We continued to head south in the direction of Whitehorse, via Pelly Crossing.
There are a lot of 'crossings' up north. I guess it goes back to the early days when bridges were a novelty and you had to rely on ferries or boats, or wait till the ice formed?
Couple mor shots of Pelly Crossing from the viewpoint on the highway coming from the north.
Then we came to the 'five fingers' on the yukon river. This is a very well known landmark that we had been reading about and watching historic video of.
It is an area of the river, with four islands and five channels that was a very difficult and dangerous section for the early steamboats to navigate.
Going downstream towards Dawson city to the north was not too bad if the correct channel was selected.
But going upstream towards Whitehorse was a much more difficult task. Sternwheelers had to pull into shore here and hook up to very long cables anchored on the shore and actually winch themselves upstream through the narrow channel.
It had been widened somewhat with explosives, but still was not to be taken lightly.
I even managed to spot some of the original cable on the shore upstream of the 'fingers'.
The closest channel to the shore was the preferred route.
This plaque describes some of the challenges. Click on it or any photo for a larger view.
There is a trail with stairs leading from the present day highway pull-off down to the river bank, complete with viewing platforms. This shot is from the river's edge, looking back up at the highway pull-off in the distance.
Not far from the five fingers, we were starting to look for a suitable campsite, and eventually lucked into this great, quiet spot on the river bank, and well off the road.Short video scan of the area below.
It seemed to be a popular angling spot as there were several vehicles there early in the morning to try their luck.
N 62 17.156 W 136 19.402 Check out this location in Google Earth
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