Grocery shopping in Whitehorse, and Sherman's welding job is done!

We had an 8:30am appointment at a local auto body shop, but when we got there and he actually saw the job, he recommended a welding shop on the other side of town.

This problem has been with Sherman since before we bought him in 2007! And it's a common problem on all of these types of units. But it got worse with all the bumping around in Mexico this past winter and I've been wanting to get it repaired for quite a while.

It's actually the lower mounts of the rad support. The design right from the factory was poor, and the one on the driver's side was broken and not properly repaired before we bought Sherman. The passenger side had also been repaired at some point.

And I had made a bolt on brace before heading down to Mexico, but all the bouncing around ended up breaking one of the welds from someone else's repair job, and my bolt on brace did no good.

The problem is that the steering column mounts through the floor and is braced at the firewall, and the floor section at the firewall didn't really have any support. So when you went over a bump, you could feel it through the steering column as the floor would flex a bit at that point.

So we went over to Tamarack Welding here in Whitehorse to see what they could do. Chris looked at it and said "yep, it's a common problem and we've fixed lots of them". He said they had a busy start to the day though, and he would send us an email sometime around 3:00pm for us to return to get the job done.

So then we went to do some grocery shopping.

Whitehorse is a city of about 28,000 people. So, it's big enough to have a few major grocery stores. Everyone had warned us that grocery prices would be higher up here, and so far that's been true in the smaller centers that we've visited.

But here in Whitehorse, it wasn't as bad as we were expecting, provided you shop around a bit.

There are three major stores really close to one another. The Real Canadian Superstore has a big store here. And there's a small Walmart, and a small Save-On Foods. There's also a Your Independent a little further away.

We went to the Real Canadian Superstore first because they have a points program and we knew we had a $10 credit available to use. There, we found that if you shop around and buy some stuff on sale, prices were not any different than what they would be in any major city on Canada. So we did most of our shopping there, and then went to Save-On Foods. We definitely found them to be more expensive than the Real Canadian Superstore, but we still picked up a couple of items. And then to Walmart. But the Walmart in Whitehorse is not a Walmart Superstore and just has a small grocery section. The milk was cheapest in Walmart.

Overall, the prices were cheaper than what we had been led to believe they were going to be.

Then, we went and wandered around town a bit. We walked the path along the river for a little ways.

Ruth, by the Yukon River.

The modern Whitehorse Museum, built around an old log cabin.

Totem Pole.

Raven Steals the Sun by local artist Philippe Leblond.

It is to remind all Yukoners that despite the long winter nights, there is always the promise of the return of the sun come springtime.

Then we walked over to The SS Klondike II, an old sternwheeler vessel that was in service on the Yukon River from 1937 to 1955.

It's now mounted on land, and is run by Parks Canada, with free admission.

Ruth, with the huge paddle wheel.

The SS Klondike II. 

Us, with the SS. Klondike II.

We were just about to enter the boat when I received a message from Tamarack Welding saying they were ready for Sherman! So we quickly went back to Sherman and drove back to the shop. When we got there, Chris told us to pull the front end into the shop, and we could stay in the motorhome while his guy did the repairs. 

I couldn't believe how fast they got it done. I was expecting two to three hours, and this guy was done in 1.4 hours, and that's what they charged us for. 1.4 hours, at $124 CAD per hour plus materials and tax came to $208 CAD ($165 USD).

We are happy campers, and so is Sherman!

We decided to stay close to town overnight. Our friends Jean and Art are about 10 kms the other side of town, so we went up to the college public lot and parked overnight there. School is out at this time of year so it's pretty quiet up there.

Sherman, parked at the local college.

Beautiful blue sky this morning, so we're going to head out to Miles Canyon and go for a hike! Then, we have an appointment with Yukon Tourism at 3:00pm this afternoon!

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