Sightseeing in Whitehorse, YT

Stan . . .

We spent most of the day wandering the streets of Whitehorse sightseeing, shopping & all the rest of the things typical tourist do. Of course since we are in Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are the dominate symbol of law enforcement. As you can tell the RCMP officer above was "standing guard" over this storefront along one of the main streets in Whitehorse.

This rather statuesque RMCP officer was standing guard at a hotel in downtown Whitehorse where we had a wonderful lunch of Arctic Char.

This is the Klondike sternwheeler which traveled the Yukon River between Whitehorse & Dawson City delivering supplies to Dawson City from mid May thru mid October each year (while the river remained ice free). The Klondike was the largest of all the sternwheelers that traveled the Yukon during the time period before there was a road to Dawson City. These sternwheelers were flat bottomed boats that drew a very shallow draft in the water (the Klondike fully loaded only drew a draft of approx. 4 ft.) The trip down the river from Whitehorse to Dawson City took an average of 1-2 days, while the return trip upriver to Whitehorse from Dawson City normally took 4-5 days. The engines were wood fired creating steam that in turn powered the piston arms that turned the stern paddle wheel. The amount of cordwood needed for these trips was enormous and there were several points along the river where the sternwheelers would routinely stop to take on additional cordwood supplied by local woodsmen.