June 12, 2016, North to Alaska Day 6

It was a good thing we used the pavilion  at the Watson Lake Provincial Park as it rained hard during the night. But in the morning we had blue sky with a few puffy clouds.  We had planned to get gas in Teslin, however the whole town had no power. I heard the town's main power source (a generator) was down.  We squeaked into Johnson's Crossing, but it made us uncomfortable enough that we finally filled our spare gas cans.  After all we are way out in the boonies and you never know what could happen.  We had isolated rain showers, and in between we wanted to remove gear as it was so warm!

We stopped to check out the Whitehorse Rapids. During the Gold Rush, boats would take miners up through the rapids on their way to the gold fields. 

Whitehorse is named after the historic rapids on the Yukon River which resembled the flowing manes of charging white horses. On the “Trail of ’98”, the stampeders had to bypass the treacherous water of Miles Canyon and White Horse Rapids, south of the present city.

The White Horse Rapids became known as the greatest peril on the trail of ’98. The construction of the Whitehorse hydro-electric dam in 1958 tamed Miles Canyon and has replaced the once-foaming White Horse Rapids with Schwatka Lake reservoir.

 Now both sides of the rapids have walking/biking trails.  This bridge is for todays users.

Patti and Wayne on the bridge 

We stopped briefly in Whitehorse, then it was up to Takhini Hot Springs where we arrived about 4 pm. After setting up camp, with tarps on everything, we headed to the pool for a soak.  It was OK, just because the water was hot.  But the pool had way too many dead bugs floating around.  However there were a bunch of cute big ground squirrels to entertain us.  They looked like prairie dogs, standing up on their hind legs.

286 miles