Yukon3-13

After driving 1800 kilometres on the first leg of our Yukon road trip it would’ve been nice to stretch our legs and explore Whitehorse, but instead we drove another 1500 kilometers, first west then north, then south, before turning back to Whitehorse.

Our goal was to finish as much of our original loop as possible, and our first stop was back to the U.S.-Canada border. If the top-of-the-world border crossing is the most isolated and as far north and west as you can get in the Yukon, then there’s a good chance Beaver Creek is the second.

The first leg of the route, on the way to Haines Junction, Yukon, is about two hours of smooth blacktop bordered by spindly black spruce. The only stop we made was Pine Lake Campground for a photo op. No wind meant Pine Lake was reflecting pool calm. We sipped hot coffee while dipping our feet in the cool water and admiring the mountains of Kluane National Park cascading snowcapped into the west.

<img class="" src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yukon3-2.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="418" />

Soon we reached the south end of Kluane Lake. At 81-kilometres long, it’s the largest within the Yukon, and, where the road bends around the southern end of the lake before heading north, you pass Sheep Mountain. Stop at the Parks Canada visitor centre and you can see Dall sheep (often confused with mountain goats) through spotter scopes for free.

Following the western edge of the lake north the road begins to disintegrate. It was the worst stretch of road we drove in the Yukon. My one attempt at a nap was ended when my head bounced off the passenger door window during one of Jeane’s wild swerves around a pothole. Worse, where not pockmarked with axle-busting holes, the road is an undulating stomach churning rollercoaster of frost heaves.

Eventually we reached Beaver Creek, lunch still in our bellies and the axles on the dust coated Matrix still intact. Beaver Creek, with its mix of First Nations, border agents and abandoned log-cabin-esque motel, is an odd outpost. (And it is an outpost: the only real grocery store is back in Whitehorse, though the local bar/restaurant, Buckshot Betty’s is worth a visit. Be warned though, I was told Betty is a character. That I, an obvious outsider, managed to engage her in a civil conversation—essentially I said that I’d be back later for a beer—was rare enough that Jeane told her local friends who seemed genuinely surprised I came out unscathed. I thought she was sweet.)

We found Jeane’s friends and made our way to Pete’s Cabin, a local fishing spot named after the owner of the abandoned cabin. A good spot for grayling, it’s frowned upon to visit the site if you’re not in the company of locals. Fishing holes in the Yukon are basically the same as back east, but the reality of the wildlife in the Yukon makes for one obvious difference: our hosts never fish without a shotgun.

“The first two rounds are rubber to scare the bear away,” he said loading his oily black 12-gauge. “After that, if it’s not gone, the next few rounds will stop it. I have my bear tags (hunting permit) just in case. I don’t actually hunt them, but it saves paperwork if you do have to kill one.”

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yukon3-7.jpg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

Beaver Creek is the land of the White River First Nation. Fortune hunters moved in during the gold rush, and later, during World War II the U.S. Military set up an airport in the bush at a place called Snag as part of the Northwest Staging Route, a chain of airports through Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and Alaska that allowed access to Russia during the war.

What remains of the airport is an overgrown landing strip and the scattered ruins of huts 20-kilometres off the main highway on a road Jeane’s Toyota Matrix could never have survived. It was the only time we left the little blue car behind, opting instead for a ride in Jeane’s friend’s Chevy pick up.
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/the-great-canadian-road-trip-day-2-of-20/">The Great Canadian Road Trip: Day 2 of 20</a></strong></blockquote>
Snag’s claim to fame happened on Feb. 3, 1946. For a week, cold air from Siberia had settled over the area, until finally on the night of the February 3, soldiers stationed there experienced the coldest temperature recorded in Canada, and the third coldest recorded in the world, minus 63 C. Given the dry heat and blackflies, it was hard to picture the place being so cold that when one exhaled their breath hissed and left long vapour trails.

We had one more stop to make. If you pop in to the visitor centre look for Sid Van der Meer. Sid is tall, quiet until he gets excited, white haired and as lean as his wire-framed glasses. If you ask nicely, he’ll take you to his home and private museum (he drove us in a 1940s Buick Super he was restoring). Divided into themed sheds — an army hut, a general store, a barbershop and a bathhouse — the museum is as eclectic as he is and he’s happy to show people around.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yukon3-6.jpg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

“The most interesting thing I’ve got? Well there’s the 37 million year old turtle shell. But this tombstone is neat,” Van der Meer says gesturing to a weathered wooden tombstone split in half lengthways, with a half sun carved into the top. It reads: CHARLES WARKINGTIN 1860-1902.

“I was canoeing down the Yukon when I found half of it sticking out of the bank of the river. I looked around for the other half but didn’t find anything. The next day, way downstream, would you believe it, I found the other half. Probably some old miner’s grave that got washed away.”

