Well that’s kinda dramatic. You could take a plane or your boat or built a raft. So it’s not that dire.

But the Top of the World Highway is closed (from West Dawson across the river to the Alaskan border) and south of town the Klondike Highway is closed from Henderson Corner to the Dempster turn off. Both because of close fires. Those are the only roads out of here.

The Top of the World was open this morning and I think a bunch of RVs were able to get out, and maybe the motorcycles? I’m not seeing that many bikes around town tonight). But both roads closed early this afternoon.

It is much smokier in town today. Our back deck has burnt spruce needle ash on it.

The power has been purposely denergized north of Stewart Crossing (to Dawson) because of the fires (that’s two hours south) so everyone is out of power, including the wildfire center that is running on a generator. Fortunately, here in town, they have the diesel generators on to power town.

The fire across the river is over 1,500 hectares now.

But we carried on like a normal Saturday here. Jeff went out to do some prep on the truck camper. I made a rhubarb crisp with the rhubarb Jeff harvested from his plant this week.

Then my friend Janet picked me up so we could go for lunch together and do some shopping.

We browsed through the farmer’s market too.

Here are some fresh Morel mushrooms for sale:

Later in the afternoon, Hank got his walk, and it was hot, so he ran into the river!

We went up the dome again tonight to check things out. Far smokier, less visibility. Hard to know exactly where the fire edge is, except for the plume.

Here’s town below:

You could hear the diesel generators running (powering the town). Here’s looking down river:

We had been up top on the Dome looking around when a woman below us started shouting “black bear!” “black bear!”

So we climbed down to be closer to the truck, and some of the other people got on top of their vehicles!

We didn’t see the bear.

But the arnica is beautiful!

Back in town, the view from the ferry landing is still pretty ominous.

RVs haven’t been allowed to cross since this morning, but there are still many forming a line and camping along Front Street.

Here’s some footage of the fire at the Dempster corner south of town today just as they were shutting off the power and closing the road. (I found it on Facebook.)

So, not much new here. How are things with you?