As humans, we’re fascinated with remote, rugged and wild places. Whether we’re testing our physical and mental endurance, looking to evoke thoughts about human existence in these vast and timeless places, or just wanting to be inspired by their raw and untouched beauty, we have always sought out places like Patagonia, the Himalayas, and the Sahara Desert.
And Alaska is no different. Part of its beauty / its appeal lies in the fact that even today, few have ventured. There are places in Alaska, many places, that haven’t been reached by man-made roads still. To be able to visit portions of this state or live within it has required some incredible feats by unnamed explorers of the past. People driving dogsleds, miners with pack mules, immigrants pounding railroad spikes, boat operators, and road builders to name a few.
Everywhere we’ve travelled, I think about the bush whackers, mountain climbers, survivalists, trail blazers, wagon trains, prospectors, cowboys, railroads, and pilots that were the true explorers and what that must have been like. We have it easy. They say we stand on the shoulders that came before us and given the US road system, this is most definitely true!
Thinking about these explorers and the hardships they must have faced is probably why I enjoyed the Transportation Museum in Whitehorse so much.
We had another day of unsettled weather which brought some great cloud formations, but also saw smoke was still rising from the ground in spots where a wildfire tore through just outside of Pelly Crossing. We boondocked by a river near Carmacks and by early afternoon the rain started before reaching Whitehorse and stopping at the museum.
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Doug bought a combo ticket and also went to the Natural History Museum nearby. He really enjoyed learning about how the ice formation created land bridges from Asia and how the mining operations in Dawson City (which we had just recently visited) gave rise to many of the fossils found in the Yukon. As miners were melting the permafrost, they unearthed these skeletons.
Whitehorse is a town that most people will drive through on their way to or from the interior of Alaska. We simply plowed through it on the way in, anxious to reach our destination, but if you enjoy history, the Transportation Museum is worth a quick stop.