We said goodbye to Sid and turned back. We were on our way 530-kilometres south to Haines in the middle of the Alaskan panhandle for a beer festival.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yukon3-5.jpg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

Most of the route is bordered on the west by Kluane National Park and Reserve in Canada and Tatshenshini – Alsek Park in Alaska. There are must-stop vistas everywhere. If you’re pressed for time the one stop you have to make is Kathleen Lake. It’s one of those places where you just shut up and stare: mountains, glaciers, water, rock, trees, a light rain the day we were there; it was as elemental as any place I’ve been, and I didn’t want to leave. But craft beer called.

Haines, Alaska sits on a peninsula that juts into a channel that leads to the Pacific. On the east side is Chilkoot Inlet, which is home to Skagway, Alaska and on the west side is the Chilikat Inlet where Jeane and I came from.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yukon3-14.jpg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

Haines was, like so much of the region, defined by the Gold Rush. It offered a staging point for the Dalton Trail through the Chilikat Inlet before Skagway became the main entry to the Klondike. With Skagway’s rise, Haines usefulness to stampeders fell. It was converted to a military base and fishing town with four canneries, which have since closed. It now plays host to various festivals, Discovery Channel shows and a fading lumber industry. Adventure tourism seems to be its new niche, but Haines still feels like a fishing town on the ropes. Beautiful and damp, the moisture that makes it so lush is also rotting its once stately buildings and swallowing its centuries old graveyards in thick wet moss. Stop at the Fog Cutter for beer, greasy food and a look at the wall of pictures from Haines’ early days.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yukon3-9.jpg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

Sight seeing aside (there are parks and reserves everywhere), Jeane and I were there for a craft beer festival. We set up our tent on the edge of the old military parade grounds, which is surrounded by pricey bed and breakfasts. The festival is big business for Haines, most of the people seemed to come from Whitehorse, and I was told that local bylaws change for the festival to allow for camping and beer drinking anywhere at anytime on public property to ensure the festival is a good time.

All I’ll say about the event is that if you get the chance, go. It’s a great afternoon party with delicious beer and fun people. The next day, hazy and a touch dehydrated I boarded the Haines - Skagway ferry for the last leg of the trip. Jeane and I parted ways there. She was graciously retracing our route back by car, while I took the walk-on ferry with her roommate, who would drive me home from Skagway, so I could finish the loop. I felt a bit like I was betraying Jeane, leaving her alone for the five hour drive home, but she insisted.
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/the-great-canadian-road-trip-day-3-of-20/">The Great Canadian Road Trip: Day 3 of 20</a></strong></blockquote>
And I’m glad I listened. Heading north again, it was easy to imagine the anxiety and excitement the stampeders must have felt on their way to the unknown in search of gold 115 years earlier: unnamed rivers plunging down steep channels, cloud and mist covering untamed mountains to the east and west, and the safety of home thousands of kilometres south. Foolish, brave or both, they soon arrived in Skagway, the easy part behind them. North of Skagway, the difficulty of the route is legendary.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yukon3-11.jpg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

The miner’s would leave Skagway and begin the infamous Chilkoot trail. In the summer its rocky slabs mean more of an all-fours scramble than a hike. In winter a single file snow staircase was carved into the ice called the Golden Staircase. By all accounts, it was a brutal 50-kilometre hike. (Even today it’s not easy. A friend who hiked it this summer said she was almost in tears scrambling up the wet rocks of the pass.) By the early 1900s, the White Pass and Yukon Route train was established which eased the passage of those who could afford it.

Skagway reminded me of Dawson City, only it’s obvious that it’s become a favourite stop for Alaskan cruises. Its streets are paved and it feels far more metropolitan than wild and dusty Dawson far to the north. Cleaner, slicker and self-conscious, it’s as though Skagway knows it has to ham it up, while Dawson is simply dirty, charmingly campy Dawson. That said, I’d visit Skagway again in a heartbeat.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yukon3-13.jpg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

The road north is another spectacular drive. It climbs steeply outside of town, and even in May the glacial lake and erratic filled plateau at the top of the pass, near the Canadian-United States border, is patchy with snow

Soon the terrain begins to resemble the Yukon again: black spruce and animals. A big grizzly was sitting by the roadside counting cars around one bend. The drive isn’t long and Whitehorse locals visit Skagway often, if for nothing else than the Thai food at the Starfire Café. But there is one stop that for a first timer driving between the cities that is must: Carcross Desert.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yukon3-16.jpg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

In the middle of the standard Yukon vista of dark green spruce needles, is what appears to be a desert. Sand dunes spotted with small stands of trees for more than two-square-kilometres. It turns out it’s an ancient lakebed and not a true desert, but feeling the hot sand on my feet was welcome surprise.

Soon we were back in the familiar rolling hills and smooth black top outside of Whitehorse. Jeane arrived shortly after and we went for a last beer on the eve of my trip back east to Ottawa. The 3,300-kilometre road trip was officially over.

Gold-fever may not exist anymore, but Whitehorse is full of people from away who caught the Yukon bug, packed up and moved, each one a mix of runner, searcher and stampeder hunting for their own bit of gold.

