Carcross, Yukon Territory

Down in the southern Yukon is a tiny town called Carcross. The name is an abbreviation for Carribou Crossing, and the town is situated on a short river connecting two large lakes, where a herd of around 2,000 Caribou would cross while migrating. Tagish and Tlingit tribes and their predecessors used the area for 4,500 years before the modern town was established in 1896 as a major stop along the route to the Klondike Gold Rush. As was the fashion for the times, the new settlers of the town wasted no time killing all the caribou. Today there are non left, but in a weird twist of fate, the name Carcross is still relevant in the modern age. Today it is where you drive your car to cross over the mountains to the ocean.

Carcross also claims to be home to the world's smallest desert, an area of sand dunes covering one square mile. The sand dunes were originally the bottom of a lake at the end of the ice age. Today the sand is replenished by wind coming off nearby Bennet Lake, which offers a long sandy beach right at the edge of town.

The Great Carcross Desert

The only automobile bridge across the river.

A local resident.

The neighborhood reminded more of some small oceanside town, what with the sand all over the place. These houses are right across the street from a large beach.

I had never heard of Carcross, but i stopped in the town for almost 3 hours on my way from Whitehorse to Skagway. It's an incredibly pretty location, and i would have stayed the night, but there are no hotels or anything else. I grabbed a meal at a spartan diner in the gas station, which seemed to be the hub for social gathering and getting caught up on the latest news for the native population.

Above Carcross is a large mountain called Mt. Montana. An old mining road goes almost to the top, and i kinda wanted to go up there for a day of hiking. Several of the locals had no idea what i was talking about, but the ones who did described the road in a way that i thought might be difficult for a van, so i decided to give up on that idea. Things were far too remote in case something went wrong.

Most people visit Alaska either by cruise ship along the Inside Passage around Juneau, or by flying to Anchorage. But in between there's a really cool loop drive connecting the towns of Haines, Skagway and Whitehorse. The best starting point would be from Whitehorse, as it's the largest city and most likely to have rental car facilities, but i entered the loop by driving over from Anchorage.

The White Pass Railroad bridge. Carcross is the end of the line for tourists coming from Skagway. That's one reason i was so surprised not to find any restaurants or hotels. Mt. Montana is in the distance.

It had been 7 years since i'd been on the Alaska Highway in the Yukon, and i couldn't believe how many things had changed. Many roadside inns and restaurants had closed down in the time since, yet the road has seen vast improvements over the years. None of it, from the Alaskan border to Whitehorse, is dirt any longer, except sections that are currently undergoing improvements. Some of the improvements, like the new, modern era bridges, (especially the one by Lake Kluane), left me with the feeling that now the road will have a hard time living up to the legend.

The area around Carcross is extremely scenic and the mountain slopes above the highway are dotted with old mines.

The leg from Whitehorse to Skagway would take less than 4 hours with no stops, but it's an incredible drive with lots of interesting things to see. Since there was nowhere to stay in Carcross i camped in my van by a beautiful lake without a soul around. That evening i explored a collapsing mining mill similar in design to the famous Kennecott mine in McCarthy. I took a dozen HDRI's and was probably in the building for over an hour. One side of the seven story building had collapsed into a lake, and it was eerie looking down at waves flowing into the building as i climbed up into higher floors.

Unfortunately, due to a software error, i lost all the photos i took that day with that camera. So what you see here are the ones i had taken with my old camera. It's really too bad because that mill was very cool, and although i went to a lot of effort to take those pictures, i was more disappointed about losing some very nice shots at Lake Kluane that morning.