Saturday July 24 Whitehorse

Distance driven-18 km; Total 2183

Animals seen; many (but they were all stuffed and in museums)

I made a mistake when booking this bnb a few days ago. On hotels.com I read that the food selection for breakfast was very good but I never paid attention to the date of the review (it turned out to be pre-covid). This place is no longer a bnb but is just a small hotel, so after getting everything straightened out in that department we headed to Tim Horton's for "farmer's wraps" to eat.

I had my call from AHS concerning covid (same as Caro did the other day). 

Our first stop was to continue the visit to the MacBride museum. It took another 90 minutes to do so as it was chock-full of fascinating info on the gold rush. 

Next up was the S.S. Klondike paddle wheeler. We had to wait an hour for a guided tour at 1 P.M. as the covid rules are still very strict  here and only groups of 6 max can go at a time. While we waited our time we were able to see a 20 minute video on the life and times of the paddle wheelers that plied these waters for about a century. We also went back to our car and ate lunch there.

The tour was great. Ourselves and a couple of ladies (also from Alberta) were shown around by a guide who is originally from France. She was full of interesting information as we walked around the ship. I am very glad not to have been a deck hand on a paddle wheeler using logs for boiler fuel. Throwing a log inside the boiler furnace every 30 seconds in a 4 hour on; 8 hour off schedule would have been beyond exhausting!

We had started the tour by walking the outside of the vessel to get a idea how big it really was. Below is a photo of Caro underneath the paddle wheels

With that tour over about 2:15 we drove over to the Beringia Interpretive Centre. Inside were skeletons of extinct animals found here and a display concerning the formation (and eventual disappearance) of the Beringia land mass (the land bridge from Russia to Alaska). The guide said there had been only 7 people there all day (and when we parked we were the only car in the lot).  After watching a well produced video of the changes in the land over the eons the guide seemed so happy to talk to someone (anyone!).  He and I had a long conversation about the populating of North America (i.e. Clovis point timeline vs. new archaeological evidence suggesting much older migrations). Caro ended up getting so bored she wandered off to find something that suited her!

We were out the door shortly after 3:15 P.M. and with that our tourism interests had been fulfilled for Whitehorse.

We went shopping at a couple of the big food stores, buying breakfast and lunch food for our drive tomorrow.

Supper tonight was chili from Tim Horton's. It is close enough that we walked the few blocks from our room.