Monday, June 27, 2022 - Before we left Watson Lake, we drove into town to have our new spare tire that we brought with us mounted on one of our rims for the trailer. We had to brake for a black bear running across the highway just before town. We met Brendt who is a very nice guy and part of the "local color" of the area. He is 70 years old and plans to retire in five years. He changes tires of all size, including those of big excavator rigs. He mounted our tire for $30 Canadian. We then drove back to the RV that was ready to move. I looked at the tires and decided that I had one that was a little too worn and I did not want to have any problems on the road, so I put the new on one and used the one we just took off as the spare. Due to all of this running around, we did not leave until 11:00 am. Also, we visited with Don and Marie who are friends we met at Muncho Lake and who had invited us to share their campfire for conversation. They were parked right next to us. Don and I made sure that our trucks and trailers had the lug nuts torqued to the proper specifications. We don't want to lose a tire.
Our drive to Whitehorse went through a couple of small areas of construction, but nothing that really delayed us. Also, by going slow, we did not have any problems with rocks being thrown up against the RV. We saw our first bald eagle of the trip along this route. Big rivers and lakes to view along the way; very scenic.
Tuesday, June 28, 2022 - When we arrived at the RV Park in Whitehorse, we learned that they had an RV wash rack next to their office. We got $20 (CAD) worth of "Loonies" which are the Canadian $1.00 coin since it has a "loon" (water bird) imprinted on it. The Canadians also have a $2.00 coin called a "Toonie" since it is worth two "Loonies." The RV wash worked great and we was the entire trailer for $13 Loonies.
Wednesday, June 29, 2022 - We decided to drive to the Yukon Wildlife Preserve located just north of Whitehorse. This is a commercial property where animals native to the Yukon are kept in a near natural environment. We saw elk, wood bison, Dahl sheep, bighorn sheep, ground squirrels, mountain goats, caribou, a lynx, and moose. We also did this with a three and a half mile hike. It also gave me a chance to use my new 200-500 mm telephoto lens. I was able to get several good photos of animals even though they were quite at quite a distance. You can see the animals we photographed in the photo gallery.
On the way back to the RV, we stopped to see about getting two new trailer tires in town. Unfortunately, they had to be ordered and shipped to Whitehorse. The timeline was two weeks later for the tires to arrive. We got on the phone and found that the tires were available in Fairbanks. We ordered two to have them mounted in three days when we arrived in Fairbanks. We went to Walmart to do a little shopping for food and to get what we needed for the trip. We were prepared to depart the next morning for Tok, Alaska.