It was shaping up to be another smokey summer in the Klondike.

Thunderstorms blowing through every afternoon, lightning sparking fires… Before we knew it, there were fires all over the Yukon, including around here. But the temperature has been so nice and warm. Almost too warm to sleep. Some days, up to 28°C!

Then, one came too close for comfort. Up over the dome, behind Moosehide Village. A lightning strike started a fire on the afternoon of June 26.

We zipped up the hill after work to see.

We had a date with our friends for wing night, as we often do on Wednesday night. By the time we were eating, the helicopters dumping buckets of water were replaced with the Electra plane which put down swaths of retardant to reduce the spread.

The Dome was a busy spot that evening watching the action!

While it was smokey before, this fire had ash raining down on the town. All of my window ledges already had a layer of gravel dust, but now there are ashes in it too!

For the next few days they continued to hit that fire’s hot spots with buckets of water from helicopters. Fortunately, it is now considered contained.

There were large fires between Stewart Crossing and Pelly River that had our Klondike Highway closed for a week or so. When the conditions weren’t too bad, pilot car took lines of traffic through. At one point, Stewart Crossing, Mayo, and Keno were all under an evacuation alert because of wildfires.

My Uncle Paul called on Friday June 28 at noon. He was in Whitehorse! He was ready to come up the long way, through Alaska, to get around the closed highway, but I let him know they were letting people through the fire block from time to time. I advised he should bring some snacks and drinks with him in case he had to wait.

Unfortunately I heard later on that the highway pilot cars were parked for the night. But Paul only had to wait 3.5 hours and then they guided him through! He was up here just before we were heading to bed!

On Saturday morning we took a load of junk to the dump. Then we helped Paul put new tires on his little sleeping trailer. This thing is amazing! It’s tiny when it is closed, and huge when it is open! I think it is designed to be pulled by a motorcycle. He used it when he took his Slingshot across the country. It pulled nicely behind his Cadillac SUV but its tires were bald by the time he got up here. Luckily he found a couple nice new ones in the Canadian Tire in Whitehorse.

Afterwards we went to the Farmer’s Market for some pie. This one was a strawberry-raspberry.

That night we went to Aurora’s for a nice supper.

Afterwards, we went to Gertie’s for the early show and some gambling.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Paul parked his camper beside our garage and headed up the Dempster. He was bound and determined to dip his foot into the Arctic Ocean!

We had a leisurely, smoke-filled day. My back porch plants have really taken off in all this beautiful heat!

Here’s how smokey it was at 10:21pm that night. Look how orange and pink it made the sun and sky.

Monday was Canada Day, and we both had the day off.

I volunteered with the Museum board I’m on to serve old fashioned drinks in the park during the activities.

Right before the parade was about to start, the sky opened and the rain poured down! I was trying to help move our supplies and tables and benches from the museum to the park, but got blocked by the start of the parade.

The Canadian Day parade isn’t our biggest. That would be our Discovery Days parade mid-August. So they invited everyone to join the parade on their bike! Look at them all, even in the rain!

At our table, we served gummy ice worm slushies, cream soda ice cream floats, and iced tea. I was on iced tea duty, with cubed ice, sliced lemons! All free for Canada Day!

It was non-stop for a couple of hours!

Meanwhile the fire department was barbequing hot dogs, another table was giving out cupcakes, and there were water games, a bouncy castle and slide, a beer garden, bike races, potato sack races, and the egg toss.

The next day, Tuesday, Uncle Paul was back at noon! That’s the fastest ever! He made it all the way up to Tuktoyaktuk to dip his foot into the Arctic Ocean. The road was great for him (although terrible right after he was up there due to all the rain).

He was back just in time to tag along with me. I was heading out to Bear Creek, the Yukon Gold Consolidated Company’s compound where they serviced the gold dredges back in the day. Our museum has storage facilities out there that are not in good shape, and needed a bit of assessment.

Our best artifacts are not stored out here, but there was no doubt that squirrels have been in these buildings, and the weather.

It is still cool to sift through our artifacts.

This place is such a treasure! Artifacts everywhere. Paul was particularly impressed with the sod cold storage building.

I had never seen this building before. It’s a cabin, on skids, that was a portable blacksmiths shop! It looks like something a museum would spend hours perfecting every small detail, yet it is the real deal!

Some of are artifacts have been destroyed. I don’t know the history of this sheep, but it was a full body mount. Unfortunately something found his nose to be delicious.

There was a manakin in here, and I’m sure he was crying!!

See!?

While we were there, Parks Canada showed us some of their storage buildings, which are vastly superior, and water tight!

All these Klondike Gold Rush artifacts. Amazing history in these buildings!

Look at this couch!

While we were there, I got to show Paul inside the maintenance shop too!

One of my favourite places!!

What an amazing outing!!

That evening I made up for some missed time at work while Paul hit Gerties again and the Pit and Jeff played softball.

On Wednesday, Paul was off to Alaska!

Ever since we’ve had good steady rain, on and off, and the smoke has cleared! The temperature has already come down. Yesterday I worked in sweatpants, long sleeves, and under a blanket!

Is the summer over?

Oh, I have to remember to tell Uncle Paul – he timed his trip up the Dempster so well! One of the ferries has been out of service since Thursday, and will be out until at least Monday. That stops all the traffic. All those tourists will be having the experience of a lifetime. Another reason you can’t over-plan and over-schedule a Yukon trip, and you should always have food and drinks with you!