August 25, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory to Junction of Dawson Highway and Dempster Highway, Yukon Territory - 315 Miles

Fall color comes early in the Far North - August 25 - about 200 miles north of Whitehorse.

As we have been riding, the Fall colors in the Aspen and Birch have gotten a good start.

We have also gotten into the wonderful BIG rivers in the Northern part of Canada.  One of the biggest is the Klondike, which we ran into first in Whitehorse.  It is easily as large and carries as much water as some of the grand rivers in the U.S.  To get a photo of a good part of the Klondike, I had to take it through the smoke of forest fires in the Yukon Territory.

We stopped at the Visitor's Center in Whitehorse, and saw from a satellite photo that maybe 40 fires are now burning in the Yukon, most of them small, and all of them caused by lightning.  So our ride today went through lots of smoky areas.  The scenery was still wonderful, so we got along OK.

While in Whitehorse, we visited the historic paddle wheeler, the "Klondike", which made runs up and down the Klondike River in its heyday.    We were really impressed with the restoration work that had been done since Norm and I visited four years ago.  The restoration workers had replaced virtually every frame in the hull and every plank making up the hull.  It will be completely restored by year's end, and is something to marvel at.

Tomorrow is our day to start the next Great Adventure - riding up the "Dempster Highway" (a gravel road with lots of potential for difficulty) - for 450 miles to Inuvik, through parts of the Yukon and Northwest Territories - about 200 miles North of the Arctic Circle!!

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