Into Alaska

Today we drove into Alaska, and officially completed the Alaska Highway! We are in a campsite in Tok Alaska, with very limited internet, and so will post pictures of our trip tomorrow, when we reach Anchorage.

In the morning we went by the Yukon, to see the S.S. Klondike. This ship was a primary vehicle transporting goods north on the Yukon river, and when it sunk, it was salvaged and reassembled on shore.



We drove past the Kluane range, which was huge and imposing and filled with snow caps and the biggest non-Arctic ice sheet. They were beautiful, and again, pictures don't compare to what the eye saw.



Kluane Lake:


After leaving Whitehorse, we really felt like we were in the wilderness again. The Kluane is part of a very large, international wildlife preserve, and so very few people lived in much of the area we drove through. We only passed through 3 towns on the way to Alaska, and the largest only had a population of around 100, but they did have the largest gold pan in the world.



It was also a more somber drive. A big forest fire had been in the area in the 90s, and there wasn't much regrowth yet. There were miles and miles of tall dead pine trees, with the branches shriveled up and curved. That along with the frost heaves made it a less scenic stretch. We also saw much less wildlife, probably due to the poor forest area, but we did see one really big moose, and a red fox on the road.



The roads were quite awful on the drive, sometimes we were going 30 mph or slower. There were frost heaves along the road, and we were bouncing along for almost the whole drive today. It made us really appreciate good roads when we came to them. The road construction was pretty extreme as well. We were up in the mountains, with steep gravel one-way side roads bypassing the work literally right above us. And there were stretches of gravel that caused huge clouds of dust, it was scary driving through them, because we couldn't see in front of us, or any oncoming traffic.



Actual view from car when driving through gravel patch- look closely- see the oncoming traffic? Yeah, neither did we. Hair-raising.


We got to Tok early, because we gained an hour crossing the boarcher. The US side was much kinder here than in ND on 29. That was a relief, because it would have been frustrating having to try and repack the car so close to Alaska.

We are camping in Sourdough Campground- they have all you can eat sourdough pancakes and reindeer sausage in the morning, so we are pretty excited about that. The campsites are more secluded, with trees framing each one and giving some privacy. No water like the last camp site
though. Tomorrow we are headed into Anchorage!

BC to Yukon Territory- Through the Fire

Today we set out from Toad River early, in hopes of seeing some more wildlife. Dawn and Dusk are the best times to see wildlife, but there have been around 20 hours of daylight lately, so it's kind of hard to tell when that is. We hit the payload though, seeing plenty of animals, including:

Caribou


More Stone sheep:


Buffalo:


And Bear:


It truly was like a North American safari

We stopped at the Liard Hotsprings along the way, and soaked our feet in the pool. One of the pools was closed due to a problem bear in the area. These hot springs were nice because they still looked natural. They hadn't been converted to modern looking pools. And they were really really hot. When we got out, our feet were bright red, and there were clear lines where skin had been exposed in the water. It also smelled really strongly of eggs. There is no way I could have fully submerged in the water, but it did feel really good on my feet.


About 45 minutes past the hot springs, we reached an area near the forest fires. The road became really smoky, and smoke filled the river bed we were driving along between the mountains. It burned our eyes and throats, and was really really unpleasant. It was unsettling driving and not knowing if we would be turned away at some point. There were some patches of freshly burned forest that were along the road. But we made it through with only minor discomfort.


Finally we crossed into Yukon- our final Canadian Province on the trip:


The first town in Yukon is Watson Lake, which is famous for the signpost forest, where people hang signs in town- it started in 1949 when a homesick soldier working on the Alaskan Highway hung up a sign of his hometown, and now is huge:
I

I didn't have a sign for the forest, but found my own way to leave my mark:


Then we reached Teslin Lake, which runs over 70 miles long. It was absolutely beautiful. On the shores is the Teslin Tlingit heritage site, featuring First Nations artwork and a museum. It was absolutely beautiful. Local artists had work displayed, and it was neat to see pieces from members of the First Nation- I really love this type of art.



There had been a big festival that ended yesterday, and we were fortunate that the canoes were still out. A hand-carved cedar canoe was on the shore, and we were able to watch them carry it inside. It must have been very heavy, because they had six people on each side carrying it out of the water. It was my most favorite:




We finally got into Whitehorse, and found a hotel room- possibly the last pet-friendly room in the city, as it took over 11 calls to find a room. We had incredible halibut in a restaurant along the Yucan river that is in two buildings from the early 1900s.



Tomorrow we hope to cross the border into Alaska! That means cell phone service again!

Alaska Highway or Bust- BC Bound

Today we left Grande Prairie early in the morning and headed out to Dawson Creek, the starting point of the Alaska Highway- Milepost 0:


The beginning stretch of highway looked like the road up to Bemidji- rolling hills and lots of evergreens, but with mountains in the distance.