I’ll be back first chance I get.
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/yukon-road-trip-the-ultimate-canadian-northern-adventure/">Yukon Road Trip: The Ultimate Canadian Northern Adventure Part#1 </a></strong>

<strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/yukon-road-trip-2-dawson-city-childhood-dreams/">Yukon Road Trip: The Ultimate Canadian Northern Adventure Part#2</a></strong></blockquote>
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Yukon Road Trip: The Final Stretch 

Yukon road stop

I was at the edge of the world, on a mountaintop at midnight, with the wind ripping at my coat and sun not completely set. The waves of mountain and valley stretched to the impossibly distant fiery horizon, while at my feet a drop of hundreds of meters into the valley below.

It was only the second day of a 3,300-kilometre road trip through the Yukon, and I was running out of superlatives. For someone with his roots in the East, the Yukon felt young and wild. A part of Canada, no doubt, but like a remote colony with its own twist on the rules.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Yukon-1.jpg" alt="toyota Matrix" width="50" height="38" />

We, my friend Jeane Lassen and I, had taken a dirt road 60 kilometres out of our way on a bit of a whim.

“Are you going to Keno City?” One of Lassen’s friends asked over beers on the eve of our departure from Whitehorse.

“Weren’t planning on it.”

“You should go.”

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Yukon-9.jpg" alt="Keno City, Yukon" width="50" height="38" />

That was the gist of it, and so we changed our plans. A suggestion given in passing that led to one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

Anywhere else the signpost we had driven 11 kilometres up a dirt road outside of Keno City to see, would simply be one of the cheesy posts with arrows pointing every which way with the name and distance to some of the world’s great capital cities.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Yukon-11-1.jpg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

Here, though, outside a town that last year had six full time residents, it’s a reminder of just how isolated the Yukon is and by extension, you are when you’re there.

We were the first people up there this year. Well, technically Lassen and I were the second and third. Grant, the thick bodied, soft-spoken miner who had opened the route to the signpost earlier that day with an excavator, was the first and fourth.

It was Grant, whom we met at one of Keno’s two bars (yes: two bars, six people), who drove us to the top in his 1983 Jeep Wrangler. By this point Lassen and I had only been on the road a few days and clocked about 464 kilometres in her 2013 <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/car-reviews/2009-11-toyota-matrix-dull-but-penny-pinchers-loved-it/">Toyota Matrix</a>.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Yukon-12.jpg" alt="1983 Jeep Wrangler" width="50" height="38" />
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/car-reviews/review-2014-jeep-wrangler-easy-to-love-hard-to-explain/">2014 Jeep Wrangler Review </a></strong></blockquote>
Yes, we used a Matrix to drive the Yukon. Sure there are pick-ups everywhere, but there are more Matrix’s in the Yukon then I’ve seen anywhere else.

“I sometimes can’t find my car in parking lots,” Lassen joked when I asked her about the phenomenon. “People seem to love them here.”

But in Keno City, a one road mining town gone fallow waiting for the price of silver to climb high enough to start the mine again, the Matrix was at its limit. The dirt roads leading from the end of the paved highway in Mayo were potted and in some places almost washed out with spring snow melt.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Yukon-3.jpg" alt="Toyota Matrix in Yukon" width="50" height="38" />

The 11 kilometres up the mountain to signpost took about 45 minutes, and Grant wasn’t even sure if we’d make it. Parts of the road were washed out, and at points the snow banks were higher than the jeep.

I wasn’t as worried about rolling off a cliff as I was about getting stuck, which would mean a long walk back to town through bear country in the middle of the night. Black and grizzly bears line the roads in the Yukon in disconcerting numbers, and we were well into the middle of nowhere at that point.

After a few unforgiving switchbacks we made it. And it was beautiful. We spent close to an hour in near silence. I have never been anywhere like that and doubt I ever will.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Yukon-10.jpg" alt="View in Yukon" width="50" height="38" />

And that was only the second night of what would be a 10 day road trip.

We had left the comparative civilization of Whitehorse on a Thursday morning. I was there to visit as many communities as possible as part of a program to teach kids about sport. Though you wouldn’t know it looking at me now, I represented Canada at the 2008 Olympics and won a bronze medal in sprint canoeing.
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The other point of the trip was to see as much of the Yukon as possible. And there is no better way than by car. But it’s not something done without some preparation. An hour or so from Whitehorse and you’re in the bush. Gas stations are far enough apart that you don’t take them for granted, and on side roads traffic is sparse enough that you could be waiting a day or two for help.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Yukon-2.jpg" alt="Gas Station in Keno City" width="50" height="38" />

To give you an idea of how sparsely populated the territory is, Dawson City, which would mark the end of the first stage of the trip, is the second biggest city in the Yukon, and has 800 year round residents. Whitehorse has 28,000. The entire population of the Yukon is 34,000.

In other words, it’s big and empty.

Ten minutes from Whitehorse and you’re driving on the Klondike Highway towards Dawson City, which is 550 kilometres north. At first I was just excited to see wildlife, but then I stopped looking for shadows in the trees and looked at the forests of innumerable black spruce and countless lakes framed by distant mountains.

