Kenai: Seward and Kenai Fjords National Park
Day 32: Friday, July 24th
I slept really poorly after staying up too late. For one thing, I was convinced that someone was going to try to break into the Jeep. Worse, the walls of the room were paper thin. My neighbor on the one side was snoring like a buzz saw, and on the other side, the TV was blaring until 2AM. I tried some foam earplugs, but they didn’t help a bit, so I got up very early, and I couldn’t get out of that place fast enough. Snagged a junk food breakfast, then hit the road: the Seward Highway headed south. When I was in Alaska on a week-long work trip 15 years earlier, I skipped one of my meetings and played hooky for a few hours. There was a car rental agency in the lobby of my hotel, so I picked up a late model something-or-other and did a little sight-seeing. The Seward Highway south into the Kenai was the road I’d taken that day, and I didn't have to go more than a few miles to find spectacular scenery. It was late September, and the Chugach Mountains just south of Anchorage were ablaze with golden autumn leaves.
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Chugach Mountains in the fall: photo taken from the Seward Highway in September, 2000
The fall colors and the snowy mountains made an unforgettable impression. That was probably the biggest reason I’d wanted to take this trip to Alaska in the first place: after having had that little taste of it back in 2000, I was looking forward to tucking in to the whole meal (complete with appetizers and dessert)!
This time, making that same drive, there was no dramatic autumn color. The light, still behind the mountains, wasn’t all that good for photos, and the landscape, Cook Inlet, Turnagain Arm, just wasn’t all that impressive, relative to what I’d been seeing elsewhere. At one point I noticed several cars pulled to the side of the highway and three guys with telephoto lenses pointed up a hill. I stopped the Jeep and ran back to see what they were shooting: seems there was a small herd of Dall Sheep, at least five adults and a young one with its mother, circling a tree, eating branches or berries, or leaves, I wasn’t sure which.
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A family of Dall Sheep, along the side of the road in the Kenai Peninsula
I snapped a few pics of my own, then drove pretty much directly to Seward, making just two or three quick stops for photos.
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Kenai in the summer—complete with fireweed!
In Seward, I quickly found the waterfront park I’d read about, and reserved a tent site for $10; a very good deal! Next, I used the Alaska App on my phone to locate the tour operators with boats into Kenai Fjords National Park. I grabbed a parking space right in front of the ticket office, went straight in, and booked the last spot on the last six hour tour of the day, leaving in just 15 minutes. For not knowing anything about the schedule, I timed that pretty well!
It was a nice big boat, and we had a Ranger from the National Park giving a running commentary on the loudspeakers, really great information, especially about the wildlife. Almost all of the passengers had come straight off a huge cruise ship that was docked in Seward; this tour was one of their “optional excursions”.
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Looking back toward Seward from a tour boat, headed for Kenai Fjords National Park. Seward is a popular stop for cruise ships such as this one
I felt quite apart from those folks—it was almost as if I’d crawled out of the bush and straight into a fancy cocktail party; the contrast was sufficiently surreal, it would have made a good gimmick for an episode of the Twilight Zone. The tour was wonderful, six action-packed hours. I saw humpback whales, puffins, seals, sea lions, sea otters, leaping silver salmon, and a booming, calving glacier, half mile wide and 500 feet thick, from ¼ mile away. All that was too awesome for words, so I took 800 photos, many of which weren't half bad!
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An alpha sea lion telling his mate to move it!
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Seabirds by the tens of thousands make their summer home in Kenai Fjords, their nests occupying every ledge and cranny of the rugged cliffs that line the shore
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Puffins roosting among the rocks. They’re adorable birds, but looks can be deceiving; they have a vicious bite, even the babies (known as pufflings)!
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In the brief summer season, the brightest green imaginable bursts forth from hills that are covered with snow and ice most of the year
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A glacier is like a river of ice, flowing ever so slowly down to the sea
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A chunk of ice the size of a two-story house splits off the massive face of the glacier. First you see it starting to fall, and then you hear a booming crack that’s louder than cannon fire, followed by a resounding splash as the newborn iceberg hits the water
After the tour I returned to the campground, and set up the tent fairly easily, despite a bit of breeze. (Practice makes perfect). Skipped dinner and ate snacks, then slept quite well in the tent. It was cold out, but warm in my sleeping bag. No rain that night, thank goodness.