We found a new arrangement for the cats- we were pretty sick of their screaming while in the carriers, although it got more bearable as they lost their voices and started croaking instead. The constant movement out the windows seemed to make them upset, so we piled stuff in the back and sides to block the view, and put them on the seat in the middle. They liked it a lot better, and spent the time grooming each other and practicing their WWF moves- notice Mr. Darcy's stellar headlock:


We drove and drove and drove through the mountains in British Columbia, and were really disappointed with the lack of wildlife. We looked and looked, and started worrying that everyone was making things up when they talked about the animals they had seen on the road The scenery was beautiful, and we tried taking pictures, but they just didn't do it justice, it was so much more beautiful than what the camera captured. We did see a lot of road work, and it was a white-knuckle drive. There were long stretches of gravel road through mountain passes, and a pilot car drove us through- it was so difficult to see the car in front of us due to the dust, and it was scary because a wrong move could be disastrous. The road work really slowed down the drive too, because it was one-way, so we were stopped for long periods waiting for our turn to go.



Summit Lake was by far the highlight of the drive. It was also the highest point on the Alaskan Highway:



Although the pictures appear to be in mid-afternoon, it was pretty late at night, and we were in the middle of nowhere. The highway was completely empty, we didn't see any cars, and we still didn't have a place to stay. The last RV site we had driven by just didn't give off a good vibe, and we were miles from the nearest town. The road was covered in a gravel coating, and so it looked like we were driving down a minimum-maintenance road. We hadn't seen any exciting wildlife all day, and had been on the road all day, so we were feeling a little disappointed. All of a sudden, we turned down a sharp curve in the mountain and bam, right in front of us were a mama and baby stone sheep:


Then a moose ran by- he was huge with long legs. Two caribou appeared on a ledge above us- one stayed on the ledge, and the other one jumped down and ran alongside the car on the road:



It was so fun having the road to ourselves, we could stop and enjoy the animals- we saw more caribou and deer, but the pics turned out blurry. Finally we came to Toad River Campground. It looked ok, and we were 80 miles from the nearest town, so we stopped. They only had 2 sites left. Our tent site was BEAUTIFUL. It was right on the Toad River, and a beaver dam/house was right in front of our site. We could see their little heads while they swam in the water. There were only 2 tent sites, and we were together in a fenced area, sharing a sink. The other tenter was a really nice guy driving to Anchorage from Arizona- he was moving there for a job too, and it was fun talking to another person.

We all stayed up playing cards, and the place was completely silent and peaceful. We couldn't light a campfire here. BC has currently banned all fires. We learned that the area we were in was fine, but there are some big fires south of us, and all the firefighters in BC are down there fighting them right now. Because of that, no other fires can be lit, because there is no one available to fight the fire if something goes wrong.

It was a wonderful campground- our best night so far! Just before we were going to bed, we heard a coyote in the mountains crying. It was really eerie, even more so because it was the only sound, and there was no answer to his calls. The cats, sitting in the car, really perked up though. I went to bed with spine tingles. It was amazing, and we were so so happy to have seen wildlife finally, after the long, beautiful drive that day.

Campground:


(Thanks so much for the comments guys! We really have fun reading them when we update this, you are all in our thoughts! )

katie's firstimers

1st time driving on what has been voted "The World's Most Beautiful Highway".
1st time seeing a bear in its natural habitat - and running up hill
1st time hearing a bird imitate the sound of a car alarm!! (no lie, the next morning both trina and i woke up to a bird mimicking the sound of her alarm going off the night before)
1st time seeing a body in a body bag
1st time on a 7% grade drop, with no middle paint line, and being passed at 90 mph (by a non-emergency vehicle) crazy Albertian drivers!
1st time driving under a wildlife overpass
1st time i have ever left just a single coin for a tip. (a 'toonie')
1st time seeing real life people doing the luge
1st time driving on an arterial highway that went straight through the downtown of a major city... stop-lights and everything. Calgary, eh!

Day 3- Mountains Mountains Mountains

Today, after sneaking out of the campsite, we headed out of Banff. We took the Icefields Parkway up through Banff and into Jasper National Park. It had been declared one of 'the most beautiful highways in the world' and who can turn that down. It basically runs through the Canadian Rockies, and we saw some really beautful sights:

Lake Louise:


Crow's Foot Glacier:


Peyto Lake:


Columbia Icefield:


Athabaska Falls:


And mountains mountains mountains, but disappointingly little wild life. Really nothing at all, except the tail-end of a bear running across the road far ahead of us. Oh, we did see a sad thing- some police cars, and ambulance and a helicopter were parked along the road when it was running along a shallow river, and there were some rescue workers standing on a sand bar on the river, and there was a body in a body bag. That was sad. This is an area that I would love to spend a week in, driving through it didn't really do it justice, but we had a lot of ground yet to cover today.