<img class="" src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Lake-Laberge.jpg" alt="Lake Laberge" width="88" height="67" />

Within an hour or so of leaving Whitehorse we came across the scars of a 1998 forest fire, the famous Lake Laberge from Robert Service’s poem <em>The Cremation of Sam McGee</em>, and Braeburn Lodge, home of a head-sized cinnamon bun.

Our goal that first night wasn’t far. We were stopping for a community dinner in Carmacks only 175 kilometres from Whitehorse, and then camping a little further along. But we took our time. Yukon highways have plenty of signs for lookouts and photo-ops, and for good reason. We stopped at probably 90 per cent of them and they were all worth it.
<blockquote><strong> RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/road-trip-through-the-maritimes/">Road Trip Through The Maritimes</a></strong></blockquote>
Carmacks sits at an ox-bow of the Yukon River, the same river that miners during the gold rush used to get to Dawson. It’s a tiny community, but the gas station/grocery store is a must stop. Particularly because you don’t have that many chances to fill up.

About 15 minutes outside Carmacks on the left of the highway are the Five-Finger rapids. Less impressive now than during the Gold Rush when many miners lost everything, including their lives, when their homemade rafts came apart on the rocks, the view is worth stopping for.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Yukon-4.jpg" alt="Five-Finger rapids" width="50" height="38" />

We camped at Tatchun Creek campground for the night. The Yukon is dotted with lakes, rivers and creeks, and it’s worth buying a $25 fishing licence. Campgrounds are free in May, but a season’s pass is only $50 for residents, worth it if you’re sleeping more than four nights. Otherwise it’s $12 a night, but that includes firewood (bring a hatchet though, the logs are big).

We slept soundly that night and the next day we stopped briefly in Pelly Crossing before turning east on to the Silver Trail at Stewart Crossing towards Mayo and eventually what would be an incredible night in Keno.

Driving down the mountain in Keno was less scary, but it was late, and we had to be up early to cover the 300 kilometres to Dawson before noon. We thanked Grant, slept for five hours and then were on the road. Leaving Keno City, the heart of Yukon silver country, for the heart of the Gold Rush, Dawson City, Yukon.
<blockquote><strong>Related:</strong> <strong><a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/yukon-road-trip-2-dawson-city-childhood-dreams/">Yukon Road Trip: The Ultimate Canadian Northern Adventure Part#2 </a></strong></blockquote>
&nbsp;

Yukon Road Trip: The Ultimate Canadian Northern Adventure Part#1

delorean 2

It was a <em>Back to the Future</em> lovers dream: eight DeLorean’s parked in a row, gullwing doors open, stainless steel bodies polished and gleaming in the Saturday evening sun.

It was the first gathering of the Ottawa DeLorean Club, a new branch of the “Official DeLorean Owners Canada”. Organizers Stephane Van and Eric Vettoretti were hoping for 12 DeLoreans, but eight, plus four Bricklins — a 1970s gullwinged beauty that often gets mistaken for the more famous DeLorean — was still a rare sight.

For the owner’s showing off their cars in the parking lot of Monkey Joe’s bar in Ottawa, the dream of owning a DeLorean began in 1985 when “Doc” showed up in his stainless steel time machine in the film <em>Back to the Future</em>, the first of the trilogy.
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“It’s been a lifelong dream,” Vettoretti says. “My dad brought me to the movie in 1985 and since I was nine I knew I wanted the car.” He began saving about 15 years ago and bought his dream car last summer.
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/top-ten/top-10-favourite-fast-and-furious-cars/">Top 10 Favourite Fast and Furious Cars</a></strong></blockquote>
The thing with DeLorean’s is that everybody knows <em>of </em>them, but few <em>know</em> them, and those that do know the rare cars well are obsessed with the minutia of the car’s history. It took less than a minute of meeting Vettoretti until he began talking about some of the lore that surrounds DeLoreans.

“All of these here are U.S. models,” Vettoretti says. “There’s a rare Canadian version. The last, essentially, 100 off the line in Ireland, were destined for Canada, and they have the metric dash as opposed to the miles-per-hour.”

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/delorean-9.jpeg" alt="8 DeLoreans lined up in a row" width="50" height="38" />

And this is just one example of the out-there-somewhere, could-have-been and would-have-beens that DeLorean experts love to fetishize. Without the Back to the Future films DeLoreans probably would have been a footnote rather than a pop culture icon. After all, with a two year production run from 1981-83 that saw only 9200 roll out of the plant in a suburb of Belfast, Northern Ireland, the car was largely a flop.

The DeLorean Motor Company was founded by John DeLorean, the man who designed the Pontiac GTO. DeLorean was an executive at General Motors, but, according to Vettoretti, despite making a fortune at GM, he wanted to create an “ethical” car.

