Get a Room!

It was a good thing we'd booked into the Atlin Mountain Inn last night, in spite of the limited food options - it rained all night, and got quite cool (ok, maybe even cold!).  But we'd had a great, quiet night in our hotel room.  We made coffee in our room, and had some of our cheese and baguette from our camping leftovers, and then started out.  Before heading back to the Alaska Highway we continued out of town a few km to walk through the Pioneer Cemetery.  There was no-one there we knew of, but still find them interesting....one fellow, an aviator,  died of starvation in the early days of the town, and many of them died in mining accidents. We were impressed with Atlin, in spite of the rainy, cloudy weather - what we saw gives us  an idea how magnificent it would appear on a sunny day.

An old ferry on the beach at Atlin. 

 It continued to rain off and on throughout the morning, and by 11:00 AM we were back eastbound on the Alaska Highway, bound for Teslin.  We made a stop outside of Teslin at the Tlingit Heritage Centre, where we viewed an impressive display of Tlingit artifacts and artwork.  They were preparing for Aboriginal Day, with free bbq'd burgers and bannock.

A beautiful mask and a Bentwood Box

I love the artistry in the masks

Tlingit Totems

Just a few km further on, we visited a museum dedicated to George Johnson, a native photographer and leader of the community.
We were then into Teslin, and it was just past 1230 - perhaps too early to settle in for the night, so we headed back down the highway in brightening skies (although still drizzling most of the time).  This part of the route was basically just winding our way through a bit of mountainous country and past some lakes, over the Divide (we didn't stop here this time), and on into Watson Lake, where we'd originally entered the Yukon.  We'd outrun the weather system and found warm and sunny weather here....but it was behind us, moving our way, with the wind picking up ahead of it, as it had the previous two days in Whitehorse and Atlin.  So time for another room.  We found a vacancy in a small, clean, but older motel - the Dragon's Den (I don't think this has anything to do with the tv program).  It was only 5PM so we took a drive out to the airport, 8 miles north of town (to get another stamp for our passport, which we'll hand in tomorrow morning).  Here they had a great set of pictures depicting the Lend-lease program during WWII, when thousands of US aircraft were ferried through here to the Soviet Union to assist in the war against Germany.  I was also taken by the old control tower, which reminded me of my first control tower in North Bay.

Terminal Bldg. and Control Tower at Watson Lake Airport

On our way back into town, I marvelled at how long some of the highway signs around here have lasted!

Remnants of the 70's

As I sit here in our snug little room, we're working on our next routing.  Because of the flooding and highway closures on highway 97, we'll likely detour a bit into Alberta before turning south to Jasper and then back toward home.  Tomorrow we're bound for the Liard River Hotsprings for a soak - if we can get a campsite.