After getting groceries, doing laundry and paying bills, we head further east toward Tagish/Carcross and the drive down to Atlin. The turn off for Atlin Highway #8 is 60 some miles from Whitehorse. It?s is sunny and beautiful. The turn off is at Jakes Corner, we then travel 12 more miles on a good paved 2 lane road to the community of Tagish. It?s not much. A gas station/auto repair facility and a caf? with a couple of places to park a motor home or trailer.
I have research the government campground here and they have sites big enough for our coach; some are in the trees and then there is a wide open area for ANY size rig. We decide on one in the trees, so instead of backing in, we pull in straight looking right into the forest of trees. Facing out would have put us looking out over the large gravel area and closer to the road.
It only takes a few minutes to set up as this is dry camping. After getting all settled in, we realize the campground has free firewood and we have this neat large metal fire ring along with a picnic table. Tim pulls out his hammer and chisel and tries to split a small log. Fat chance, he?ll run a good chisel and it ain?t gonna work. Because I?m the one who want the campfire, I decide to get into the car and run into town to quickly find out there really is no more town, only a gas/auto repair facility and a caf? with a few sites for campers. I drive into the caf? thinking maybe they have a store of some sort. No such luck, however I do meet the owner of the caf?. I tell him I?m looking for an axe to split the wood over at the government campground. Well, he not only loans me one ax; but sends me home with 2. Tim makes quick use of both axes, so now we have enough split wood for two nights. I really don?t like campfire smoke; but for some reason with the Fall atmosphere, it sounded like fun. Oh, I did return the axes and thanks to the Yukon gentleman.
On Sunday we drove close to 60 miles to the little town of Tagish. The drive started out on paved roads in the Yukon, then about half way we crossed into British Columbia and the road became hard packed dirt. It wound through the rolling hills. Just after we began the trip, we stopped at a gravel pull off to look at the lake. There were several truck campers parked with boat trailers. Apparently, this is a big fishing area for lake trout and large pike. Just after we got out, a man sitting in his truck warned us that a mamma black bear and her cubs were very near in the underbrush right neat the outhouse. We rounded up Charlie who was running around loose poking his nose into everything and talked to the man for a while. He and his friend were waiting until the bears left before they put their boat in the water.
There were lots of government campgrounds along this drive; many of them right on lakes or streams and they looked like fun; but no place you would want to take a big rig. We also noticed their stacked up firewood was already split!!!
Tagish is very unique. A couple of folks had told us Tagish is also often called ?little switzerland? . It is on an inlet with a couple of pretty good sized mountains out from the bay. However what is unique is an island right out in front of the town with a mountain right in the middle. Several glaciers are visible. We drove through town, found a little place to get lunch and then drove back. Both of us remarked that being this remote we were surprised not to see any wildlife at all. Minutes later a huge black bear crossed the road in front of us.
The campers parked next to us are fun; in fact they are very interesting folks. They are from Whitehorse and live in a ?dry? cabin. They also close the cabin up in the winter and go to Quartzsite for 4 months; what a small world. We talked politics, favorite campgrounds; and the best route into the lower 48.
They explained to us how living in their dry cabin, which is about 20 miles from where we are camped, is actually accomplished. It is a 2 story small cabin right on Marsh Lake, in fact their upstairs deck sticks out over the lake. They have electricity, including electric heat, but don?t always use it. They heat with a wood fireplace/stove. They have no running water and no indoor plumbing; and, no washer/dryer. Water for their gardens, both flower and vegetable, is pumped up from the lake. Water for their personal use (a 350 gallon tank) is brought in by truck. When they leave for Quartzsite, they drain it. Most of their furnishings for the cabin have been picked up from the dump. In Whitehorse, the dump has a ?reuse? section where people drop off furnishing they don?t want. If you want it, you just take it. Laverne, the husband, is very handy, so he fixes up what he finds and makes good use of it. Now if you think Laverne and Brenda have no money, that?s probably not true. He worked many years for the airlines as Cargo Manager. They told us, they just decided to reuse/recycle and look at things a little differently. I admire them, but don?t believe I would go so far as to use the outhouse in 0 degree weather.
We decide to stay another day and pay our $12.00 to be able to just sit in the sun, read and just do nothing. Tim has been working on some carving, so we had wood chips to help start the evening fire. Tuesday we drive to Watson Lake.