“He wanted a car that would last <em>years</em>, rather than just five years, which the big three (GM, Ford and Chrysler) were doing at the time,” Vettoretti says. “He wanted the stainless steel, the fiberglass, things that would last forever. He would charge a little more, but you’d have the car for 10-15 years.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/delorean-7.jpeg" alt="DeLorean rear view" width="50" height="38" />

“He called it the DMC-12 because DeLorean wanted to sell it for $12,000 to compete with the Corvette that was selling at about that point,” Vettoretti says. “But by the time he actually started, it was more like $25,000 which is around $75,000 in today’s dollars.”

But apart from price DeLorean had other problems. He had created enemies at the “big three”, and so sourced his parts from Europe so they couldn’t shut him down. He opened a plant in Belfast with generous help from the government of Northern Ireland and had backers such as Johnny Carson and Sammy Davis Jr., but still quickly ran over budget. Eventually, the car, after extensive re-engineering rolled of the line a few years late in 1981.
<blockquote><strong>RELATED:<a href="http://www.wheels.ca/top-ten/top-10-sleeper-cars/"> Top 10 Sleeper Cars</a></strong></blockquote>
“Unfortunately the first cars that were delivered were not that powerful because they had a pretty standard Volvo V-6,” says Vettoretti. ”It was a last minute thing to keep the cost down. Unfortunately it only has around 130 horsepower. We like to say ‘all show no go’.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/delorean-8.jpeg" alt="DeLorean engine" width="50" height="38" />

“That was no good for investors like Johnny Carson,” says Vettoretti. “They took first delivery and wanted to blaze down the strip but really it was a let down. So inventory started building up and not enough sales, and it went down from there.”

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/delorean-10.jpeg" alt="DeLoreans rear lined up" width="50" height="38" />

And by late 1982 the DeLorean Motor Company was in receivership and John DeLorean was on trial for trafficking cocaine as part of a scheme to raise $17 million to help save the floundering DeLorean Motor Company. He was found not guilty when it became clear he was a victim of entrapment, but the damage was done and he was out of the car business.

The car, underpowered and overpriced, was seemingly doomed to obscurity, an odd footnote in car history, but instead it became a time machine.

“I would say 60 per cent of the owners bought them because of the movies,” Vettoretti says. “The other 40 per cent are original owners who, as my shirt says, wanted to ‘live the dream’ which was the original tag in the commercial.”

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/delorean-3.jpeg" alt="Vettoretti stand beside his DeLorean" width="50" height="38" />

Like any good collectors item, the earlier the DeLorean the rarer and better. For example, most of the DeLorean’s at Monkey Joe’s were from 1981. The tell is the distinctive groove in the hood. But only one of those is of an early enough vintage to have the gas flap on the hood. It belongs to Stephane Van, who, with Vettoretti, organized the gathering.

“It’s an early VIN, 2450, so it’s got the grooved hood and the gas flap,” Van says. “Back in 1985 when I saw the movie is when I first got interested, but I didn’t realize they were a real car back then. In 1987 I saw one in town and realized they were real. In 1988 I bought one after saving and saving and saving. I’ve owned it for 27 (years) and it’s my pride and joy. I like the way it drives and how it handles. I like the way it looks. Now that I’ve owned it for so long I’m not really into the back to the future thing but more into the car itself and the history behind it.”

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/delorean-5.jpeg" alt="Front view of a green DeLorean with the door open" width="50" height="38" />
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The Fascinating Story Behind the DeLorean

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The highway to Dawson City unravels like a spool of ribbon towards the horizon, and the sweeping curves offer one stupefying view after another. It’s only a few hours west then north from Keno to Dawson, but I was tired from the late night visit to signpost, so while Jeane drove I admired the road and the wilderness.

There were times where the sinuous twists of asphalt was itself a view worth stopping for. I hadn’t seen meanders like that in a road before. It was easily one of the most impressive roads I’d seen, but within 24 hours I would see a highway of dirt reaching to the arctic circle and another highway that skipped from mountaintop to mountaintop that made the Klondike Highway look like the 417 through Ottawa.

But first, Dawson City.

As you approach Dawson, houses begin to appear sporadically among the black spruce. I didn’t know what to expect, but I did know some of its history. Dawson was, and is, the beating heart of the Klondike.

In 1896, some hoary prospectors declared “there’s gold in them thar hills” and the gold rush began. Within a year the trickle of men hoping to make it rich became a river as wild as the Yukon. From the West Coast of the United States they sailed. Up through Dyea or Skagway, Alaska and then over the dreaded Chilkoot Trail, a 53 kilometre hike that turned back anyone not a little crazy. Canadian law meant that the miners, known as “stampeders”, had to bring a year’s worth of supplies with them, to prevent starvation, making the trek even more arduous.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Yukon-river.jpeg" alt="Yukon River on yukon road trip" width="50" height="38" />

Arriving in Whitehorse the stampeders, many of whom were city folk, built rudimentary rafts to drift the 300 kilometres of the Yukon River to Dawson City. Many foundered along the way. The Whitehorse and Five Finger Rapids claimed most, and the first nations have tales of pulling man and beast from the water, often when it was too late.
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/yukon-road-trip-the-ultimate-canadian-northern-adventure/">Yukon Road Trip: The Ultimate Canadian Northern Adventure Part#1 </a></strong></blockquote>
Eventually the lucky, knowledgeable or crazy arrived in Dawson City: the Paris of the north. A bustling clapboard town of saloons, whorehouses and men with gold-fever. Not an unlawful place by the standards of the time. By 1898 288 members of the Northwest Mounted Police were on site. You can still visit the remnants of their base.

