Elmo's log #5

Beaver Creek, Yukon
Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
Signpost forest in Watson Lake, Yukon; started in 1942, now over 50,000 signs

Elmo’s Log # 5

May 29, 2006

When we woke this morning I knew it was cold, and I could hear what I thought was a very light drizzle. I didn’t want to get out of the cozy bag. When I finally got out I realized that the sound on the tent was snow. In a few minutes, Elmo looked like he had dandruff. The snow stopped and the sun came out. We broke camp and took off for Whitehorse, the capitol of the Yukon, and the place where most of the prospectors started their adventure down (up) the Yukon River. The Yukon flows north from Whitehorse up into the Klondike and into Alaska. It finally turns west and south and flows into the Bering Sea at Emmonac. I can’t help but think about Sergeant Preston riding along in his bright red uniform chasing bad guys through the Klondike with his dog. . . What was that dog’s name?

For a while I thought that we might at last be getting ahead of Spring. The aspen at higher elevations were white sticks; no touch of green. The grass on the roadsides was winter yellow and we were running the heater. Then when we got to Whitehorse, and took a hike on a trail above the Yukon River, we found the beautiful purple pasque flowers thick in the woods. We saw a lot of Buffalo along the road, including several light brown calves. We camped at Wolf Creek Campground outside Whitehorse and went in to town to have fried calamari and buffalo burgers on the deck at the High Country Inn.