Next up: Homer and the Kenai Peninsula
From Kenai to Palmer to Glennallen
Day 35: Monday, July 27th
I caught a break when I started loading the car and noticed that there was an auto service center directly adjacent to the motel. They got me right in and gave the Jeep an oil change, tire rotation, and a thorough inspection. They told me the tie rod ends had a little play, and that they would need to be replaced soon. They offered to do it for $500, but since my tires weren’t wearing unevenly, I knew it wasn’t critical. In fact, I wasn't sure it was even necessary, so I elected to hold off until I got back home, where I have a trusted mechanic. I figured I’d probably have to put a few grand into my vehicle after this trip—she was going to need tires and front end work, at minimum. (As an aside, when I did get the Jeep checked over, after the trip? The tie rods were just fine.) My Jeep is a great vehicle, with a lot more miles left to go, but it’s on me to keep up with the maintenance. (The same can be said of everything in our lives that’s worth hanging on to--from our vehicles to our health to our relationships.) At any rate I got all my stuff done, and then drove the four hours or so to Anchorage, with numerous photo stops along the way.
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Random roadside view, Kenai Peninsula
I didn’t hang around Anchorage at all—stopped for gas, and drove straight out of town, north to Palmer. The day was on-again off-again rainy, with some beautiful sunshine and clouds in between. Another spectacular day in Alaska!
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The floating chunk of ice in this lake makes it a uniquely Alaskan vista
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Lakes, greenery, clouds, and snowy mountains: a timeless recipe that never fails to produce a perfect landscape
Due to seasonal road closures (snow, mud, road construction, etc.) some of the maps displayed in this thread are not displaying properly or you might see pop-up windows reporting errors found with the route. Unfortunately, the map data used to create these maps enforces these "Time-outs" if a particular road segment is closed. In the case of the pop-up windows (alerts), please click the "OK" or "Close" button and the rest of the page will display properly. In the case on some of the maps where the route seems all jammed up -- reloading the page where the map is displaying seems to solve the issue. All of these problems go away once the winter closures of the roads end. So, everything will look fine in the North American summer months.
Click here for this RTA Library Map
(This map shows Rick's route between Homer and Tok, Alaska.)
Late nights and early mornings make a bad combination, so I was a little bit droopy at the wheel, and elected not to push myself too hard. Stopped at Palmer, start of the Glenn Highway, and found a campground using my new best friend, the Alaska App. They had tent sites for fifteen bucks; not half bad. Setting up the tent by myself was a pain, but I did it anyway, even though it was threatening rain. I wasn’t going anywhere for the rest of the day, and the tent gave me a whole lot more mosquito-free space to hang out in.
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Tent Camping in Palmer
I used the stop watch on my phone to time the task: setting up that tent with the rain fly: 45 minutes, start to finish. Taking it down, probably a little less, but still, not what you could call quick. If I had the whole thing to do over again, a small RV, a travel trailer, or even a van with a proper bed in the back would no doubt be a better way to make this trip. Doing it the way I was doing it had the singular virtue of being a little bit cheaper. I find that the proper balance between cost and convenience is something that tends to shift around quite a lot as I make my way through life.
Day 36: Tuesday, July 28th
It rained pretty much the whole night, and while the tent stayed dry, my sleeping bag felt pretty damp, and I was cold! I felt vague stirrings of the crud that knocked me flat in Anchorage a few days before; hopefully, I wasn’t exacerbating a chest thing, camping out in this cold, damp weather. A bout with bronchitis was the last thing I needed, so I made this another easy day for myself. I drove a mere 150 miles to Glennallen, a road junction that truly wasn’t much of a town, but was nevertheless the biggest community between Palmer and Tok. The road that took me there, the Glenn Highway, was very pretty, with rivers and glaciers and snowy peaks, but the weather, once again, was on-again off-again rain interspersed with cloudy skies and occasional sunshine.
