May 26, 2015 Tuesday

Having spent the night at the Downtown RV Park in Watson Lake, we turned north on the Robert Campbell Highway. Primarily a gravel road that is an alternate route to Dawson City, Campbell highway offers some adventure. We had read many tales about the difficulty of this route so we were prepared for whatever it might offer. I must say we were surprised by what a good road it really was. There was construction on an early part of the road with widening and rebuilding the road base going on, however we were allowed through with no delays. We just had to watch out for the large equipment as they had the right of way.

Many lakes are along both sides of the highway its whole length. There are float plane airports on some of the larger lakes particularly if the lake is located near a settlement. For example, there is one on Watson Lake. Yes, there really is a lake at Watson Lake. Even though this route took us through some prime caribou grounds, we never saw a single one. No moose either though I did see their tracks when I was taking photos at Simpson Lake. We did see many snowshoe rabbits and arctic ground squirrels.

We refueled at Ross River, a small First Nation village in an area called the Pelly Trench. The Pelly Trench is a deep depression or canyon caused not by erosion but by tectonic activity between the North American plate and smaller plates called terranes. It is really quite an amazing sight. Not too far from Ross River is the Lapie Canyon. This is a gorge cut by the Lapie River. It is quite deep and the water certainly roars through this gorge. It is dramatic enough simply to drive over the bridge spanning it but actually standing on the bridge to photograph the gorge gives you weak knees if you don’t care for heights!

Faro was a slight detour from our route but we wanted to see this little mining town. Today I am not sure what keeps it alive except that the golf course runs through town. At one time it was quite a lead/ zinc mining town supported by the Cyprus Anvil Mining Company. The mine is no longer in operation.

 Lapie Canyon

Little Salmon Lake

We ended our day on the banks of the Little Salmon Lake at Drury Provincial Campground. The lake is gorgeous with the ridge of the Pelly Mountains on the south side. A very short lived storm came up, ruffling the surface of the lake but providing very little rain. With the beautiful clouds, I had visions of a glorious sunset but wait the sun sets long after my bed time so no sunset pictures. Now for the only bad part of the day. The road crews spray the Campbell Highway with calcium chloride solution to keep the dust down, which by the way, is bad. Guess what they were doing today? Yes, spraying the road. We had to wash the back of the camper off just to be able to get inside. The truck looks like it has been dipped in chocolate up to the door handles.  I sure hope we can find a car wash in the next big town we hit.