct Whitehorse, Telsin, Watson lake. The first leg was 226 NM (260 miles) with no navaids or habitation. We would be out of range of any usable navaid for nearly an hour. It really was a case of point the airplane and go.
As we were getting packed, a young pilot in a Cherokee 140 (a small two seat trainer type airplane) came by. He was getting ready to depart to Whitehorse. I asked him if he was going IFR. He smiled and said he was going to follow the Yukon River and would be flying at 200 to 300 feet above the river. This route was over four hundred miles long (as opposed to the straight line distance of 260 miles). He seemed to have no anxiety about four hours at 200 feet in very rough country. My guess was he thought that IFR away from the known (and traveled) river route just as crazy. Well, each to his own methods. We wished each other well and he took off. Even though he left half an hour before us, I figured we overflew Whitehorse two hours before he got there.
As we were striking the campsite, the rains obligingly stopped. We rolled up our damp possessions and packed the plane (which must have been 30 pounds heavier as a result of the accumulated moisture). We started up and took off to the west, climbed out of the Klondike River valley, and swung south to pick up our course tracking outbound from Dawson NDB, dah-dit-dit dah-dah-dit-dah.
This flight was one of the most interesting and challenging of the trip. It was over totally uninhabited country, without navaids (for the first leg), and in instrument conditions. We flew at 9,000 and were in the clouds 75 percent of the time for the first hour and then the weather improved as we approached Whitehorse. After Whitehorse, we were in totally clear weather.
In and Out of the clouds at 9,000
feet IFR from Dawson to Whitehorse. It was a little lonely with
the next navaid 260 nautical miles away.
Between clouds, we could look down and see some rugged mountains. Several times the Yukon crossed our route below us. The river valley looked narrow, steeply guarded on all sides, and dark. I was glad we were not down there.
Tory, with apologies and reference to the flu, succumbed to aeronautical narcolepsy and snoozed away. It was her first and only airborne nap of the trip. My feeling at that moment over the Northern Yukon Territories was one of considerable loneliness.
After about 20 minutes of flight we lost the signal from the Dawson NDB and our only job was to maintain the heading of 120 degrees until we came into range of Whitehorse NDB or VOR. We actually were quite close to course when we acquired Whitehorse. I could imagine Charles Lindbergh flying across the arctic on his flight to the Orient.
About 75 miles out of Whitehorse, I could see Lake Lebarge about twenty miles to our left The lake was very long. I had visions of Sam McGee being incinerated on the shores of the lake as the temperature stood at 40 degrees below zero. Another vision was of the miners rowing their boats down the lake on their way to their fortunes in the Klondike which we had left less than an hour earlier. The miners would have had several months of danger and toil before they would have arrived.
Forty miles from Whitehorse, I made a position report to Edmonton Center. I am not used to making proper position reports since they are not required in a radar environment such as is found in the US. So I had to look up in my Airman's Information Manual to find the proper protocol. "Edmonton Center, Mooney niner two zero eight Mike, forty miles northwest Whitehorse on Bravo Romeo two niner, niner thousand feet, estimating Whitehorse twenty eight, next Telsin".
Approaching Whitehorse I was overcome by my several cups of morning coffee and had to utilize the emergency bottle, "Eyes right, Victoria". Why do women never go to the bathroom.
The flight from Whitehorse to Watson's lake was clear and beautiful. The wind was picking up a bit so there was some chop and our ground speed was helped a bit by the south west winds. We had been over this route on our way north and felt (somewhat) like we were in familiar territory.
Upon landing at beautiful Watson Lake, it seemed that we were practically home. Tory commented on my get-home-itis. And it's true. Once headed for the barn, I was ready to get home. And that does not reflect on the quality of our vacation.
While we were getting gas, we visited with the crews of some of the fire bomber planes which were temporarily flying out of Watson Lake. We talked with the pilot of one of the spotter planes, a Piper Aerostar which is a high powered plane in any body's book. The spotter plane helps guide the DC-6's which carry the fire retardant. The spotter pilot, even though he calls the shots, is the junior member of the team. The senior jobs are with the four engine bombers. It sounds like they do some pretty impressive flying. They had been having a busy summer. Impressive! We saw several missions come and go as we sat in our campsite. It was like a war.
We spent the afternoon just taking it easy. Someone had, in the week since our last visit, made major improvements to the campsite. There was a second outhouse, proper picnic tables, and general cleanup activities had occurred. This was without doubt, the best campsite of the trip.
In the evening (8:30 pm) two VFR Cessna Skyhawks (172's) arrived after a 12 hour flight from the midwest US somewhere. The occupants were nice people, two older couples on their way to Alaska, VFR. They had a heck of a time getting their tent and gear setup as this was their first night camping and they didn't know how things worked. It was fortunate that it wasn't raining. They were up before we arose and were off to Fairbanks.
