Thursday August 3, Day 16

Starting trip meter: 4720
Starting time: 11:00 AM
Starting Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Today is significant in that we are finally heading into the true north country. We will be on the Mackenzie Highway today and heading toward Dawson Creek, the official start of the Alaska Highway (the Alcan).

We stopped in Whitecourt to buy a few groceries and mail a card at the Post Office. The large grocery store where we stopped would not accept credit cards. Our first such encounter. The trip from Edmonton has been a little scenic so far with rolling hills, green meadows and wooded areas. There has been quite a bit of construction but no major hold-ups. It has rained several times and on occasion, quite hard. It really hasn’t been a day to take pictures. It now looks as if we will make Dawson Creek before we stop for the day. We are a little concerned about the availability of campsites if we wait that long, but we are going to chance it.

About 7 PM we crossed the border into British Columbia. We also crossed into the Pacific Time Zone so it was only 6 PM. Dawson Creek, the official start of the Alaska Highway, was just a few KM down the road. Dawson Creek is in the Pacific Time Zone during summer and they go back into the Mountain Time Zone in winter. That way they are always on Daylight Savings Time year round and they never have to change their clocks. I think this is all correct. Pretty nifty, huh? It got dark at 10:15 tonight and that would have been 11:15 had we not crossed the provincial border. We find ourselves staying up later and later due to the extended light of day. The problem is that it also starts getting light at a very early hour, and a few nights we have slept not more than 6 hours at the most.

We found a nice campground in Dawson Creek called “The Mile 0 Campground.” It was grassy and shady with clean showers, laundry room, picnic tables, power and water at each site. It was only $15 Canadian (about $11 US) so we stayed. After dinner we took a walk to a park which was adjacent to the campground and took in the beautiful flower gardens and a man made lake for swimming.

Today’s weather: 52° F (11C) in the morning and mostly cloudy. 72° F forecasted high (22C). Some rain in the afternoon.
Miles driven today: 384

Friday August 4, Day 17

Starting trip meter: 5104
Starting time: 9:30 AM
Starting Location: Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada

Before we left our campsite, Diane went next door to a Pioneer Village and took pictures of their flower gardens (these are for you Karen). (This is being inserted after the fact: It was here that we first had an inkling of transmission problems to come. As we drove up a small incline leaving the campground, the van seemed to come out of gear and it really felt like someone had hit us from the rear. After a few moments of wondering what happened, we were able to move forward with no problem. Ha, it was to be a major problem a few weeks down the road.) Then when we broke camp, we drove into the business district of Dawson Creek to take pictures of the “Mile 0” monument. It seems funny to have driven 5000 miles and now we are at mile zero.

Now we are heading north again. It appears to be hillier but no mountains are in sight. This is very pretty farming country and they are growing lots of grain. Gas prices in Dawson Creek were all 72.9 per liter, so we decided to try Fort St. John, and found it to be 74.9 there. That equated to paying $2.069 per gallon in US. Bad decision to wait on our part, however we filled up and took it in stride. The attendant told us that we could expect to pay in the 80s before we got out of Canada.

The highway has been good so far except for one stretch of about 15 miles which was gravel and very dusty.

We have now passed milepost 135 and the country side is more forested and little to no farms. We can see mountains now to the north and west. Looking at the map, we should be in the mountains about mile post 333 which is west of Fort Nelson.

At mile post 225 a young bear (we think it was a grizzly) appeared on the road in front of us. He was about 100 yards ahead when we first spotted him and we got as close as 50 yards before he darted off into the woods. Sorry, we couldn’t get stopped safely to take a picture before he was gone.

Gassed up (the van) in Fort Nelson, toured the Heritage Museum which had an old video tape covering the construction of the Alaska Highway back in 1942 and learned a lot about the history of the road and why and how it was built. A mind boggling task (1500 miles from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks) which they accomplished in 8 months. Later it was improved with pavement over the original gravel and more permanent bridges, but the initial design of the roadway is the same today as then. An amazing feat! The museum held quite a collection of items that sadly enough I remembered using and having in my younger years. I left with a true sense of how really old I am getting to be. A museum piece, just think of it! They also had a large display of all of the native animals from the area, and we found that the female grizzly is not nearly as large as the male, but that definitely the one that we saw on the road was not a black bear since it had all of the characteristics of the grizzly.

