We had some excitement today on our road trip when we spotted a herd of caribou. Well, we thought they were caribou. I looked it up before posting this to make sure. And here are three facts about caribou I discovered.

1. Caribou belong to the deer family.

2. Female caribou have antler as well as males, unlike moose. Also moose are much bigger than caribou.

2. Caribou are called reindeer in Europe. This made me wonder why Santa calls his caribou reindeer, so I looked it up. It's a controversial topic but as far as land mass goes, an island in Greenland (Denmark) is 38 miles closer to the North Pole than Canada. Therefore technically Santa's abode is closer to a European country than a North American country. No country actually owns the North Pole but it looks like it might come down to Denmark, Canada or Russia one day. I'd root for Canada but caribou does not rhyme with appear.

“when, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny caribou”

does not have the same ring to it.

We left for Skagway this morning, passports at the ready, keen to see one of our most frequently visited ports from cruise ship days and in good spirits. The light was beautiful as we drove in and out of the frozen fog. We stopped every few minutes to take photos.

The sun shining through trees on the Klondike Highway. Photo by Christa Galloway.

The mountains near Carcross, Yukon. Photo by Christa Galloway.

During one of our frequent stops we noticed a burning smell coming from the car. Rich did an excellent impression of someone who knows about cars and declared a coolant line had split. We were both tempted to take our chances and carry on to Skagway, but the thought of being stranded in an American port during the off-season did not appeal. We decided the sensible thing to do was to turn around, but since we were only a few miles from Carcross, we decided to go that far, at least.

If I'd half hoped we'd run into a random mechanic in Carcross who would merrily fix our car and we'd be on our way, I was destined to be disappointed. I'm not sure if it was because it was a Sunday, or because it was off-season, but Carcross seemed like a ghost town. The photographer in me was delighted by the spooky village and I rushed around taking photos, my footsteps, the only sounds.