I travelled back down the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse and then turned off down Yukon Hwy 2 to the town of Carcross that has a population of around 300 people.

Originally it was known as Caribou Crossing being named after the migration of huge numbers of caribou across the natural land bridge between two local lakes.  The name was changed in 1904 because of a number of problems with mail being mixed up with a similar location in British Columbia.

The photograph below shows a general view of the area, note the lake is still largely covered in ice.

As you drive into Carcross you encounter the Carcross Desert (see photograph below).  While it is commonly referred to as a desert it is more accurately described as a series of northern sand dunes as the area's climate is too humid to be considered a true desert.  It was created when the large glacial lakes formed during the last ice age dried up leaving the dunes behind.

Some more views of the desert, it is very strange to be walking on sand dunes while freezing.

A view of the centre of Carcross with a number of signs and the track of the White Pass and Yukon Route, a narrow gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska, with Whitehorse in the Yukon.  The line was born of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 but in recent years has been operated as a heritage railway between Skagway and Carcross.

The Duchess,  one of the White Pass and Yukon Route locomotives preserved near to the signs shown in the earlier photographs.

The S. S. Tutshi was built in 1917 by the British Yukon Navigation Company especially for the tourist business on the Southern Lakes (the lakes right next to Carcross: Tagish Lake and Atlin Lake).  As a result she had a keel instead of a flat bottom like the riverboats on the Yukon River.  The Tutshi served as a pleasure boat for cruise ship passengers arriving at Skagway who were brought to Carcross by rail.  This is the sign on the waterfront in Carcross.

In 1955 the career of the S.S. Tutshi ended and she was hauled out of the water. 1972 the steamer was acquired by the Yukon government and restored as a tourist attraction.

On display are most of the machinery, especially the two steam engines, boiler, metal parts of the paddlewheel and the front part of the hull.

I then set off out of Carcross in the direction of Skagway, as I drove the weather took a definite turn for the worse.