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Matanuska Glacier as seen from the Glenn Highway east of Palmer
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Matanuska River from the Glenn Highway
In Glennallen, I spied a place called the Caribou Hotel that looked as if it might be reasonable, so I inquired: $149 a night, and with AAA discount, $139? At this point, that sounded a bargain, so I took it, and they even let me check in early, right on the spot. I was tempted to just hunker down and flake for the day, take it maximum easy, but I decided to at least drive toward the nearby Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, to get a sense of what it looked like. Established in 1980, Wrangell-St. Elias is the largest National Park in the U.S. system. You could combine Yellowstone with Yosemite, throw in the entire country of Switzerland, and you still wouldn’t match the 13.2 million acres of trackless wilderness that’s protected here. I drove south from Glennallen toward Valdez, and after about 8 miles I came across signs for a Visitor’s Center, so I stopped in. The friendly Park Rangers gave me a map and some other information, and I ended up driving about 70 miles on a paved road (with many roller coaster frost heaves) to a tiny town called Chitina, the gateway to the McCarthy Road, one of the two access points to the massive preserve, a land of soaring peaks and rushing rivers that comprises most of southeast Alaska, and straddles the border with Canada.
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Kuskulana River near Chitina
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Liberty Falls, near Chitina, an Alaska State Recreation Site that’s popular for picnics, especially among the local folk
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End of the pavement and the beginning of the McCarthy Road, one of two roads that lead into the vast wilderness of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.
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Looking back toward Chitina after starting down the McCarthy Road
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When a piece of equipment fails in a remote part of Alaska, it will usually remain in the spot where it died until it rusts into dust
The pavement ends in Chitina, and a gravel road continues into the wilderness for another 62 miles of slow going to a tiny town called McCarthy, which pre-dates the Wilderness area, and has less than 100 permanent residents. Five miles from McCarthy is Kennecott, a mining camp with an ore mill that was completely abandoned in the 1930’s when copper prices dropped. It would have been interesting to go; a well-preserved depression-era ghost town in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness sounded pretty unique, but it was also pretty far, and like an idiot I hadn’t topped off my gas tank before leaving Glennallen. I’d assumed I’d be able to get fuel in Chitina, but as it turned out, there were no services there, so I had to turn around, and I barely made it back to town, coasting on fumes, lowest I’d been on fuel in I don’t know how long. There’s a lesson in there, somewhere.
After returning to my hotel, I just kicked back. Ate an overpriced burger at the hotel restaurant, and crashed early. It was interesting to note that my old routines that had sustained me through my working life had been shattered in the course of this trip. A bit more than a month into it, I had no routine of any kind. Every day was different, and I didn’t even know, from one day to the next, where I’d be sleeping! After 35 years with my shoulder to the wheel, I found that incredibly liberating.
Next up: The Nabesna Road, and a tick for Tok
Wrangell St. Elias, the largest National Park in the United States
Day 37: Wednesday, July 29th
Since I’d blown my opportunity to follow the McCarthy Road into Wrangell-St. Elias, I didn’t want to leave the area until I’d at least driven the Nabesna Road, the northern access point to the massive National Park. The sky was totally overcast and threatening rain, but the weather report indicated a possibility of partial sun in the afternoon. Checkout time at the Caribou was 11 AM, so I stalled until close to that point, then loaded the Jeep and drove north toward Tok on Alaska Route 1, keeping a sharp eye out for the turn at Slana, well over an hour beyond Glennallen.
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The Ranger Station in Slana, where you can get information, especially about road conditions.
I stopped at the ranger station for information, and they loaned me an audio CD to play in my car. The sound track gave interesting descriptions of the various segments of the road as I drove along, information about the geology, plantlife, wildlife, and the fascinating history of the area. At the time this National Park was created, there were numerous private land holdings within its boundaries, some of which started out as homesteads. Because the private parcels predate the formation of the park, they were simply incorporated into the park, and the private landowners are protected in much the same way that the ecosystems and the wild animals are protected. The Homestead Act of 1862, which gave free federal land to anyone who was willing to settle on it and eke out a living for themselves, was one of the primary driving factors in the westward expansion of the United States, and in Alaska, the provisions of that act were still official policy all the way up until 1986. Legally, culturally, and in every other way, homesteaders are as much a part of the ambience of the Alaskan wilderness as the caribou and the grizzlies, so there was never any question about eminent domain, about kicking any of the old codgers out of the arbitrary confines of the new National Park. The two roads, McCarthy and Nabesna, also predate the park, and their primary purpose is not to provide access for park visitors; rather, the two roads are there to provide access to the scant handful of hardy souls who actually live in that extraordinary place. As you drive along the Nabesna road, you enter and leave the wilderness numerous times, as you cross in and out of the private land that’s interspersed along the route.