We walked over to the (always) deserted terminal building and called Robin Flannery in Vancouver. She sounded really eager to have us visit. So I said we'd be there the next night and would call when we arrived.
I spent half an hour wrapped up in my maps on a picnic table as the sun got lower in the sky preparing for the next day's flight through the "Trench".
Tory did a photo study in self portrait silhouettes.
Back at Watson Lake with the setting
sun over "Mike".
We did not try our hand at fishing for dinner. We had, it seemed, plenty of food and no more lures.
The day dawned beautiful with a few scattered middle clouds. Actually, it is improper to say the day dawned since it was dawn since about 1:00 am, but when we arose, the day was beautiful. It was very different from our first visit to Watson Lake when we were greeted by low fog and drizzle as we arose. Unlike the first visit, the night was mild with no all-night shivers due to my inadequate sleeping bag. A post breakfast trip to the flight service station confirmed good weather to the south and light winds. We filed our flight plan to Prince George via the "trench".
It was our intention to fly to Vancouver and spend the night with Robin. Actually, our flying destination for the night was Blaine airport just across the border in the US and the closest airport to Robin's house in White Rock, BC. Since Blaine doesn't have US customs, we would have to clear customs in Bellingham, Washington and then make the 10 minute hop back to Blaine. Such was our program for the day.
The trench is a legend among private plane travelers to Alaska. Geologically, it is a major fault line that travels the length of British Columbia. The Fraiser River Canyon over which we flew northbound forms the southern end of the fault. It provides a straight low level route through the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It bypasses the somewhat tortuous Alaska Highway route that twice crossed the backbone of the Rockies. The trench itself runs from Mckenzie at the southern tip of Williston Lake to just south of Watson's lake. Throughout its length of over 300 nautical miles (360 statute miles), it has high mountains on both sides. It consists of a long valley that forms a tunnel when the clouds are low. Experienced trench pilots say that it is protected from low clouds and is often open when low ceilings prevail elsewhere. The maximum altitude of the ground through the trench is about 3200 feet, so it would be possible to fly from the US to Watson's Lake as low as 3,500 feet if necessary.
I had learned of the trench with some trepidations from the Downie book and from conversations with John Kaminsky. The trench, according to Downie, is unpopulated and without roads or navaids for its entire length. It seemed the height of adventure to do the trench and we therefore avoided it on our northbound trip. After flying around the Yukon and Alaska without incident, the trench didn't seem so intimidating so we decided to give it a try, especially since the weather was excellent and it would cut 108 nm and one hour off of our trip to our destination, Bellingham.
We went through the break-camp-and-pack-the plane ritual without realizing the significance of this being the last such chore of this trip. We took off at 7:23 am and climbed out to the south east to join up with the northern opening of the trench. Navigation would be simple. "Just head 115 degrees and don't hit the mountains on either side" was the advice they offered in flight service. We had a good strong VOR/DME signal which directed us right to the trench opening. The first 40 miles of the flight was over the flat Laird River valley that surrounds Watson Lake. It is largely unpopulated with a few lakes, streams, and little domes of hills to break up the monotony.
The mountains to the south are the Rockies and they rose up to embrace us as we got closer. I decided to fly at 5,500 feet which was a proper VFR cruising altitude. It would keep us well clear of the ground but was not too low in case an emergency landing was necessary. On the other hand, it was well below the surrounding terrain of the trench which made navigation easy (just don't hit the mountains). We were cautioned that the only possible ambiguity for navigation was a fork in the river at about 110 miles (from Watson Lake) and if we took the left fork by accident, we would soon come to a dead end (bad choice of words).
We entered the trench following a river that got smaller and smaller as little tributaries branched off it from either side. There were numerous lakes nestled in the mountains, each looking like a perfect place to have a cabin and a float plane. It was quite green and wooded below. We successfully took the right fork as the ground gradually rose toward us but we were never less than 2,000 feet above the ground. At about 160 miles from Watson Lake we reached the high point of the trench. All the water behind us (to the north) flowed north to join the Laird River while the water below us would flow into Williston Lake and into the Peace River. Curiously, both watersheds ultimately joined after a thousand miles of separate wandering at the Mckenzie River to empty into the Arctic Ocean.
In the "Trench" southbound
coming up on the divide. We did not have a road or navaid for 300
miles.
As we passed over the divide in the pass, we spotted a column of smoke from about fifty miles off. As we approached it, a plane to the south was talking to Prince George Radio through the RCO (remote communication outlet) at Ingenika. He reported a possible forest fire to his north. When we got to the fire area we could see no actual flames but the smoke was much more than a cooking fire. We too, called up Prince George and reported the exact position of the fire. Talking to Prince George broke the feeling of isolation. We never really felt like we were over "sparsely settled" areas again.
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