It was spring of 1998, in San Diego, and I came across an article in a travel magazine: Klondike Gold Rush Centennial Celebration. I looked at my wife and said, “Wouldn’t it be fun to relive the Gold Rush in our 1973 VW camper van?”
The article mentioned that 100 years ago, many of the 100,000 prospectors had set out from California.
We left home on July 1st to allow plenty of time to arrive for Discovery Week.
(I forgot to mention that we had just had our 1600cc little air-cooled engine rebuilt in Tijuana.)
Off we went, full of enthusiasm and innocence – just like the prospectors!
I won’t bore you with all the problems and breakdowns, but we made a lot of friends at the repair shops along the way.
We boarded the Kennicott ferry at Bellingham and, three weeks later, after camping at all the ports, we arrived at Skagway. On August 10th, we pulled into Dawson City’s Gold Rush Campground.
We had made it!
The week-long, unforgettable celebrations began the next day.
The smart Royal Canadian Mounted Police led the grand parade, followed by the flags of each nation involved, then the proud descendants of the 40,000 prospectors who reached their El Dorado.
Before leaving, we visited Discovery Claim, where Skookum Jim Mason, Tagish Charlie and fellow-Californian George Carmack had discovered gold on August 17, 1896. This exciting news of a rich new gold field in Canada’s remote Yukon Territory set off “The World’s Last Great Adventure”.
But our own great adventure had only just begun!
We decided to cross the Yukon River by ferry, take the Top of the World Highway and drive home the long way via the Alaska Highway. Thirty-five miles outside Dawson City, we broke down BIG TIME.
However, we were in luck because the support vehicle for the cross-Canada canoe team stopped to help us and they had a satellite telephone. In no time, they dialled up the Mounties in Dawson City, who sent a tow truck to rescue us. This was Discovery Day and the owner himself of Northern Superior towed us back to his shop.
Now, 10 years later, the repair is still holding and we have renamed the Top of the World Highway as the “End of the World Highway”!
BARRY & CORINNE SMEDLEY, Skagway, Alaska