We took the Yellowhead highway out of Jasper Park, which was only about 16 miles, and then took the Bighorn Highway up to Grande Prairie. We decided to get a hotel for the night. Last night cat camping didn't go so well, and we might have a number of camping days up ahead, so we decided to get a hotel again, and Grande Prairie was the biggest town on the way.


(Yellowhead Highway)

The Milepost didn't do the Bighorn highway justice. They just listed it as a short cut to get to the Alaskan Highway. It was INCREDIBLE. We were driving through mountains and steep foothills covered in green evergreen trees. Carpets and layers and thick thick greenery. It was amazingly green, with steep hills and curves and beautiful blue rivers. We loved every minute, and the hills were so steep, it was like one big adrenaline-rush roller coaster. We also finally saw some wild life- a black bear, a coyote, and some Albertians. Rural Alberta drivers have a deathwish. They all drive trucks 85-95 mph through all of the Bighorn highway. It was amazing. There were no shoulders, minimal rail guards, and they were just flying.



(This picture doesn't do the highway justice- all the pictures looked like big green blobs- but imagine 200+ miles of these thick green trees and forrests all the way, with the occasional logging zone)




When we got to the hotel in Grande Prairie, I brought in a second trip and noticed that only Mr. Darcy was visible in the room. So I started calling Bear and looking around under beds for him, and I heard him meow, but it was really faint, and I couldn't figure out where he was, until Katie came and opened the door and he tore in. Apparently he was running down the hall screaming until she herded him back in. We might have ruined some fellow hotelers day- they probably weren't expecting a shrill screaming black cat to cross their path in a hotel corridor....

We are leaving Alberta tomorrow, we are about an hour and a half from Dawson Creek- the start of the Alaska highway, so it should be exciting!

Day 2- Medicine Hat to Banff- Alberta to the end

We started the day with coffee and a trip to the tepee at Medicine Hat. My tour guide raved about it- apparently it was brought over from the Calgary Olympics, and now sits on a 16th century First Nation buffalo camp. It was beautiful out on the prairie, and we saw coyotes and prairie dogs. The tepee shows artwork depicting the history of the First Nation in Canada.



Then we headed out towards Calgary- lots of prairie and boringness- we kept searching the skyline for mountains, and didn't see any until we were almost on Calgary. Calgary was a little disappointing, at least the area we drove through- it looked like it was really nice in the 80's and has just faded. We stopped at the Olympic Park, and took a ski lift up to the top of the hill. That was pretty fun. There were tons of mountain bikers taking their bikes off the lifts and riding down- looked like a dream riding all downhill.



Then we hit the road to Banff- there are these hills outside Calgary and all of a sudden you drive past one and bam, there were the mountains. It was a little drizzly, so the clouds were low, so we mainly saw mountain bottoms, but they were good-looking for bottoms. We got into town and set up our tent and went into town for the night. I'm still not sure what I think of the town- it's like a cross between a fairytale land and a Disneyland theme park- I think I'd need to spend more time there to see past the facade. It was funny how many international travelers were there- I felt like the only one without a foreign accent- even the workers in Banff were all seemingly from
Australia.



Camping was an experience- Katie got the 'A' for lighting a fabulous campfire, while I scored 'needs improvement'. The campground was beautiful- mountain views, and tall pines.
Going to bed at 11:30, the sky was still light- not bright, but a light blue with no visible stars and a light moon. It was really strange, and will take some getting used to.




















Around 1:30 a train went through, and the whistle echoed against the mountains and woke me up. My air mattress had deflated, and I was pretty uncomfortable, so I decided to go sit in the car a little. The cats were not very happy about being in the car at night, I thought they'd like it better than they did. They were all anxious and agitated and running from window to window. So I went and sat in the car for a while and dozed, and then I woke and decided to crack the windows. When I put the key in the car, the anti-theft alarm went off. It was the most mortifying thing to ever happen to me. Here we are in this quiet tent site, with only about 15 tents, in wonderful silence, and my car is BLARING the alarm. Nothing I tried turned it off, I kept pushing buttons; at one point in my panic, I even tried driving away. Not sure what that would have solved except waking even more campers. After 2 AGONIZING minutes, the alarm shut off, while I was sitting in the passenger seat pouring over the manual, trying to figure out how to turn the darn thing off, when it shut off on it's own. I now have learned how to stop said alarm, but was so so embarrased. Katie and I packed up camp super early and slinked off to avoid the death-stares. I guess it can only get better from here!