North Klondike Higway 2

Carmacks was originally founded in the gold rush but they found coal here. It's now a coal mining town but the coal mine has had to close down because it is on fire. Here the Yukon is joined by several large rivers and there is a rich fishing ground. Carmacks has one of the few bridges over swift moving Yukon River.

Five Finger Rapids is a photo stop. It was a major obstacle for the gold miners' river journey from Lake Bennett to Dawson.

We come to the Pelly River, a wide slow-moving waterway with a shallow crossing. It was here, after the trials and tribulations of navigating the rivers to the Klondike, that many miners switched to land travel on the Dawson Trail.

The interior is largely flat and the great rivers criss-cross the forested flood plains. The road is gravel for tens of kilometres and the dust clouds follow the few vehicles on this road. At Stuart Crossing, we turn towards Dawson. This is a wild and lonely stretch with very few buildings and no towns.Read more