The first stop along the way was Rancheria Falls on the (you guessed it!) Rancheria River. There are actually two falls, and while they don't compare to Niagara Falls, these falls fall into a select group of falls that are pretty darn neat. (Whew).
This is the first fall:
And the second fall is on the other side of the island to the left of the first fall:
I thought they were pretty neat.
The next stop on the way was about 150 miles up the road at Johnson's Crossing. The story behind this is pretty interesting. What spurred the building of the Alaska Highway was the Japanese invasion of two of the Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska.
This led directly to the building of the Highway to supply Alaska with military materiel and personnel. One concern was how to get fuel to Alaska as well as to the numerous air fields that lie along the Highway. The answer was pretty ambitious. The US built a refinery in Whitehorse and pipelines running from north of there to feed it with crude oil. Also, pipelines stretched to Fairbanks and Anchorage to supply fuel to those two cities. The whole deal was built and operational by 1944 and was shut down at the end of the war in 1945. The refinery was dismantled and relocated to Grande Prairie, AB. Anyway, the road from Johnson's Crossing on the Alaska Highway and the oil fields still exists:
As you can see, you can travel that baby all the way to Ross River, about 135 miles north.
I got to Whitehorse, which I think is a pretty little city in the on the banks of the Yukon River, and stopped at the Yukon Transportation Museum, which boasts of the World's Largest Weather Vane:
For you gen-xers, that is a DC-3 airliner. And, that is about as exciting as the museum got.
Tomorrow, I'm headed into uncharted territory, taking the Klondike Highway about 330 miles north to Dawson City, ground zero of the 1898 Yukon Gold Rush. From what I can see, the little town looks pretty much as it did 100 years ago. From there, on Monday, I'll be taking the "Top of the World Highway" to Chicken, Alaska and then to Tok, Alaska for the night. (Interesting names, huh?)
Miles today: 295
Total: 5,081
