Not our name, but our passion
Emerald Lake is a lake in the southern Yukon, notable for its intense green color. It is located on the South Klondike Highway at mile 73.5, measured from Skagway, Alaska. The color derives from light reflecting off white deposits of marl, a mixture of clay and calcium carbonate at the bottom of the shallow waters.Limestone eroded from nearby mountains and deposited here during the last ice age account for the deposits.
Carcross Desert, located outside Carcross, Yukon, Canada, is often considered the smallest desert in the world. The Carcross Desert measures approximately 1 square mile or 640 acres. Not a true desert as the rainfall and humidity preclude this classification it is actually a series of sand dunes formed during the last glacial period. Glacial lakes were silted up and when the lakes dried up the sand dunes were left behind. Carcross is on the road going from Skagway to the Alaska Highway.
The Fortymile River is a 60-mile tributary of the Yukon River in the U.S. state of Alaska and the Canadian territory of Yukon. Beginning at the confluence of its north and south forks in the Fairbanks Area, the Fortymile flows generally northeast into Canada to meet the larger river 32 miles southeast of Eagle, Alaska. The closest road to the area is the Top of the World Highway. You can still see active gold panning claims along the route as this was once one of the richest panning areas in Alaska.
Dawson City was the centre of the Klondike Gold Rush. It began in 1896 and changed the First Nations camp into a thriving city of 40,000 by 1898. By 1899, the gold rush had ended and the town’s population plummeted as all but 8,000 people left. When Dawson was incorporated as a city in 1902, the population was under 5,000. The terminus of the Top of the World Highway is in West Dawson on the opposite side of the Yukon River.
The Top of the World Highway is a 79 mile long highway beginning at a junction with the Taylor Highway near Jack Wade, Alaska traveling east to its terminus at the ferry terminal in West Dawson, Yukon, on the western banks of the Yukon River. The highway has been in existence since 1955 and is only open during the summer months. The entire portion of the highway in Yukon is also known as Yukon Highway 9. The Alaska portion is short and numbered Alaska Highway 5. The Alaska Department of Transportation refers to it as Top of the World Highway. The highway passes through the tiny 17 person village of Chicken with its general store. A ferry connects West Dawson to Dawson City in summer,and residents living in West Dawson and nearby Sunnydale cross on the ice during the winter.