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The last 27 miles of the Nabesna Road is mud and gravel with LOTS of potholes! The 13.2 million acre preserve is the largest in the U.S National Park system, but it has little formal infrastructure and very few facilities for visitors
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Traveling the Nabesna Road, you enter and leave the National Park numerous times as you cross private land that predates the huge preserve
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The ultimate end of the Nabesna Road. The dirt track goes on just a bit further, providing access to an active gold claim, but the last bit of road is private land, closed to the public.
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A homestead at the end of the Nabesna Road, complete with a small airstrip.
The road was paved the first 15 miles, but the next 25 miles were rough, and great fun to drive in the Jeep. Several unbridged streams crossed the road, which also negotiated several seriously rocky stream beds, and there were zillions of potholes filled with muddy rainwater that made wonderful BEGOOSH geysers when I hit them just right. Crossing a couple of those shallow streams, I was spraying water off to the side, higher than the roof of the Jeep! One thing that caught my attention: all of those private parcels had rural mailboxes, even those that were all the way at the end of the road—which was originally built to access a gold mine that is no longer commercially viable, but still being worked by its owner. When I inquired about the mail service, I was told that a rural carrier out of Slana delivers to those boxes three days a week, even in winter (depending on conditions). The Postal Service has long been a lifeline for rural Americans, even here, in one of the most remote parts of Alaska. There were actually two B&B’s at the end of the road—it would have been an interesting place to stay! There was also a small fairly primitive airstrip, where flightseeing excursions over the surrounding wilderness can be arranged.
I took very few pictures on the way in—too cloudy—but the sun came partway out as I was driving back and I made numerous stops to take in the views. My visit to Wrangell-St. Elias was great fun, but, compared to the other places I’d been, not the greatest in terms of photo ops. (Sometimes you have to just absorb the experience, and not worry about capturing a place with photos.) I stopped at the Ranger Station to return the Audio CD, chatted a bit with the staff, then drove on toward Tok. It rained on and off along the way, but it was a very pretty drive.
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Fireweed, mountains, and clouds reflected in beautiful lakes. Ho, hum. Just another day in Alaska
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Rain, rain, go away! Lousy weather between Glennallen and Tok
I pulled into Tok at about 5:00 PM, and since I’d actually been there before, it felt like a familiar spot. I got a room at a motel/campground for a mere $110 (cheap!). Later, I took in a presentation on dogsled racing that was being given to a tour group from Wisconsin; that was actually very interesting! I had a Halibut Burger at Fast Eddie’s (another familiar place), then back to my room, to sleep, per chance to dream.
Next up: Back to Canada via Chicken, the Top of the Word Highway, and Dawson City, Yukon
Over the Border on the Top of the World
Day 38: Thursday, July 30th
My first morning in Fairbanks, I met a couple from Tok who gave me two “must-see” recommendations. The first was the Eskimo Olympics, a totally unique event that I thoroughly enjoyed. The second was a drive on the Top of the World Highway, an alternative border crossing route between Tok and Dawson City, Yukon. They claimed that the road offered incredible views, “even better than Denali,” but just like Denali, you had to catch it on a clear day. I’d been checking the weather forecast twice a day for the last week, and this day, Thursday the 30th, was supposed to be clear in the morning, with probable rain in the afternoon. That was all the incentive I needed to get an early start on what I was pretty sure would be my last day in Alaska. I had a quick breakfast at Fast Eddie’s, and then I took off, headed north on the Taylor Highway, AK Route 5, which intersects the Top of the World near a tiny town called Chicken. The first 60 miles of the route was paved, if you could call it that. I’d never seen so many frost heaves—sections of road where the pavement has been buckled by expansion and contraction of the water-soaked soil beneath the road bed, which alternately freezes and thaws with the changing seasons. Once that rippled pavement ended, the road pretty well went to the dogs.
Due to seasonal road closures (snow, mud, road construction, etc.) some of the maps displayed in this thread are not displaying properly or you might see pop-up windows reporting errors found with the route. Unfortunately, the map data used to create these maps enforces these "Time-outs" if a particular road segment is closed. In the case of the pop-up windows (alerts), please click the "OK" or "Close" button and the rest of the page will display properly. In the case on some of the maps where the route seems all jammed up -- reloading the page where the map is displaying seems to solve the issue. All of these problems go away once the winter closures of the roads end. So, everything will look fine in the North American summer months.
