Day 25: Tok, AK to Watson Lake, YT
After a relaxing night in the RV, we set out from Tok toward the border. Another border crossing down (that will be our fifth of the trip), we carried on through the Yukon Territory, this time with a renewed appreciation for how beautiful the landscape is. Once again, the lack of "traffic" does help, not to mention the lack of prolonged construction stops and pilot cars.
We drove by our campground at Congdon Creek, then followed the road as it wraps around Kluane Lake, this time with a renewed appreciation for just how beautiful it is. It is the largest lake in the Yukon, going on for some 50 miles. At that moment, it must have been the most tranquil lake in North America, at least that we've seen. The edge of the water just barely laps an inch up onto the shore. Add that to the fact that there's nobody around and it's truly amazing. We've seen some truly beautiful lakes on this trip, but there's something about standing at a lake without forty other people that makes you appreciate it more.
And then we kept on moving, making a quick stop in Whitehorse to stretch our legs and see the town. Whitehorse seems pretty nice, complete with a picturesque Main Street and braced by the rushing waters of the Yukon River on one side (complete with boardwalk, below).
At that point, we probably should have tried a little harder to find some lodging in Whitehorse. But, for some reason, we decided to press on and maybe just go a little bit further. We kept on driving, now into the kind of absurdly dark darkness that you can't really achieve anywhere near a city. Perhaps it only really exists in places like the Yukon. It makes for some interesting driving, but more importantly, it also allowed us to see another show of the Northern Lights (woo!). Despite the forecast of "low" we'd read earlier in the day (thank you, aurora forecast), a giant swath of green was glowing just above the horizon in the distance, eventually beginning to twist and turn as we got closer. Just as one little batch of lights would shimmer away, another cluster would vibrate in another part of the sky. (That being said, it is fairly hard to capture on camera from a moving car, so you'll just have to take our word for it.)
As the show wound down, we were also treated to glimpses of the moon rising on the horizon, giant and golden-orange. At this point, however, we also began to remember one of the most important factors about the Yukon: there's not a lot here. So we pulled over to dig through the Milepost, intent on finding our next lodging option, since it was getting a bit too late to start setting up camp now. The first option we came to was very booked and the next four or five options after that (each of them some 100km apart) were very closed. We decided to give up on lodging and found the next rest area, Allen's Lookout. You can see on the map below (click to make it larger) where we started out from Whitehorse, followed by some black dots (where we would have liked to stay), and ending with a green dot (where we stayed, we think).
Apparently our home for the evening, "Allen's Lookout," was once used by thieves to set upon boats traveling down the Liard River. And now we were using it to make quesadillas on a camp stove, crouched behind the car. We piled everything in the front seats, folded down the seats, threw down some sleeping bags, and—bam—the car is now our tent for the night. Not too shabby! That being said, will we be sleeping in the car many more nights on this trip? Nope.