We're in the Yukon, our 10th stop during our 150-day road trip across Canada.
Known for its dramatic landscapes, vast wilderness, and gold mining, the Yukon has been capturing
people's imaginations for years.
We started our journey off in Whitehorse, the Yukon's capital city, where we got to
learn some history from the gold rush days and prepare for our trip up north.
First, we toured the SS Klondike, the largest sternwheeler to ply the upper Yukon River
in the 20th century.
We got to learn how it worked, the type of cargo it carried, and about the people who
rode the riverboats when roads didn't exist.
We also saw heaps of wildlife in the area, both in the wild and at the Yukon Wildlife
Preserve, including Woodland Caribou, Mountain Elk, Mountain Sheep, and even an Arctic Fox.
After Whitehorse, we went to Kluane National Park, the most Western point of Canada, to
see some of the highest mountains in the country.
As if flying around mountain peaks and valleys wasn't enough, we even got to land on the
largest non-polar glacier in the world.
It was incredible to land the plane on snow and step out onto the Hubbard Glacier at an
elevation of 9,000 feet.
You'd never think that this massive glacier flows directly into the Pacific Ocean just
122 kilometres from where we were standing.
What an unbelievable experience!
Next, we drove North to the unique wild-west looking town of Dawson, home of one of the
greatest gold rushes in history.
So when you arrive to Dawson, it feels like you're taking a step back into the past, you'll
see the old post office that's still in town, a lot of the modern buildings actually have
a gold rush look and feel, we have boardwalks instead of sidewalks, and unpaved streets,
and so it really feels like you're taking a step back into the past.
Here in Dawson, we kind of have one foot in the past and one foot in the present so it's
a little bit of a living history in a sense, especially the buildings that you see around
town.
Since Dawson's history is all about the gold rush, we took a stroll through Discovery Trail,
the place where the first gold mining claim was made, spawning one of the greatest human
migrations of the 19th century.
This started what is known as the Klondike Gold Rush, with people from around the world
moving here in hopes to strike it rich.
Although the gold rush days are long gone, gold mining is still one of the main industries
around Dawson and we got to tour an active mine to see how it's done from start to finish,
giving us a unique insight into the local economy.
We even got to try some gold panning, and even though we didn't strike it rich, it was
still very exciting to find a few pieces of gold.
As technology advanced, gold panning was replaced by bigger machines including Dredge #4, a
giant 8-storey gold digging machine that moved along a pond of its own making, digging gold-bearing
gravel at a rate of 22 buckets per minute, producing up to 800 ounces of gold per day.
After learning about the golf industry, we continued to step back in time with a paddlewheeler
cruise on the Yukon River before stepping into Canada's oldest casino to watch the Cancan
girls put on a wonderful Klondike-themed performance.
Before we left Dawson, we couldn't miss the famous sourtoe cocktail, a shot of alcohol
with an actual dehydrated human toe in it.
You can drink it fast or you can drink it slow but the lips have got to touch the toe!
Welcome to the club!
Thank you!
Next up on our journey was a drive up the Dempster Highway, an 800-km dirt road that
crosses the Arctic Circle.
This is definately one of the best road trips in Canada, if not the entire world.
We must have stopped hundreds of times to admire the mind-blowing vistas along the way
as we crossed two mountain ranges, tundra, and wild river valleys, all during the fall
with vibrant changing colours all around us.
We capped off our Yukon adventure by crossing the Arctic Circle and witnessing an awesome
display of Northern Lights.
What a special way of finishing our tour of Canada's far North.
For anyone interested in adventure, wildlife, incredible road trips, or the ultimate gold
rush experience, there's no better place than the Yukon.
Thank you for watching our Yukon episode.
To learn more about what we did in the Yukon as well as other provinces during our 150-day
road trip across Canada, visit mustdocanada.com.