Among those men were those not looking for mineral wealth, but stories. The most famous of those were arguably poet Robert Service and author Jack London. London’s The Call of the Wild formed my childhood image of Dawson, and later, Service’s poems added a haunting texture to this southern kid’s fantasies of the North.

So, for me, finally setting foot in Dawson was going to be like walking into a story.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/bcVhvfWJaoyhiUZFujLDpwv8KKRBO7tkzmBlFndEf9I.jpeg" alt="Dawson City on the yukon road trip" width="50" height="38" />

As we got closer the landscape began to change. Green lawns and black spruce gave way to beige, lifeless bungalow-sized piles of softball-sized rock.

“What is this?”

“Tailings from the mines,” Lassen said.

We stopped at a Yukon Government plaque about five kilometres from Dawson that explained what we were looking at — essentially the refuse from dredges that tore up the Klondike valley in search of gold.

With that, story gave way to reality. Dog sleds and panning for gold to electrified giants that literally chewed the earth.

I would learn later on a tour of dredge #4, the last intact dredge and a must visit, that dredges were marvels of their time. The floating behemoths, eight stories high and two-thirds a football field long, were fed with a long tongue-like conveyor belt that chewed and swallowed the rock in front of them. It was digested in large pools in the machine’s belly before being ejected out a long tail at its back. As the dredge ate and expelled the rock it moved forward on its own pond. This way the dredges travelled kilometres.
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/the-parents-survival-guide-for-the-summer-family-road-trip/">The Parent's Survival Guide for the Summer Family Road Trip </a></strong></blockquote>
Driving past the piles and around the base of “the dome”, a hill just outside of town that we would unexpectedly revisit later that night, we turned west into Dawson and into the past.

Dirt roads and boardwalks. Ramshackle cabins and saloon after saloon. Dawson, despite its school and a few touches of modernity, was what I had expected: authenticity.

Sure Front Street, which boarders the Yukon River, has an air of Disney to it, with its pastel coloured store fronts, but I learned at the museum that’s pretty much what they looked like 100 years ago.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Front-street-Dawson.jpeg" alt="Front street, Dawson City" width="50" height="38" />

Inhabited by a mix of miners, First Nations, hippies and seasonal workers, seemingly all from Australia, and an abundance of ravens, Dawson seesaws between tourism and mining. It’s an uneasy mix with cafés selling $5 lattes just a stones throw from <strong>a 24-hour bar called The Pit</strong> that apparently exists through some grandfather clause and is full by 9 a.m.

Dawson is the end of the Klondike highway. The road runs into the Yukon River, and to continue means to hop the free ferry. Somewhere in the swift brown water of the Yukon River the Klondike Highway ends and the <strong>Top of the World Highway</strong> begins. Just as it was for the miners a century earlier, and is for the people that live there now, Dawson is an ending and beginning.
<blockquote><strong> RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/touring-the-okanagan-valley-on-a-harley-davidson/">Touring the Okanagan Valley on a Harley Davidson</a></strong></blockquote>
We had two days in Dawson. We ate, there’s a handful of very good restaurants, but keep in mind nothing is cheap in the Yukon, and then Jeane showed me around. At around 5 p.m. we decided we would drive up the Dempster Highway for the heck of it. Unaccustomed to the idea of the sun not really setting, I was worried about driving back in the dark. Jeane just laughed.

We had passed the start of the Dempster, which runs straight north from the Klondike Highway, about 20 kilometres before Dawson. On a map the Dempster is a 750 kilometres line north into the Northwest Territories ending at Inuvik. We decided to drive as far north as we could. At one point we were going to try for the Arctic Circle, tantalizingly close on a map, but it would’ve meant about eight hours of driving on a road about <strong>as rough as the road to Keno.</strong> It would’ve been fun, but the poor Matrix probably would’ve lost an axle.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Dempster-highway.jpeg" alt="Dempster highway on yukon road trip" width="50" height="38" />

We made it just past Tombstones Territorial Park, about 80 kilometres north on the Dempster. Just past the park, which is spectacular, the road rounds a bend and the trees disappear. We had reached the treeline. In some people’s books, the treeline signifies the artic circle; it was good enough for me.

We stopped and looked around. West, east and south, mountains marched, still covered in a snowy duvet. To the north, mountains gave way to hills and trees gave way to shrubs. Suddenly a strange call, like a fast-forwarded quack or a small two-stoke motor stuttering.

It came from a cloud-white ptarmigan sitting at the tip of a dwarf spruce.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/3lWO1w-cUCkk6GiMw10zjBAJwqfG8ylij2px4swO2UU.jpeg" alt="ptarmigan on top of tree" width="50" height="38" />

“A ptarmigan!” I said. I knew they were common, but still. I had never seen a real symbol of the north. I was thrilled.

