Gary got his truck back from the Ford garage today as planned. It turned out it wasn’t the glow plug but the glow plugs relay. Either way it cost him over $500 Canadian but that did include an oil and filter change. Gary took the rental car to a station to put gas in it since the rental company would charge $4.50 a liter to fill it up. I ask the girl how they could possibly afford to fill it up at that price. I don’t think she saw any humor in it. I mean that’s only $17 a gallon. When we got back to pick up the truck there was a note on it telling Gary to check with the service manager before leaving. Turned out, they had put the wrong oil in the truck since it is a diesel. While we waited for them to put the right oil in, we decided to take the rental car uptown to a restaurant and then Gary turned it in.
We decided to drive out to the fish ladder to look around. I’m sure some of you know what a fish ladder is but for any that don’t, a fish ladder is a means for the salmon to make it back to their spawning grounds when a dam has been built. The Chinook Salmon spawn in the water above the dam that has been built on the Klondike River and then the baby salmon, fry’s as they are called, make the long journey down the river to the Bering Sea. A journey of 1875 miles. There they stay for approximately 5 years. Then they start back, upstream, for the same 1875 miles. For about 3 months, up water falls and rapids fighting their way back to their spawning ground, but there is a problem since the city of Whitehorse has built a 40,000 Kilowatt power plant which of course meant a dam. Hence the need for a fish ladder.
You can see in the middle picture that the ladder is actually wooden steps with water flowing over them. During the spawning the water is increased. The salmon jump from one step to the next. The last picture shows a fairly level area where they get to rest before the last leg up to the top of the dam which ends just to the right of the trees in the top middle of the picture. They do this to lay their eggs and then die so that the cycle can start all over again. Kinda makes our rat race look easy doesn’t it.
We then drove out to Miles Canyon. Miles Canyon was named by a US Army Lt named Frederick Schwatka for his commanding officer, General Nelson A Miles while they were exploring the area in 1883. The canyon was formed by the White Horse Rapids on the Klondike River. It was here that the Gold Rush Stampeders were stopped by the Northwest Canadian Mounties due to the extreme danger presented by the rapids. They had to be piloted through the rapids on their rafts by an experienced river man
The above picture was taken from the Robert Lowe Suspension Bridge which is the way you get from one bank to the other side. The last picture is taken from an overlook above the river.
Late this evening we got out the charcoal grill and fixed hamburgers, sausages, and some pork loin chops. The sausages and the pork loin are for later this week.
We will be pulling out in the morning and plan on at least 2 days of dry camping so it will be a little while before the next posting.
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