Click here for this RTA Library Map
(This map shows Rick's route between Tok, Alaska and Dawson City, Yukon.)
The area around Chicken was so foggy I could scarcely see the place. It started as a mining camp during the Yukon gold rush, and it’s one of the very few such places that is still producing gold more than a century later.
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Abandoned gold dredge, Chicken, Alaska
The mining operations have scaled back pretty dramatically, such that the primary industry in Chicken, with a permanent population of 7 souls, is tourism. When the mining camp grew large enough to need a Post Office, back in 1902, residents had to come up with a name for the place. They wanted to call it Ptarmigan, which is the Alaska State bird. Unfortunately, nobody knew how to spell Ptarmigan, so they settled on Chicken, and that’s what it’s been called ever since.
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Chicken Monument, the centerpiece of Chicken, Alaska
There was a campground in the town with a significant number of large RV’s towing cars (“toads”); a whole herd of Class A rigs, lots more than I would have expected on such a rough back-country route. Apparently, the Top of the World was more popular than I realized. I topped up my gas tank in Chicken, even though the price per gallon was pretty outrageous. There’s a rule of thumb in the far north: even the most expensive gas in Alaska is cheaper than the cheapest gas in Canada. I bought a souvenir post card in the gift shop, and then I drove on. The weather stayed foggy for the first ten miles, and then it lifted. The view WOULD have been tremendous—the road followed a high ridge well above the tree line—but it was so hazy you couldn’t see more than a mile, at most—so the mountains were more like vague shapes.
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Hazy views from the Top of the World Highway, one of the most northerly highways on the entire planet
Based on my interpretation of the road map, I expected a road junction not far past Chicken. The Taylor Highway went north to the tiny town of Eagle, and the Top of the World Highway turned east to Canada. But after driving and driving on the rough dirt road, there was no junction, and I was afraid I might have missed it. I didn’t want to go all the way to Eagle and back accidentally, so when I noticed a camp down in a gulley alongside the road, I stopped and walked down. The people there were apparently working a gold claim. I kept my distance, and rather cautiously announced myself. When I got their attention, I asked about the road. As it turned out, the junction was still ahead of me—the map was simply misleading about the distance, so all was well.
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Top of the World Highway near the Canadian border
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Welcome to Alaska sign greets travelers arriving from Canada on the Top of the World Highway; for me, it was a sad goodbye
The last section of road, just before the border, was newly and beautifully paved, which was quite an anachronism in such a remote area. Canadian Customs, the Little Gold Creek Border Crossing, was a small building in the middle of nowhere, an unusual place, because that same single building is shared by U.S. Customs. The inspection consisted of a glance at my passport, questions about firearms, liquor, and tobacco, and how long did I plan to stay in Canada? That was it; have a nice day, and they didn’t even glance at my vehicle. I was sad to be leaving Alaska so soon, but I was also pretty satisfied, because I felt I’d done it up right!
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Little Gold Creek border crossing
I drove on over a very good dirt road, traveling it too fast, probably, down to the Yukon River, with a stop at an overlook for a great view of Dawson City, the metropolis of the far north, and quite a place in its heyday during the Yukon gold rush.
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Dawson City, founded in the late 19th century on a bend in the Yukon River
There’s no bridge, just a small car ferry, but my timing was perfect. I didn’t know anything about this ferry, which can be a major delay for travelers—but once again, my luck was very good and I was across in minutes.
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George Black Ferry, the only way to cross the Yukon River, and only in the summer months.
Dawson City was pretty cool. A turn of the century gold rush town—partially restored, partially dilapidated original. Tons of young people—sort of a hippy type community here, mostly young Canadians. There was even a small music scene. I got a room at a seriously dilapidated hotel downtown for about fifty bucks. Zero amenities, shared bathroom, two flights of creaky stairs to carry my stuff up, and the building’s floors were literally tilted in various directions, as if it’s on the brink of collapse. This was another case of “should have checked the room before paying for it,” but this time, it really wasn’t as bad as all that.
