A community of 400 people, Mayo is situated at the confluence of the Stewart and Mayo rivers. It was established in 1902 as a service center and lead, zinc and notably, silver ores were shipped south. It is still a service center for mineral exploration today.
St. Marks with St. Mary's Anglican Church
This building, built in 1936, has had many uses over the years. Liquor store, dress shop, library, kindergarten, hardware store and some others.
Many buildings in Mayo have been remodeled and resided to cover their original look. This is one of the only original log structures remaining today.
Keno City, with a population of about 12, has a lot more character to it. Enormously rich discoveries of silver made it a boom town in the 1920's.
Two miners built this unusual double log cabin to share in case
they had a "falling out".
This house was lined with 32,000 beer bottles for added insulation. It is said to be very warm, probably helped by two feet of mortar.
Rust colored Blazo cans cover the front roof of this cabin.
We took a trip up Keno Hill to the signpost at 6,000 feet. We use our GPS almost every day and find it to be extremely helpful for our type of travel.
The road was steep with ruts but the view was well worth the trip.
Mining artifacts from bygone days are strewn about.
Looking down on a modern placer mine on Lightning Creek.
View northward of the Yukon Plateau and McQuesten Valley.
Signpost shows distances to points around the world.
Ice in the creeks tells us it's time to move on.
We head out of town on Duncan Creek Road, the original Silver Trail.
First used by horse teams and later by caterpillar trains to haul the silver ore from Keno city to Mayo.
Many old timbers from the original road break the surface.
Five finger rapids on the Yukon River.
Waiting for dinner at Pelly Crossing Campground on the Pelly River. This free camp also came with water and firewood. As our friend Bob Tirk would say, "What a hoot". Judy is so good at finding these.
We wake up in the morning with"Termination Dust" on the hillsides and lots of dark clouds overhead.
We are not in any hurry but as far as we are concerned winter is in the air.
As we near Haines we pass the government fish wheels on the Chilkat River. We had been here on our way north earlier in this trip but no fish were here then.
Now Sockeye and silver salmon are here and workers are busy tagging and releasing these fish.
Notice the tag in the dorsal fin of this fish.
Careful handling as this fish is released--
-Under the watchful eyes of this hungry Eagle--
--and this Grizzly.
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