We stopped at a place called Steamboat RV Park, cafe and bakery. All of the above were a stretch by definition, however since we were the only campers there, we got the choice site overlooking an expanse that was breathtaking. It was a huge valley, and we could see for miles off in the distance. We set up chairs, fixed a drink, and soaked it all in for at least an hour or more before dinner. We were totally mesmerized by the view. After dinner we went for a short walk, and took a few pictures of the clouds and the tinges of colors created by the sunset. What a life!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FRED!

Today’s weather: About 45° F during the night. Bright sunshine and very pleasant when we got up in Dawson Creek. Highs in the low 80s.
Miles driven today: 347

Saturday August 5, Day 18

Starting trip meter: 5451
Starting time: 9 AM
Starting Location: Steamboat, British Columbia

Surprisingly, the temperature during the night remained very mild, and we did not require any heat in the van. This morning we are both in shorts and very comfortable without anything but lightweight shirts. Last night we checked out the cost of gas and found .945 on the pump. That equates to $2.61 per gallon in US $. How would you like to fill up there? We passed, already had a full tank.

We have had nothing but one scenic vista after another today. It is hard for us to stay moving in the car. We continually want to stop and take pictures or just smell the air and feel the moment. At one point we had only traveled 135 miles in four hours. GREAT!!! I am still trying to slow Diane down. I want her to feel like we are out for a Sunday drive with no destination in mind. The mountains are majestic and the contrast of the white poplars and the different evergreens makes for a beautiful canvas. There was a poster that was in the museum yesterday, that said “You cannot see or even touch the beauty in the world, you must feel it.” We truly believe that.

Actually, road conditions are not the best here. The road is nice considering the circumstances, but due to its roughness, it is often uncomfortable to travel at the posted speed limits (usually about 62 mph). For one thing it makes it difficult to type on the computer and it shakes the dickens out of everything in and on the van. That plus the fact that if you are moving that fast you likely won’t see wildlife nor be able to read the few signs that there are. Lower speeds also help protect us from rocks thrown by vehicles going south. Usually, we see no other vehicles and it is often possible to just stop on the pavement and look around. Other times we see strings of RVs, cars, and trucks going the other way. It appears that there are fewer going north than south. Perhaps we did choose a good time to make this trip. We have seen no “No vacancies” signs since we left Lake Louise.

We came upon mountain sheep on and near the road and stopped, of course, to take pictures. Interestingly, their coats were so similar to the rocky slopes that we kept discovering more and more on the hillside than at first we had not noticed. We have yet to encounter a bull Moose and have not seen any Caribou although there are constantly signs telling us that this is a crossing area. Ate our lunch at a pull off overlooking Muncho Lake. Nice cool breezes and crystal clear aqua blue water. Up the road we came upon mountain goats and their kids. They were much smaller than the sheep that we had encountered earlier.

We crossed the border of Yukon Territory about 5:30 PM and were in Watson Lake a few minutes later. We did some grocery and liquor shopping then found a nice campground right in town. There was a young man checking in to the campground right ahead of us. We overheard him say he was riding a bicycle! As it turned out, his campsite was right next to ours.

We introduced ourselves and subsequently discovered that he was cycling clear across Canada and then north to Inuvik, near the Arctic Ocean. His name is Blair Rasmussen. He is 39 years old and he started his journey in Newfoundland, April 14th of this year. Blair, like us, is maintaining a web site about his adventure. You can catch it at http://www.geocities.com/inuvik_ca (the link is no longer active as of 2-13-05). He also told us that he had just returned to Canada from Japan a few weeks before starting his trek. He had lived there for 4 years coaching a rowing team, and also teaching English. There may be more about his background on his web site.

