21 June 08

21 June 08, Saturday

My location is N 64º 04.065   W 139º 23.788’    Elevation 885m.

I am sitting on top of the Midnight Dome in Dawson City, YT. We came here to see the solstice.

This is a ritual for the locals as well as the tourists to come up here to see the sun set just before or right after midnight and rise again an hour later or so. After all, the sun does not go by our clock; we just try to adjust our clock to nature’s timing. People have been climbing this mountain since 1899.  Now RV’s, motorcycles, even a bus made it up the mountain. 

I am so very happy that we could actually be here at the right time of the year; I sort of had hoped for it but never even planned to be here. As a matter of fact, we were settled for the night along the Klondike River some 40 km away, and then I grabbed the Milepost book once more to see what to plan for tomorrow and I read all about the Midnight Dome.

No more complaints about the weather, nothing but warm and sunshine; so warm, we even went swimming in the very cold Klondike River. There are lots and lots of flowers along the road, especially on the south facing hills. They say the southern exposure and the dry Yukon climate make it that the hillside reaches 30ºC already in May.

We saw the Five Finger Rapids, a major obstacle in the Yukon River for the paddlewheel steamboat a hundred years ago. We heard about this problem for the boats when we took a tour of the Klondike

Another interesting observation we could make today is the re-generation of the forest after a fire. I heard many talks in the Algonquin Park by the rangers that fires are necessary for the re-generation of the forest. Today, as we drove along the 600 km Klondike Highway, we could see the forest growing after fires in 1953; 1958. In other areas in 1982, 1992 and in 1998. The forest was in all stages of renewal and re-growth; all with the same climate and you could really distinguish the different stages.