North through British Columbia - Alaska and Points North: Tips and Tales from the Road - page 66

tioning that we'd stopped for coffee in Carcross he didn't miss a beat when he replied,
“Sorry about that.”
So true. The world's worst coffee but an interesting place nonetheless. The name Carcross
is actually shortened from Caribou Crossing because it was on the migratory route of the
huge caribou herds.
During the Klondike Gold Rush the railroad brought the prospectors through and the town
flourished as a supply centre. Carcross was also a major stop for the White Pass & Yukon
Route Railroad, the place where passengers transferred from railroad to sternwheeler for
their trip up the 3520 km /220 mi long Yukon River.
Today the Carcross Visitor Center is in the old White Pass & Yukon train station. There are
lots of photos and memorabilia to remind you that this was once a happening place.
It was the era when well-heeled tourists traveled up the west coast to holiday on the river-
boats that plied the spectacular waterways of the north. I know that my generation, com-
ing of age in the magical 60s, likes to think it invented everything worthwhile from sex to
backpacking but we keep coming on evidence that just is not so.
Earlier generations were highly adventurous, tripping through the far north by boat and
dogsled alike. Sure, they had porters and packers and help to ease the way but it was still
far from home and comparably rustic.
Their poor cousins found their way north as well. The respectable young ladies with a yen
for the open road signed on to northern posts as teachers. The not-as-respectable took work
across the full gamut of the service industry. Lots of proof they'd already figured out sex
by then too.
Men begged and borrowed a stake to head north and try their fortune in the gold rush. For
some it was a desperate last grab at the good life and it destroyed them. For others, young
and healthy, with no one back home depending on them to make good, their Klondike ad-
venture was a great lark, the grand adventure of youth.
Just outside the town of Carcross we come on a desert. Actually, it's the sandy bottom of
a lake that was left behind when the glaciers retreated. The wind constantly re-sculpts the
sand, challenging the vegetation to set roots, so little does. The signage calls it the smallest
desert in the world.