We left the lovely B and B after another great breakfast and headed into town to do some provisioning, meet with Joel, the owner of Nahanni River Adventures and Canadian River Adventures, and then to Fraserway RV to pick up our home for the next 2 weeks!

A full morning indeed! As we neared the Superstore, I saw a fresh veggie stand boasting fruit and veg from the Okanagan valley… couldn’t resist!

Next was the Superstore, every bit as large as I knew back home and, shockingly, the prices were exactly the same for most goods! A huge array of fresh fruit, veg, meat etc. We were well provisioned indeed!

We managed to cram our bags into the car and headed into town to meet with Joel. We met in a cute coffee shop just off the Main St. We exchanged lots of stories of our dear friend Les Parsons, still guiding for Joel, and talked of our wonderful trip down the Nahanni River with our family and Glenn and Gwen. Joel gave us some great advice on where we might want to spend time as we head north along the Dempster highway. He also said that the colours would be starting to change soon so the mountains north of here as well as in Kluane should be spectacular! We told him our kids will probably be contacting him in a few years to explore the North with their families. The North is definitely a call for all of us!

After saying our goodbyes to Joel, we headed to Fraserway to pickup our RV.  We took about 30 minutes to do the paperwork, another 30-45 minutes to inspect the RV, get our orientation on all the operations, and then we pulled our car up and began the transfer of our stuff from the car… not everything, but the essentials we would need to see us through. 

Our RV frig has a freezer which allowed me to buy meat to freeze for our journey north. The frig was a good size, and is well stocked with fresh fruits and veggies for our trip! Then began the organizing of the cubbies and drawers and ensure everything was secure before we headed out. What we thought would be an hour process ended up being closer to 3 hours by the time we heard out the gate.

Our target was Dawson City for tonight. A 500-600 km journey which took us about 6-7 hours. The scenery was spectacular along the way and we made note of some lovely parks we would like to visit on the way home! The trees are definitely getting shorter as we go, with large stands of Aspen trees seen along the way.

We crossed mountains, hilly terrain, plains or plateaus and lots and lots of highway construction!  The RV rides pretty well, noisier than the Venza(which is secured at Fraserway) and doesn’t much like the bumpy roads around the construction.  But it got us through everything just fine!  The dealership had put brand new heavy duty tires on the RV just before we got there, so we felt secure on any type of road!

Around 8-8:30 we pulled into Dawson City.  We drove straight through town to the Ferry dock More like a beach) and discovered the campground we wanted was full… These are non reservable, so instead of the Klondike River Campground, we backtracked to a smaller one just east of the town about 14 kms, to the Yukon River campground.  These territorial parks are $12 per day which includes firewood.  No electrical or pump out services, but they do have water and pot toilets.

By 10pm we were sitting down to dinner.  The beauty of an RV is simply park and cook… no tent set up! 

We pushed to get to Dawson today because it was going to be a relatively clear night. Dawson is currently in a band where the northern lights would be their strongest. While this evening’s forecast will not be particularly strong, they should be visible. Unfortunately, Dan and I were so tired we crashed at 11:45 pm (still relatively light out) and slept through what possible show there was. Hopefully we’ll get another opportunity… just need clear nights ( lots of cloud and rain in the forecast)! Apparently they will be the strongest on August 24^th, so wish us luck!

Anyway, it was lovely to snuggle down in our bed and get a good night’s rest! Tomorrow we will try again for the Klondike River Campsite!