Saturday 24 June 2000

We take off on flight NW59 at 6:50pm from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Before we were allowed on board Northwest Airlines forced us to answer a couple of questions about our luggage and the nature and duration of our relationship (!). Our trip across the big pond seems to go quite smoothly until we arrive at Detroit for our connection to Seattle. The connecting flight turns out to be cancelled. Not because of the weather (there is a thunderstorm going on) but because of the crew. It is already 10.30pm and the next flight leaves at 7.05am the next morning. That means an unvoluntary overnight in Detroit (which we add to our list of places we have visited). Fortunately the hotel is near the airport and we get a room very quickly. We have only one thought on our mind: to hit the sack as soon as we can... and sleep! It will be a short night.

Sunday 25 June 2000

The alarm clock sounds at 4.45am. Our flight goes according to plan this morning. We arrive around nine and at 10.30 we our in our room in Hotel Seattle in the city of the same name. It is a bright and sunny day in Seattle and we are off to do some sightseeing. We start off with Pioneer Square where enjoy the coffee for which Seattle is so famous. The city has something of a coffee culture. Every 50 yards you find a specialty coffee shop.  Starbucks is today a world wide chain, but it started out here in Seattle over about a decade ago.  In its wake quite a few companies followed its example and make a good business out of good coffee. In a country known for its questionable coffee not a bad development. We sit down at Torrefazione Italia, a luxury competitor of Starbucks', where the coffee is served in beautiful and expensive cups (for sale too).  Pioneer Square is more or less the historic core of Seattle. The buildings date back to 1889 when the city was set ablaze and was built up again from the ground. In the 1960's the area had a close brush with impending demolition, but was saved after public protests. It has been carefully restored. We walk from there to the waterfront and hop on the historic streetcar. These streetcars (originating from Melbourne, Australia) ply the waterfront as a tourist attraction. We get off at Pike Place Market. This is a covered market, where fresh vegetables, fruit, meats and fish are sold ever since 1907. It is a busy place every day, Sundays no exception. Besides the market stalls the place also houses a couple of eateries. We have lunch at Lowell's, where we have a splendid view over the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains from our table. Today is also the last day of Seattle's Gay Pride event, which means that we are in luck in a pink way as well.  We take the trolleybus to Volunteer park, where the event is in full swing. Unfortunately we have missed the parade.  The streets of Capitol Hill, the alternative as well as firmly gay neighbourhood are filled with a large "happy" crowd.

To conclude today's sightseeing we go up the Space Needle, Seattle's landmark panoramic tower. A left over of the 1962 Expo. The view does not come cheap ($11), but it is pretty. Next door to the Space Needle the Experience Music Project is being opened this weekend. An interactive exhibition devoted to pop music, financed by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. We save it a next visit.

At night we eat and drink in Capitol Hill and join the last of the Gay Pride festivities. We call it day rather early, because it will be an early start tomorrow morning (again). 

Maandag 26 June 2000

Early morning we depart from Seattle with the  Victoria Clipper, a  fast ferry, to Victoria on Vancouver Island in Canada. Victoria is a nice, friendly and rather green city with an English touch. Today is another shining day with temperatures around 25° C. We have a room in the quaint and quiet  James Bay Inn. The centre of Victoria is around the marina, which in turn is dominated by the provincial parliament buildings of British Columbia, of which Victoria is the capital. On the other side is the impressive Empress Hotel. The hotel is the top notch place in town and is part of the Canadian Pacific chain, a conglomerate that runs railways across Canada.  CP has built hotels like this one in the early 20th century in order to generate passenger traffic to the west of the country.  We explore the city centre around Government Street. Early evening we have cocktails in the bar of the Empress hotel. Later on we have dinner at  Earl's. A West Canadian chain of restaurant serving good and affordable North American food. We have the distinct impression that the servers are not only selected on account of their waiting skills, but also on their ravishing appearances. We enjoy. Coffee at Starbucks.

Tuesday 27 June 2000

Today we can sleep in a bit (7am). We are being picked up for a  Whale Watching tour by Sea Coast expeditions on a open "Zodiac". The weather is good and put on lots of sun screen. Three and a half hours at sea are rewarded with quite of few sightings of Orcas and Harbour porpoises. Fun. With a hydrophone we are able to pick up the sounds the Orcas make under water and their sonar. In the afternoon we take the Pacific Coach Lines to Vancouver. The bus takes us on to the ferry of BC Ferries in Nanaimo. The crossing to Tsawassen on the mainland takes us past numerous islands in the George Strait. After that is still almost an hour to Vancouver. We had booked a private room in the Youth Hostel, but something has gone wrong. There are no more rooms. The receptionist is very helpful with finding us a room at the YMCA and even pays the taxi to get there.

At night we eat once more at Earl's. This time we have a fine view on Robson Street, the main shopping artery of Vancouver. Here too, both food and staff are worth while the visit. Then it is time, after some Starbuck coffee, to explore the gay scene.