“They’re so dumb,” Jeane said laughing at my excitement. I took about 100 pictures and then it was time to head back to Dawson; we had tickets to the midnight show at Gerties Saloon. On the way, we passed a small grizzly eating flowers, and a few more ptarmigans.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/0-ztyMGEdsWLZg-NunR5930CBMHjMbDyoC0y1W6xxU.jpeg" alt="" width="50" height="38" />

The midnight show at Gertie’s is a modern take on the can-can. Marilyn Manson’s cover of the Eurhythmics <em>Sweet Dream (are made of this)</em> is one of the numbers. It’s fun, campy and great for people watching.

That night we went for a drink at The Pit, and found another driver to take us to the Dome to watch the sun set and rise within the span of what felt like a minute. The sky got darker and darker until suddenly there was the faintest hint of it getting brighter. We went to sleep that morning after sunrise.
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/top-6-one-day-vancouver-road-trips-to-feed-the-soul/">Top 6 One Day Vancouver Road Trips to Feed The Soul</a></strong></blockquote>
I was up early to explore the city I dreamt of as a child. I wandered to <strong>Robert Service’s cabin</strong>, which happens to be across the street from the house Pierre Berton grew up in. I explore the general store on Front Street, which, like Dawson, is a mix of tourist trap and the real thing—souvenirs and fox pelts.

I had wandered almost the whole town by the time Jeane woke up. Today we would tackle the Top of the World highway. Leaving Dawson and the Klondike highway on the north side of town by ferry you end up in little Dawson and on the top of the world highway when you disembark.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ferry-Dawson.jpeg" alt="Ferry ride, Dawson" width="50" height="38" />

Our original plan had been to drive from Whitehorse to Dawson, then leave Dawson by the top of the world, cross into Alaska and visit it’s remote interior before returning to the Yukon further south at Beaver Creek. From there we would drive south to Haines, Alaska for a beer festival to cap off the trip.

Only, the most remote boarder crossing in North America was closed. We decided to drive the 105 kilometres to the boarder anyway.
<blockquote> <strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/top-10-road-trip-destinations-cross-canada-adventure/">Top 10 Road Trip Destinations on a Cross Canada Adventure </a></strong></blockquote>
Along the way we would pass the lands where Buck finally answered the Call of the Wild. When we told people where we were going in the Toyota Matrix, they shrugged and said you might make it. By now the car, with about 1000 kilometres of Yukon dust covering it, had proven tougher than we expected.

The top of the world, built by the United States military during the cold war, is named both for its latitude and because it winds its way to Alaska on mountain tops and ridges. Like on the Dempster, the trees fall away, but here it’s as much altitude as latitude. Like the road to Keno, it was pitted and only newly opened. One stretch was closed because of snow and wash out, and the detour we took down into a valley was the only time I was truly worried about the Matrix foundering.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Road-closed.jpeg" alt="Road Closed" width="50" height="38" />

The views along the road were staggering. The Klondike highway with its sweeping curves was nothing compared to this road. No wonder, I thought, the road was a must-ride for motorcyclists on round the world tours. It’s bends and twists and devastating drops were fun enough in the Matrix. On a bike they’d be perfect. (I had coffee with Bostjan Skrlj from Slovenia who had his BMW motorcycle stolen in Whitehorse. He had visited 41 countries on his ride around the world.)

After a sweeping turn above a valley that apparently is often full of caribou, we arrived at the closed border, walked nervously to the plinth that marked the border, <strong>snapped some pictures</strong> and turned around before we got in trouble. That night we had a date at <strong>Bombay Peggy’</strong>s, a brothel converted to a boutique hotel with a fittingly tasty Old-Fashioned.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/border-yukon.jpeg" alt="American Border, Yukon" width="50" height="38" />

We went to sleep early. The next morning was a 500 kilometre drive to Whitehorse before heading west and north to the boarder crossing at Beaver Creek, where we would’ve re-entered the Yukon had the Top of the World been open.

&nbsp;
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/yukon-road-trip-the-ultimate-canadian-northern-adventure/">Yukon Road Trip: The Ultimate Canadian Northern Adventure Part#1 </a></strong></blockquote>

Yukon Road Trip: The Ultimate Canadian Northern Adventure Part#2

Biker girl riding on a motorcycle. Bottom view of the legs in leather boots. Focus on the rear wheel.