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Westminster Hotel in Dawson City, Yukon. The building façade is newly painted and kind of cute. The interior of the building behind the façade was slowly caving in on itself
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Klondike Kate’s, one of the more nicely restored places in this hodge-podge of old and new, where they’ve retained, a 19th Century ambience.
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The Flora Dora, where, back in the day, the rooms came either with, or without (the girl in the window)
I wandered about the town taking pictures, and then holed up in the room to do some serious route planning. It was 1800 miles to Edmonton, and I wanted to break it into logical, relatively even segments. I spent most of my time in this interesting little town hanging out in my funky room. I checked out the bar downstairs, but the evening crowd was a little rough to my taste, so I didn’t stay to hear the band.
Day 39: Friday, July 31st
I woke up fairly early and took a shower in the shared bathroom. There were very few guests in the hotel, judging by the lack of noise. I couldn’t leave before 9:00, because I had to wait until the bar opened in order to get a refund on the $100 deposit they’d made me put down on my $50 room (as if it would even be possible to do that much damage to so Spartan an accommodation, with peeling floor tiles, cracked and peeling paint, and worn old furniture). I spent some time editing photos, had a good breakfast at the much nicer hotel across the street, and then went back to the bar to reclaim my deposit. There was a guy in there already drinking at 9:00 AM, bragging to the pretty female bartender that he’d just turned down a producer who wanted to feature him on a reality show about the Yukon. The producer had offered him $1,000 to appear in the show, but that was an insult, he claimed, because he was currently making a wage of “$24,000 an hour!”
That got my attention. “What kind of work pays that kind of money?” I asked.
“Gold mining,” he replied. He claimed he was on to a very hot spot, part of a crew that was killing it at that very moment. If that was true, I couldn’t help thinking, why was he drinking cheap beer in a Dawson City bar at 9 AM? Good question, that, but I left it unasked. Instead, I retrieved my deposit, gassed up my Jeep, and drove south down the Klondike Highway. This was, for the most part, a very good road, though it did have a few patches of dirt and gravel, part of the ongoing road repair and construction that’s endemic to that part of the world during the short summers; the winters up there in the far north are absolute hell on the road surfaces.
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Yukon River from the all but deserted Klondike Highway
The highway followed the Yukon River south, crossing it a few times on bridges, but for the most part you couldn’t even see the water for the solid hedge of trees lining the road. I stopped a few times for photos, but not many. There was almost no traffic on the first half of the drive. I passed two cars, but not a single car passed me, and I saw no more than 2 or 3 vehicles going the other direction, plus a couple more here and there at rest stops.
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The all-but-empty Klondike Highway, which follows the route once taken by the thousands of desperate men who answered the call of the Yukon gold rush in the late 19th century
This was, without a doubt, the most deserted highway I had ever encountered. There were very few towns and almost no homesteads along the route, at least none that were visible, so it would have been a terrible place to break down. To get assistance, you’d have to flag someone down, and pray that they stopped! Pretty iffy, but I suspect there’s an unwritten code among the folks that travel these lonely roads, to help any fellow traveler in distress. On the way in to Whitehorse, 350 miles and at least five hours later, I followed the signs to the Lake Leberge Campground, and drove a winding road through the woods to a camping area on the lake shore.
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The “marge of Lake Labarge,” (sic), near Whitehorse, Yukon
I got out, and took a picture, just so that I could say that I’ve stood “on the marge of Lake Labarge.” (A classic line from the famous poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” by Robert Service. Service, known as the bard of the Yukon, spent a good bit of his time on earth in and around Whitehorse). I found the Days Inn hotel that I stayed in when I passed through this place in an earlier lifetime. (Was it even possible that it had only been three weeks?) The hotel was quite comfortable before, so I booked it again, and was pleased to note that the rate had actually dropped by $25. It was already getting colder in the Yukon—so I guessed they were already past their peak season. I spent a quiet evening in the room, frustrated because my phone wouldn’t connect to my email account, even with good Wi-Fi. Crashed early, still feeling lousy, but pleased to be in a clean, comfortable bed.