Wednesday 28 June 2000

After breakfast we take a taxi to the airport. We fly Canadian Airlines to  Whitehorse in Yukon, the northwestern most territory of Canada. The journey is uneventful. Whitehorse is Yukon's capital, but that is not saying an awful lot. 20,000 inhabitants at the most living along a couple of long parallel roads. The surroundings, on the other hand are magnificent. The weather is good, sunny, but a bit cooler than down south: 20°C. We visit the Klondike paddle steamer, that connected Whitehorse with Dawson up north until 1950s. Especially during the 1898 gold rush these ships were the life line for the Dawson population. The Yukon river was navigable only from May through September! We are being guided around by a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide. In the evening we have dinner in the modest Talisman Café, where get a first taste of a caribou steak. After that we take positions in front of the TV for a relayed broadcast of France-Portugal soccer match of Euro2000.

Thursday 29 June 2000

Today will be the start of our tour through the Yukon and Alaska. Our rental car is late however. In stead of 9:00am we do not get picked up by AVIS until 10:45am. On top of that it shows that the AVIS licensee is not familiar with what is included in the booking I've made (and paid) back home in the Netherlands.  They will check it out later... The waiting meant on the other hand that we were able to watch Netherlands vs. Italy live on TV. Believe it or not but all Euro2000 matches are broadcast live on TV in Canada. Around 11 we are really on our way and it starts raining. Thankfully not for long. The road, the Klondike Highway, becomes quieter on our 550km long journey to Dawson City. En route we only see very small hamlets of a few houses every two hours or so. The nature is breathtakingly beautiful.  Dawson is a funny little town. It seems as if nothing much has changed since the 1898 Gold rush. Dawson was a very wealthy town at that time and during a short while attracted over 100.000 fortune seekers. A year later the rush was over but the town remained. After a long period of decay Parks Canada has started the restoration of Dawson and have made it a  National Historic Site. Unpaved streets, boardwalks and wood fronted houses make it much like the film set for a Western movie. We take a room in the Bunkhouse, a wooden western style motel, but without the goldpanners. We eat excellently later at night at Klondike Kate's restaurant and check our email in a cyber café. Later still we have a drink in the saloon of the Downtown Hotel. Around 11pm we call it a day and go to sleep, although the midnight sun is still shining.

Vrijdag 30 June 2000

We have breakfast at Klondike Kate and after some coffee we drive to  Claim 33 on Bonanza Creek. It is a former gold mine where you can do some gold panning like a real gold miner. For 5 dollars you get some sand and dirt from which you can extract, after careful washing and shaking a few tiny nuggets of gold. Nice. We drive on to Dredge 4, a steam powered gold digging device, saved from destruction and permafrost and now a national monument. We drive further still looking for the starting point of a walking trail. We drive past a few small active gold mining operations but do not find the trail. We drive back to Dawson and have some lunch. Then we try finding the other end of the walking trail. That works. We walk for about and hour steeply uphill. Beautiful forest. Many tracks of hoofed animals and luckily no bears.  We do not get to see any wildlife for that matter, except some birds. The sun is shining and it becomes quite warm. The mosquitoes notice that too and become very active. We have repellent with us so it is not taht bad. We turn back to the car and drive to the top of the Midnight dome towering over Dawson. The view is marvelous from up there over the town, the river and the snow capped mountains further north. We eat dinner at Belinda's dining room of the Westmark hotel and take in a late night drink in the Downtown hotel.

Saturday 1 July 2000

Today is Canada's birthday: Canada Day. Canada turns 133 today. On the ferry across the Yukon River we get a souvenir Canada button. The ferry takes us to the start of  the "Top of the World Highway" to Alaska. Until the Alaskan border the roads are in reasonable condition. The road climbs steadily beyond the timber line and even the snow line. The views are magnificent. After about two hours driving we get to the US border. We answer some standard questions, get our passports stamped and drive on. The road are unpaved from now on and full of potholes, some of them large enough to park the car in. A couple of miles across the border we arrive in Boundary, a hamlet of 4 or 5 houses, a service station, a coffee shop and a landing strip. The next settlement is Chicken, about two hours later. Not very big either. We have a burger and a salad. We continue through the Tetling Wildlife refuge. The nature is still breathtaking and the roads virtually empty. Shortly before we get to the junction with the Alaska Highway the road becomes paved. At Teltlin Junction we turn left towards Canada. We stop just across the border in Beaver Creek, proud of its three motels, two service stations and 145 inhabitants. Here we spend the night in a somewhat depressing, but clean and functional motel. The mosquitoes around here are quite relentless. One step out of the car and they are all over you. We do have "In the Woods" repellant which works wonderfully, but these wretched creatures still find sport you have not covered or the sting right through your clothes and hair.  We have dinner in the only restaurant of some significance, the one in the Westmark Inn.