Motorcycle back tire close up

<h2>Spring motorcycle safety checklist</h2>
<h3>1) Tires:</h3>
On a motorcycle your tires are everything. Every time you lean into a bend you’re trusting those two chunks of rubber to keep you on the road, so it pays to give them a little attention, particularly at the start of the season. Roll your bike into the sun, and pop it on its centre stand. Look closely at the wear indicators, usually little bars or bumps in the tire grooves. If you’re having trouble finding them look along the side of the tire for little arrows that point to the wear bars. Inspect the tires for balding or cracks in the rubber; if you see any, replace the tires. Check the wheels and spokes for any damage or wear as well. Finally check the tire pressure and inflate accordingly.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Motorcycle-air-pressure-copy.jpg" alt="Checking the air pressure in motorcycle tires" width="50" height="38" />
<h3>2) Brakes:</h3>
About 75 % of a motorcycle’s stopping power comes from the front brake, so you want to make sure it’s working perfectly. On most bikes you’ll be able to see brake pad wear while the pads are on the motorcycle. Like tires, break pads have wear indicators. If the pads are close to worn out, replace them now so you don’t have to mid-season. Then give the front brake level a good squeeze. First make sure you can squeeze the level without it hitting the handle bar. If it hits the bar or if it feels spongy or mushy you’ll need to bleed the brake system. Same goes for the rear brakes. It’s not that hard of a DIY project, but like anything in this article visit a mechanic if you’re unsure.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Motorcycle-breaks-.jpg" alt="Motorcycle brakes" width="50" height="38" />
<blockquote><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/news/after-son-dies-in-crash-opp-officer-preaches-motorcycle-training-4/">After son dies in crash, OPP officer preaches Motorcycle training</a></strong></blockquote>
<h3>3) Fluids:</h3>
When was the last time you changed your Motorcycle’s oil? Spring is always a good time if you can’t remember. It’s a dirty job, but if you’re not mechanically minded an oil change is a great way to get to know your motorcycle. Make sure you follow the manufacturer’s instructions for the type of oil to use and how to change it. Next (you’ll have done this already if you had to bleed the brakes) check the brake fluid level. You want the level to sit between high and low. If it’s too low, top it up. Again, follow the manufacturer’s instructions for the type of fluid required. Hopefully you either drained your gas tank and carburetors dry in the fall or used a fuel-stabilizer to keep your motorcycle’s insides happy. If not, you may be in for an afternoon cleaning carburetors.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/motorcycle-repair-copy.jpg" alt="mechanic repairing a motorcycle" width="50" height="38" />
<h3>4) Battery:</h3>
Hopefully your motorcycle battery has been plugged in to a trickle-charger (so called because it charges the batteries slowly) somewhere relatively warm and dry all winter. If not, enjoy your visit to Canadian Tire to buy a new battery. If it has been plugged in all winter, check its levels. On my bike, I had to add some distilled water—which is available at pharmacies or grocery stores—to each cell. If you left it unplugged all year, try to save it with a trickle-charger, but your best bet is a new one.

<img class="" src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Motorcycle-battery.jpg" alt="motorcycle battery" width="512" height="389" />
<h3>6) Lights and gauges:</h3>
With your battery plugged in, check the lights and gauges. Make sure brake lights are working, indicators are indicating and that your gauges all light up. If not you should be able to replace most bulbs easily.

<img class="" src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Motorcycle-lights.jpg" alt="motorcycle headlights" width="503" height="382" />
<blockquote><strong>Motorcycle Road Trip: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/news/riding-the-ontario-highlands/" target="_blank">Riding the Ontario Highlands</a></strong></blockquote>
<h3>7) Chain and sprockets:</h3>
Inspect your chain; if it’s rusty clean it off. Oil it after a brief ride so it’s warmed up. Check the sprockets for any damage, and feel the slack in the chain. If the chain is too slack you’ll have to tighten it.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Motorcycle-tightening-and-chain-copy.jpg" alt="motorcycle tightening and chain" width="50" height="38" />
<h3>8) Clothing:</h3>
Give your Motorcycle helmet a good look. As my riding instructor said years ago, “your helmet is the most important piece of gear you have, everything else is a false sense of security.” Remember that helmets expire, so after about five years or so you’ll have to buy a new one even if it looks fine. I make sure my leather gear is supple. Just like my lower back, it can get stiff when sitting all winter in a heated house, so treat it with leather conditioner.

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Motorcycle-Helmet-copy.jpg" alt="motorcycle helmet being held by a man in a leather jacket" width="50" height="38" />
<h3>9.) Be Aware:</h3>
Spring is the most dangerous time of year to ride. Not only does it mean dirty pot-holed roads, but also that you haven’t ridden for months and drivers aren’t used to sharing the roads with motorcycles, so take it easy out there for the first few weeks. Happy riding!

<img src="https://d3odfdcwc42kff.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/motorcycle-sign.jpg" alt="Motorcycle road sign" width="50" height="38" />
<blockquote><strong> ROAD TRIP: <a href="http://www.wheels.ca/road-trips/touring-the-okanagan-valley-on-a-harley-davidson/">Touring the Okanagan Valley on a Harley Davidson</a></strong></blockquote>

Thomas Hall

Articles by Thomas Hall

Yukon Road Trip: The Final Stretch

Yukon Road Trip: The Ultimate Canadian Northern Adventure Part#1

The Fascinating Story Behind the DeLorean

Yukon Road Trip: The Ultimate Canadian Northern Adventure Part#2

9 Simple Steps to get your Motorcycle Spring Ready