Next up: The Alaska Highway (in reverse)
The Alaska Highway in reverse
Day 40: Saturday, August 1st
Before leaving Whitehorse, I studied my maps and my copy of the most recent edition of The Milepost, a comprehensive mile-by-mile guide to the Alaska Highway and all the other roads that connect to it. I was strongly considering taking a different route back into British Columbia, rather than retracing the Alaska Highway back to Dawson Creek. There was an intriguing possibility—the Cassiare Highway, which led south from the Al-Can, just a bit west of Watson Lake. The Cassiare was more remote, less travelled, and, quite possibly, more scenic than the Al-Can, so it seemed like a no-brainer: a loop trip, where you travel different roads on the return leg, is nearly always better than simply reversing course, because you get to see new stuff. The only thing stopping me in this case was the weather: the forecast called for heavy rain throughout the region for the next several days, and if that was true, I wouldn’t be seeing much of anything in the way of scenery, and under those circumstances, an unfamiliar route through remote territory had significantly less appeal. I took my time getting up and leaving, because I still hadn’t quite made up my mind.
Due to seasonal road closures (snow, mud, road construction, etc.) some of the maps displayed in this thread are not displaying properly or you might see pop-up windows reporting errors found with the route. Unfortunately, the map data used to create these maps enforces these "Time-outs" if a particular road segment is closed. In the case of the pop-up windows (alerts), please click the "OK" or "Close" button and the rest of the page will display properly. In the case on some of the maps where the route seems all jammed up -- reloading the page where the map is displaying seems to solve the issue. All of these problems go away once the winter closures of the roads end. So, everything will look fine in the North American summer months.
Click here for this RTA Library Map
(This map shows Rick's route between Dawson City, Yukon and Jasper, Alberta.)
The rain predicted in the weather forecast was already happening; it was pouring buckets when I checked out of my hotel. I stopped by my favorite Tim Horton’s for a breakfast sandwich and coffee, finally got on the road about 10 AM. Whitehorse was a familiar place at this point—it almost felt like I knew my way around! While gassing up the Jeep at my favorite gas station, my phone went off, and all the email that had so stubbornly resisted downloading while I was hooked to the hotel Wi-Fi suddenly came in through the local cell data network. I drove east on the now familiar Alaska Highway, and continued to get email, as well as a text or two, as much as 30 miles outside the town. It’s like everything started working the way it was supposed to work all along, but I still didn’t quite understand it.
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Sign marking the junction of the Alaska Highway with the Cassiare. I had a tough time deciding which way to go!
When I got to the junction with the Cassiare, I stopped and reviewed my maps one more time. The rain had let up a little, but one look at the sky told me there was a lot more coming, so I elected to stick with the familiar, as opposed to the strange, and kept driving toward Watson Lake. The stretch of the road I was on, between Whitehorse and Watson Lake, had been my favorite part of the drive on my way to Alaska. Amazing green mountains, billowing clouds, ice blue and green rivers. On this day, I was traversing the exact same territory, traveling in the other direction, but on this day it was raining so hard, with such a low ceiling of clouds, that I could barely see past the edge of the road. I was extremely glad that I’d had beautiful weather when I drove it the first time; otherwise, I would never have known what I’d missed!
I pulled into Watson Lake at about 3:00. Just like the first time, it was raining, but this time I knew in advance that there were numerous motel choices, just off the main drag, and I’d already decided that I’d stay in one of them. I chose the Bighorn, which was overpriced, but comfortable enough. The sun came out in the afternoon, so I took a lengthy stroll through the signpost forest. On my previous visit, I stood at the edge and snapped a couple of quick pictures. This time I really looked around, looked at the small details, and took much better pictures!
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The Signpost Forest in Watson Lake, revisited. This roadside attraction is interesting when viewed in its totality, but it’s fascinating when you look more closely, because every one of those tens of thousands of signs has a story to tell.
For dinner, I had the meatloaf at a restaurant called “A Taste of Home.” It was edible, but nowhere close to the meatloaf at MY home!
Day 41: Sunday, August 2nd
Didn’t sleep all that well, and felt the need to get moving, so I had a quick breakfast, gassed up, and hit the road. There was light rain as I drove south toward BC, and when the clouds broke I noticed beautiful light over the distant hills, so I stopped the car and ran to the top of the rise. In the other direction was a perfect rainbow.
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I took that as a good omen. The rain cut back to a light sprinkle, and the road stretched out before me, a ribbon of asphalt across a verdant landscape.
