Yoho National Park

I drove through Rogers Pass with a view of snow-capped mountains on one side and a glacier on the other. After Golden I reached Canada’s second national park together with Glacier National Park—Yoho. Banff was Canada’s first national park. Yoho’s a Cree word meaning awe or wonder and that was exactly how I felt amidst its natural beauty. Originally, this park had only covered twenty-six square kilometres, but was later extended to cover more than a thousand square kilometres. Close to British Columbia’s border with Alberta, the park was situated on the western side of the Rocky Mountains. Within the park were more than twenty mountains that were over three thousand metres in height.

A train journey from Carcross

With my rental car returned in Whitehorse, I caught a bus to Carcross stopping on the way by Emerald Lake once again. Twelve kilometres south of the lake was Carcross—a cute village that I wandered around, peering into tourist shops and along walkways, waiting like everyone else who’d been on the bus, for the train that would follow the gold miners’ trail back to Skagway.

Confusion at the U.S./Canada border

My original plan was to see the Arctic Ocean, visit Tuktoyaktuk, and return through Dawson City to Whitehorse. After that, I wasn’t sure. Only when I reached Skagway, I decided to exit by B.C. ferry through the tail end of the Inside Passage and head south towards home. But first, I had to return the rental car to Whitehorse and get back to Skagway.