Barney and he had a great time discussing the different techniques they were using in maintaining their sites, and each of them shared certain pictures and stories about our trip so far. As it turned out, both of them were using the program FrontPage to create and publish their web pages. We ended up the evening over a glass of wine and a true appreciation for the enormous personal effort it has taken for him to reach over 6000 miles and still a long way to go to his goal of the Arctic Ocean.

Honorable mention must also go to our dinner, since we bought a large T-Bone steak to share, and a couple of baking potatoes, and all of it was fabulous. It is such a kick to try something new on the grill and have it come out so good. It is fun to stop and shop for whatever we are going to have that night. The pantry space is very limited, so it is basically a daily chore.

This campground had wonderful large showers, and for the first time on this trip we had to use the quarter system which gives you 5 minutes of water. (Barney insists that his shower was only for 3 minutes). You can use as many quarters as you need and want but the challenge is always there. The night became quite chilly, and the electric blanket kept us toasty warm.

Today’s weather: About 50° F in the AM. Nice and sunny in the afternoon at about 72° F.
Miles driven today: 299

Sunday August 6, Day 19

Starting trip meter: 5750
Starting time: 8:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Starting Location: Watson Lake, Yukon Territory

Today’s weather: About 40° F during the night. Partly cloudy skies and warming slowly as we started out this morning. Became very chilly, overcast, gusty with brief showers.

Unable to find a church that had a service before 10 AM PDT, we started toward Whitehorse which is the capital of the Yukon Territory. We encountered rain along the way and in Whitehorse. After driving through and doing a little sightseeing, we checked with the information center and found that they were expecting rain for the next several days, so we forged on toward Skagway, Alaska. We had made a change to our original plan and had decided to go south off the Alcan and take in Skagway and Haines. It would require that we take a ferry from Skagway to Haines. It is a one hour sail between those two towns.

WE MADE IT TO ALASKA………IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE…….A LIFETIME DREAM COME TRUE!

We arrived in Alaska at 4:30 PM, Alaska Daylight Time. The trip meter said 6128. Customs did not even ask to see ID, and it felt good to be back in the USA, if only for a day or so.

The ride from Whitehorse to Skagway was wonderful. First we wound between beautiful snow capped mountains and large lakes. The terrain for the last few miles before arriving in Skagway was most unusual, miles and miles of rolling rock covered with a minimum of greenery. We had not seen anything like that before.

Arriving in Skagway was like going back in time a century ago. And as we found out later, it was by design. The town has a population of 900 people, however everyone is involved in some manner of satisfying the tourists. There were 4 different cruise ships in the port in the 24 hours that we were there so there were plenty of people. We loved all of the history regarding the Klondike Gold Rush and the impact the town had on it. They had great displays of items used in the 1897-1898 time frame, and even a saloon with life size figures depicting everything from the food served, to the whiskey bottles on the bar, the clothes worn by the men, and to the wallpaper and rugs.

Found a nice camping spot for the evening, and had a great meal in town.

Miles driven today: 396

Monday August 7, Day 20

Starting trip meter: 6146
Starting time: 9:15AM
Starting Location: Skagway, AK

Today’s weather: Mild, 60s/40s Partly Cloudy

In the morning we made reservations for the ferry to Haines that left at 4:15 PM ADT. That gave us most of the day to walk Skagway’s Broadway Street and side streets, enjoy the shops and culture, have a great breakfast at the Sweet Tooth, and check our e-mail at an e-mail cafe. Pretty neat set up where they charge by the quarter hour, have a timer on the top of the screen and we both were able to scan the messages that were waiting and know if there were any critical ones to read.

It was sunny and warm all day, and it was a nice break for us. We sent a few postcards, checked our voice mail at home and made a couple of calls.

The ferry ride was a nice treat as well. It took one hour by boat, however if you were to drive it via roads, it would be 359 miles. Once in Haines, we headed north toward Haines Junction which is back in Canada. Stayed the night at the Swan’s Rest RV park, on Mosquito Lake. There was only one other camper there and the setting could not have been prettier. Barney built a wonderful fire and we kept it going all evening. Had our dinner sitting in front of it with the lake and the mountains in the background. We stayed up until 11 PM ADT enjoying the fire and the view.

Miles driven today: 38

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