Picto Diary - 08 June 2017 - The Klondike Highway
08 June 2017 - Today. I ride my BMW F800 GS motorcycle north along a portion of the Klondike Highway. YT 2. North from Whitehorse, YT to Dawson City. 330 miles.
The Klondike Highway starts in Skagway, AK as AK 98. At the top of the White Pass the highway enters the Yukon and becomes YT 2. The Klondike Highway terminates in Dawson City, YT. Its total length is 438 miles.
The highway roughly parallels the route taken by most of the gold seekers taking part in the Klondike gold rush of 1898. The Klondike gold rush is widely viewed to be one of history's greatest human endeavors. Two great authors told its tale: Jack London and Robert W. Service.
The portion of the highway going north from Whitehorse, YT, which I will be riding today, has beautiful views of the Yukon River. The route crosses two of the Yukon's significant tributaries: the Pelly River and the Stewart River.
Above: Bishop at Five Fingers Rapids. Yukon River. Klondike Highway. 08 June 2017.
During the gold rush days around the turn of the 20th century, steam boats would make their way up the Yukon River as far as Whitehorse. Because of the severe rapids at Miles Canyon, the boats could proceed no further.
Five Fingers Rapids, here between Whitehorse and Carmacks, posed a minor obstacle for the steam boats as they made their way up river.
The nearest of the five channels, visible in this image, is one hundred feet in width. The rapids have a two feet rise. The up stream going stern wheelers could fit in the channel, but, they'd have to winch the boats over the rise.
300 commercial steamboats worked the river during the peak period of the gold rush.
Above: Bear Alert sign in Pelly Crossing convenience store. Pelly Crossing, Klondike Highway, Yukon.
I had my run-in with a brown bear last year north of Liard Springs, BC. I'm not stopping to observe this time!
Above: Pelly Crossing. Pelly River. Klondike Highway. Yukon Territory. 08 June 2017.
The source of the Pelly lies three hundred fifty miles to the east in the McKenzie Mountains.
I marvel at the size of the Pelly... a heretofore unknown (at least to me) waterway. I guess my awe at the size of these Canadian rivers derives from my upbringing, where to me, as a boy, the spring runoff of the Provo River seemed like a big deal.
The Pelly's average discharge (700 m3 per second) is higher than the average discharge of the Colorado (640 m3 per second).
Millions living in the southwestern US are precariously dependent on the fragile Colorado, where most of the Pelly, commingled into the Yukon, flows out to sea. There is plenty of water for everyone on the earth, its just that much of it is out of reach from where the people are living.
The Yukon is the fourth largest river system in North America with a discharge of 6,400 m3 per second. The first three are the St. Lawrence, 16,800 m3 per second; the Mississippi, 16,700 m3 per second; and the Ohio, 7,900 m3 per second.
A further comparison. The Amazon: 209,000 m3 per second.
I confess to being awed by great flows of water. I teared up in '09 while riding a Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle across the Brahmaputra River near Guahati, Assam, India.
Above: Stewart River. Stewart Crossing. Klondike Highway. Yukon. 08 June 2017.
Another Yukon Tributary. Discharge 850 m3 per second. River originates 330 miles to the east in the Selwyn Mountains.
Above: Two Images. Tintina Trench. Klondike Highway. Yukon. 08 June 2017.
The Tintina Trench is a yuge (sic) fault. Tectonics are still active here as up to a third of the land bordering the 800 mile long north west to south east diagonal trench has shifted by mud slide in the last ten thousand years. Slides continue today.
It is not a coincidence that gold was discovered in this region of high tectonic activity. Areas of plate friction are usually associated with rich mineralization.
My image does not do justice to how spectacular is this sight. The Tintina Trench is a giant, visible gash in the earth. The awe that it inspires in me as I gaze over it is similar to that felt during similar experiences of witnessing the Grand Canyon or Blue Nile Canyon in Ethiopia. Those two canyons were carved out by a river. The Tintina Trench was caused by a massive slip between two geological plates.
These geological/geographical phenomena tell me that creation of the earth is ongoing. The questions are begged, when will the Yellowstone Caldera blow? When will the Pacific plate slip under the North American plate?
Recognizing the fragility of the earth mankind needs to be more focused in hedging its survival bets.
Above: Road sign at Stewart Crossing. Klondike Highway. 08 June 2017.
Bishop leaves his mark.
Above: Placer gold mining tailings. Dawson City. 08 June 2017.
These placer mining tailing piles, aligned along the route of the Klondike River and the Klondike highway, went on for ten miles as I approached Dawson City, where the Klondike flows into the Yukon, while riding my BMW F800GS motorcycle.
For some reason, I thought the oil tanks on either side of the main road that went on for miles Montage and Mwah (sic) riding in a hired car, drove through Sharjah, UAE in 2012. The metaphor is apt... one a gold site... the other a "black gold" site.
In 1898, one hundred thousand would be gold miners were on their way, by steam boat, from Seattle or San Francisco, to Skagway. From Skagway the travelers would climb to the top of the White Pass, seek the headwaters of the Yukon, and build rafts and boats to float them down river, over 400 miles, to Dawson City... where the gold was.
Only thirty thousand of those who set out made it to Dawson City. Some were killed in the rapids of Whitehorse canyon. Others turned back.
Of the thirty thousand men who came to Dawson, only four hundred of them became wealthy on the back of gold discovery.
Some achieved wealth in other ways... portage services, retailing to prospectors... hotels. Jack London, failing to secure a claim, ended up working for other prospectors and became one of America's great authors: "White Fang," To Build a Fire."
Addendum:
That is so gorgeous. You are lucky to have seen it.
Comic Mom,
Park City, UT
Very cool again Steve.
Brand,
Ventura, CA
Hi Steve,
IOMTT is so amazing. What a wild ride! And so insane…isn’t that what makes it so cool?!
I thought you might enjoy this blog post of mine on design, with a nod to Porsche:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lead-follow-dw-blog-design-nirvana-david-wiener
David Wiener
David Wiener Ventures
Think Tank • Design Center • Entrepreneurial Guidance
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Park City, UT & Cape Cod, MA • USA
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