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Alaska Highway east of Watson Lake, headed back toward Fort Nelson
The drive was like a relay race. I got ahead of the line of traffic and stayed out front until Liard Hot Springs. Remembering how pleasant it was the first time, I stopped for a soak. When I paid my fee on the way in, the woman in the booth warned me that there were bears in the area, so bold that they had been nosing around all the way up to the hot springs pool. “Be careful!” she warned. “If you see one of those bad boys on your way in, back away slowly, and whatever you do, don’t run from them!” That was pretty sobering! I walked in anyway, paying very close attention. The hot spring was as awesome as ever, a little more crowded this time, and no bears showed up to spoil the pool party.
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Liard Hot Springs, British Columbia. Keep an eye peeled for bothersome bears!
Back on the road, I wound up stuck behind a long chain of RV’s and a couple of semis, so I passed them all, one by one. When I got to Muncho Lake, it was gorgeous, despite the cloudy skies, so of course I had to stop for more photos.
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Return to Muncho Lake
When I got back on the road, the RV’s and the semis had all gotten ahead of me again. There were several lengthy construction delays, the “pilot car tango,” and after one of those delays I got stuck right behind one of the big trucks. That son of a gun simply would NOT let me pass him. There were multiple patches of dirt and gravel road, and every time the semi hit one of those, he sprayed gravel at my windshield, and stirred up billowing clouds of dust so thick I couldn’t even see the road. I’d back off, and then I’d pull close again in hopes of sneaking around him, but he kept deliberately speeding up on the open or downhill stretches, pedal to the metal, so I never got a chance. Overall, I drove that section of road much too fast! I did get some good photos of a buffalo browsing through fireweed, and another of a family of mountain sheep.
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Fireweed Bison
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Mountain sheep, posing for a family portrait
I arrived in Fort Nelson at about 3:00, elected to NOT push on to Dawson’s Creek, which would have meant another 5 hours of driving, give or take. Checked in to the Blue Bell, which cost $30 more than the place I’d stayed the last time, but it was a little nicer, and it had Wi-Fi! I spent a quiet evening watching a couple of dumb movies on a cable channel.
Day 42: Monday, August 3rd
Last leg of the Al-Can, from Fort Nelson to Dawson’s Creek! I took my time packing up and getting ready to go, knowing that I’d only be driving five or six hours this day. The rain was pretty steady starting out, and got infinitely worse, pouring hard in some sections, and never really letting up. This is the most populated section of the road, so traffic was correspondingly heavy, the most commercial traffic I’d seen in a single day, and that was not a good thing. Numerous stretches of the road were undergoing repair, and the pavement had been removed, leaving a dirt and gravel surface. That, plus the heavy rain, plus the heavy truck traffic was a recipe for disaster. Every northbound truck that passed me going the other way drenched me with the muddy rain water that was standing on the road in deep puddles, to the extent that I could scarcely see. The Jeep got dirtier than it’s ever been, and the constant spray of muddy water obscuring my windshield caused a fair bit of white-knuckle anxiety, enough that I was getting bad cramps in my hands. I didn’t stop even once for photographs. Didn’t even think about it!
When I arrived in Dawson Creek, I was struck by how big it seemed, especially when compared to my perception of it my first time through, less than a month earlier. Back then, it looked so small, a Podunk town in the middle of nowhere, but after driving to Alaska and back, my perceptions had changed quite a lot! The Comfort Inn was probably the best motel in town. When I stopped and asked how much, the gal at the desk knocked $30 of the published rate, which made it quite competitive. I had a few days to kill before meeting my friend in Edmonton, so I booked for two nights, glad at the chance to just stay put in one place long enough to catch things up and relax a little. In the early evening there was a whopper of a thunderstorm—an inch and a half of rain in less than an hour. I was quite glad to be indoors watching the storm, not driving, and not camping!
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No amount of rain will wash off this kind of road grime!
After the rain stopped, something really strange happened: it started getting dark, and somewhere between 9 and 10, the sun went down! I was finally far enough south, and it was long enough since the solstice, that I was finally away from that whole “midnight sun” phenomenon. I’m not sure I could ever get entirely used to that—I definitely didn’t like it much! That night in Dawson Creek was the first time I’d seen actual darkness in almost a month, and it was very reassuring!
Next up: On to Edmonton (to pick up my co-pilot)!
