Wednesday 8/11/99
Day 14: Faro, Ross River & Williams Lake
It stopped raining halfway through the night and it was covercast and foggy this morning. We continued south on Highway 2 (the Klondike Highway) and stopped at Five Fingers Rapids to take more pictures of the Yukon River. We didn't have as good of view as we would have liked due to the weather. Here four small rocky islands split the channel of rushing water, making it even more dangerous. The miners heading for the Klondike dreaded this part of the river. The viewpoint has plaques describing the view and explains that one can not see all five fingers of the river form one location. The sun peaked out as we got into Carmacks. This appeared to be a sleepy little town, but it was still quite early in the morning. We were a little bit confused by the river, never quite sure if it was Yukon or another river. From here we turned east on Highway 4 (the Robert Campbell Highway). We stopped at the Little Salmon Lake Campground which had a dirt road going down hill for about a mile and eventually to the lake where there were 15 campsites right on the water. There were woods across from the lake and campsites. This was a long, thin lake that followed the highway. After the lake the scenery got kind of boring.
At 11:00 am we turned about 5 miles north off the highway to the town of Faro. This was a pretty dead town considering just two years ago 3, 000 people lived here and were supported by the Cyprus Anvil Mining Company founded in 1969. Lead, zinc and silver have been mined here, and at it's higth was the most productive mine in the territory. Since it's closure though due to ecomomics. only 300 people remain in the town. It looks like a large ghost town, with boarded up apartment buildings and hotels, as well as lots of vacant houses. Only one motel, a restaurant, gas station, a laundry mat and the visitor's center remain open. We ate lunch at the restaurant which served American-Chinese food and only lunch and dinner. Before leaving town we drove up to the entrance to the mine, let the kids play in the city park and stopped at the Visitors center.
Back on Highway 4 we crossed a bridge over the Lapie River that forms a narrow canyon. We decided to take the North Canol Road for a little ways. We had been advised not to take this road last time we were up here due to poor road conditions, but this time everyone we talked to said we'd have no problems. About 10 km north of the junction is a small native village of Ross River. Just past the village is the Pelly River which must be crossed by small barge run by the native Americans. One other truck was on the barge with us. The river was quite wide and had a high bridge one could walk over as well. We turned around after about 45 minutes, just as we entered a burn area. We stopped the truck we had been following. He was headed to a lake about 2 hours away and told us it would take 4-5 hours to reach the end of the road. 
He suggested we go about 10-15 minutes more to Margorie Lake. He said a lake and colvert would be on our right and a stream on our left. 
We decided to turn around and check it out. We passed one other lake before getting to Margorie. We found an old pair of shorts sitting on the colvert that looked like they might fit Jacob. We turned back after going 21 miles north on this road at 3 pm. The tailgate flew open twice on our way bac as we finally reached the river crossing at 4 pm. The kids and I decided to take the foot bridge (an old train tressle) and Dale took the barge across. We stopped for gas at Ross River, knowing their would only be gravel road and no service stations between here and Watson Lake, 250 miles to the south.
During the whole day it theweather continued to change between partly cloudy, and clear blue sky. There weren't many places to pull over on this gravel road butwe did finally stop at Finlayson Lake to look at the scenary. We also stopped at Francis Lake Campground which was a long straight road off of the main gravel road. his road would finally come to 24 campsites near the lake.The lake is also narrow and long but but is shaped like a horseshoe. T There were several people who were camping here as it was quiet. We had only seen two vehicles the last 200 miles of gravel road. I was also gettting tired as it is much harder to to not swerve on gravel that just any old paved road. There were many lakes that we would pass but had no idea what half of them were named. We were also suprised thtatwe didn't see more wildlife, but maybe it was the time of day as it wasn't dusk yet.
After leaving the lake we came next to the turnoff for Nahanni Road at 7:30. The sign said that the road was closed due to washout as kilometer 137. Two years we drove that far and we have learned since that the government own the mine the end of the road and they have actuallly taken the bridge out. They currently have stopped mining but there has been activity lately and we have been told they are waiting for the price of tungsten to go up. There si still alot of nice scenary along the road though and I wanted to drive some of the way in. We turned around afterr thirty miles as we got out but at a sight where there was a creek, outhouse and fire pit. We didn't stay thought because of the mosquitoes. We drove back to the Campbell highway and turned into a campground on Simpson Lake, which wasa a few miles down the road. It was a nice lake but had way to many mosquitoes to stay here.
we decided at this point that we would go into Watson Llake because we were all starving and wanted to eat warm food. I started naiming off all of my favorite restaurents and food just to keep. Although they said to stop it every kept in a good mood evern though we were all starving. We finall reached Watson Lake at 11:00 and stopped at the first restaurent sign which was more of aconveniance store, laundry mat and deli. their kitchen were closed so we got sandwiches and chips fo the night. we found a found for the night at Gateway Motell Inn. After teh kids eat we put them to bed and we went down to the bar for a beer. They had real bad music and the bartender didn't know how to mix a bloody mary but at this point I just wanted to releax. When we started to walk back to the room Cindya nd I saw teh Northern Lights for tehfirst time in three years. It is eerie as it is a green cloudy ring in teh sky. It is caused by a magnetic charge only at thenorth and south poles and can only be seen at certain times of the year. I took some pictures but they did not turn out and that was the one thing I wanted a picutre of on this trip. We finallywent to be around 1:30
Drove 550 miles of gravel road today and 5500 total