7/10/19 - Day 12 - Top of the World Highway

Some of the land they would have
 traveledby dogsled

Imagine... you live in the rowdy Dawson City of the Klondike era. The year is 1906, you are 8 months pregnant, and your husband is emphatic that his child is born in the United States. So the dogsled is loaded and you both take off for Fairbanks, Alaska. The trip is about 387 miles. It is January... this is the story that Pat was told by his father whose parents lived to tell about the journey, waiting out a couple blizzards, but their baby girl was born in Fairbanks.

As we drove along the Top of the World Highway, we kept thinking about these hardy people who knew the land and climate well enough to survive. Nowadays that drive is still an adventure... Will that oncoming gigantic RV bus move over enough to not push us into the soft shoulder? Will the dust get in the cab before the electric window rolls up? Will we get a good look at some cariboo? Will that speeding driver pass us on this curve?

We too survived, smoke and all. Yes, we have tales to tell here too, but looking at the expanse Pat's grandparents covered in the dead of winter on a dogsled, we are humbled by their strength and courage.
One of several groups we waited for this morning


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