We got on the ferry headed to Skagway, and 30 minutes later they turned around for engine problems. The next ferry was in 2 days. We almost fit on the ferry then. I mean, we were on the boat, but they couldn’t close the hatch because my bumper was about 2 inches too long. So we made it out the next day… arriving in darkness again, so the ferry views were minimal. Grrrr.

The pass above Skagway has that cool cantilverey bridge. And they don’t use it anymore. I feel so old.

Just about at the top of the pass my engine started making a click click click sound. If I’d been driving my VW beetle, I would have said that I’d burned a valve and it was about to blow! The Check Engine light was going, and the gas mileage didn’t look great, but it seemed to be running. At the border checkpoint the guard said I probably need to get that checked out. “Oh, you can hear that too? I was headed to Atlin, but I where’s the nearest mechanic?” “Whitehorse.” Darn it. I had been headed to Atlin and Whitehorse was really out of our way. Driving down from the pass, I was halfway expecting the engine to shred itself. But that sound, it didn’t sound right. It sounded too clicky. It sounded almost like a spark from the sparkplug. The internet said that the easiest way to see if it’s a spark is to wait till it’s dark and run the engine, looking for flashes. From the Wolf Creek campground, we took a walk to visit our friend the Yukon River. The sun went down at 10 pm. I started the engine (sorry for waking you, fellow campers) and saw the sparks flying. So this was not nearly as bad as I had feared.

In Canada, if you need a mechanic then you have to go to a Tire Store. There were a bunch of tire stores in Whitehorse, but they were all booked out at least a week. I asked around at places that were only mechanic shops or only did engine work — no tires — which might be black market or underground or something, and they were booked out further. But one suggested taking it to a dealer. “It’ll cost you dearly, but you won’t have to wait.” After lunch, we went to the Chevy dealer and they got us right in. For the price, I thought that they were replacing all my spark plug cables and points, but it was just the one. So that price made up for the great price on tires back in Dawson.

The smoke from forest fires came back around now too