The Yukon Experience

Days 28 and 29. Monday, May 18 and Tuesday, May 19.


View Harvey's Route in a larger map

This was a pretty amazing part of the trip. The Yukon just feels like raw wilderness with a single two lane road cut across it. Much of its development over the past fifty years is solely from the Alaska Highway.

From our campground, we had a six hour drive to out destination for the next two days. Casey and I saw a picture of Emerald Lake in a brochure while researching for the trip and decided we had to go there. The picture was breathtaking, but it didn't compare with seeing it in person.



There are no campgrounds on the lake in fact there seems to be just one house on the lake. One house! What the hell's that all about??

Anyway, we did find a place to stay on Emerald Lake's sister lake, Spirit lake, which is not quite as dramatic but is off the road and has canoe access.




We took it easy for the rest of the evening and made buffalo burgers for dinner, followed by euchere. We were hoping to be able to catch the northern lights at some point on the trip, but as we discovered it just doesn't get dark enough. The following picture was taken at 12:45 AM.



We had big plans for the morning. Andy and I took a canoe out onto Spirit Lake and did some real fishing - and I only have two words for that...

TROUT SLAYERS!



This was so much fun. We caught three total - two for me one for Andy who got the big one - all in the first hour of being out there. It was like one of those Bass Masters shows. We even had a golden eagle fly out and circle us for about five minutes obviously trying to see how it's done. That was pretty amazing, I wasn't able to take a picture though because we were too busy slayin' trout!

We wrapped it up after a while and before lunch Andy and I went back down to the lake shore to clean the fish. We took turns each cleaning the fish we caught while the other was on bear watch. We threw the remains back into the lake not to attract any wildlife. (more on this later)

After lunch Casey and I took the canoe back out on the lake for some sightseeing while Andy, Melissa, and Clara sat on the dock and we communicated by walkie-talkie. While we were out there we saw a mother black bear and two cubs way up on the hill (too far for a good photo), a bald eagle soaring, and two moose who had come down to the lake to drink.




After that we came in to give the trio on shore a turn, which was adorable...




Unfortunately, Clara wasn't a fan of the canoe so the excursion didn't last long. However, during that time something incredible happened and Casey and I had the wildlife sighting of the trip. We were standing on the dock watching the lake and heard some twigs breaking behind us. I figured it was a person, but I turned around to make sure it wasn't a bear. It was neither. It was a lynx. This thing came right out form the area where Andy and I had cleaned the fish, it stalked low in the weeds in the direction of the dock, up the hill away from us after it saw us and across the path leading down to where we were. It was about thirty feet from us and I had the camera handy.





At that time the SS Clara was returning and Andy spotted the lynx on his own in the woods, and when Clara yelled something it ran off. So let that be a lesson to us all: when heading out into lynx-infested wilderness bring a baby for protection.

We were all pretty wound up from the sighting after that and decided to seek the shelter of the RV after that. We took it easy and had a delicious grilled trout dinner before calling it an early night as Andy, Mel, and Clara had an early flight out of Whitehorse in the morning.

Having these three adventurers join us on the trip was such a treat. We drove through some of the most remote wilderness any of us will ever see in a twenty-year-old motor home packed to the ceiling with four adults and a baby and had a fantastic time. After this, Harvey seemed invincible... right?