17 September 2008

Keno, Yukon

Mid september and I have one week before meeting Lynne in Vancouver for an excursion to Gananaque, Ontario to visit the team there.

The wet weather has continued recently but the occassional ice coated pool reminds me that on this day last year we had the first snow fall that stuck to the ground. I have essentially completed field work as it will be touch and go from here on in.

I have a few more photos from the Dawson City trip.

I visited the "gold discovery" claim on the small tributary to the Klondike River that was originally called Little Rabbit Creek, but subsequently remaned Bonanza Creek.

The fall colours were brilliant and I was lucky with some fine weather. It seems that the difference in having only yellows on the turning leaves here as compared with what we hope to see in eastern Canada is that there are maples or oaks at this latitude, mainly poplars, aspen, alders and willows. The hillsides blazed.

The 150km drive north on the start of the dirt road called the Dempster Highway that links Inuvik on the Arctic Sea to the rest of Canada provided some spectacular views ionto the Tombstone Mountains rising from ground that soon becomes open tundra for the remaining 650km of the drive with just one services stop on the way. I will reserve that drive for some time when the price of gas is a little less (or work out a way to tap into the North Slope oilfields when I get there) and the have a week to spare.







Will write again after the visit back east, as I will have a final work stint of 2-3 weeks and get home in the first week of November.

6 September 2008

Dawson City Yukon

I took a couple of days off and went exploring

to Dawson City - the home of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896.

Now largely a tourist town, although some mining is still taking place,

and I have a nugget to prove it,

it is a shell of facades in front of falling down buildings

and dusty streets and bars

on the banks of the Yukon River

I photographed it all

and as you will see another day, explored some of the neighbourhood

I had a beer and a glass of wine and good food that was distinctly non-camp

And came back to camp refreshed to finish the task at hand

Al

2 September 2008
Keno Hill, Yukon

The landscape has changed dramatically in the past week - brilliant fall colours splatter the hillsides as the temperature falls and the days grow shorter. There is generally a frost in the mornings, -4o today, but for a few days now we have had the clearest days of the whole summer and warming to 12o by afternoon - making it very nice to start wrapping up my field work. But the ground at higher elevations has frozen up and the streams are starting to grow their winter coat of ice and this does start to make it more difficult to get about the steep ground.


Only three weeks until I get the holiday with Lynne to visit the other side in Ontario.

But meanwhile I need to escape for a few days and so am planning to visit Dawson City in the next week or so - will keep you up to date - but will not be telling if I find a gold nugget that was missed on the Klondike.