The Alaska Highway and Skagway

Over the next few days we found ourselves winding our way through steep mountains, gazing off at dramatic vistas and seeing wildlife every few minutes. Yes, this was the Alaska Highway I was expecting. “I didn’t expect it to be so scenic,” said David. We went up and down valleys and along rivers with super fast currents. 

We gazed at Muncho Lake with its still, jade-green water. The road follows the lakeshore. This was the most difficult part of the highway to construct because of steep cliffs next to the lake. We read interpretive panels on Stone sheep. 

We went on a steep trail through a fairy-like forest to view some “mineral lick” cliffs where sheep, elk and deer come for salt and other minerals. We didn’t see any animals there, but we saw lots of sheep on the road. Both adults and babies were licking the salt off the road like ice cream. 

We saw solitary Woods bison and a herd of them. We saw more black bear and moose.

One of the requisite stops along the highway is Liard Hotsprings. You walk about a half mile on a boardwalk through a marsh and woods with tropical-looking plants to steaming hot pools of water. We soaked in the hotsprings along with a bunch of other people. The closer you moved to the source, the hotter it got. It got too hot for me to stand. I got out, sat on a bench and talked with a woman who had been on the road for 8 months with her 4 cats, dog and male friend, who was a professional photographer. From her remarks, it seemed the quarters were a bit too close. 

That night we stayed at a campground next to raging rapids of the Liard River.

In the morning we watched another camper walking his 7 dogs. 






We continued on to Watson Lake, famous for its Signpost Forest. Started in 1942, people have put up over 71,000 signs with their names and home towns.

 It’s quite a sight.

We took a short hike to some picturesque falls. Seems like every time we stop and talk to someone, the topic of bears comes up. A man painting a building in the parking area for the falls asked us if we had bear spray with us. “You have nothing to worry about,” he said to David, “as long as you can run faster than her.” (meaning me). Then he told us one of his bear encounter stories. (Everyone has them, even us.) Every time this happens, Davids says we have to get some bear spray, and he’s leery about hiking in the woods. On this occasion, there were enough other people walking the trail, it wasn’t a problem.

The scenery just keeps getting better. We deviated from the highway to Carcross in the Yukon. It’s a tiny town that gets hoards of tourists. While we were there, the tourist train pulled in, and all the passengers piled out. They milled around the few stores and exhibits, then got in line for ice cream. Within a half hour they had boarded about five buses waiting to take them to Whitehorse. 

The following day we drove 67 miles to Skagway, Alaska, leaving the trailer in Carcross. The drive was spectacular, going over White Pass where stampeders (gold prospectors) had traveled during the Klondike gold rush in 1898. They had an arduous journey and most didn’t make it. (A few died, the rest gave up.) Out of 100,000 stampeders, 30,000 made it all the way to Dawson City. Once there they discovered there was no gold to be had. Only a few actually made more money than they had when they arrived. It’s quite an interesting story full of colorful characters. 

The drive to Skagway took almost three hours because we stopped at all the turnouts with views or historical plaques. In Skagway we learned even more about the gold rush at the national park by visiting their museum, watching a film and going on a ranger walk. The town itself is small, touristy and rich in history. Tourists from cruise ships and the train pour into the town for short periods of time, so the shops do their best to pry their money away from them. There were at least three jewelry shops on every block. 

The setting on the water with the mountains as backdrop was fabulous. We walked around town and visited the gold rush cemetery and some waterfalls. It was cold, very windy and a bit rainy. The scenery on the way back was just as spectacular the second time. 

A Bear Comes Calling

Dawson Creek, BC is mile 0 of the 1,390 mile-long Alaska Highway. So everyone stops there and takes photos of the two mile 0 markers. It’s a bit exciting. When we were there, two mounties happened to be present and answered questions. Then we began the trek. At first it was a bit disappointing. It’s not at all what I had imagined. Somehow I thought that the gently rolling farmland before Dawson Creek would abruptly stop after we left Dawson Creek behind, and we’d be winding our way through steep mountains, gazing off at dramatic vistas and seeing wildlife every few minutes. Instead, the scenery looks exactly the same both before and after Dawson Creek. 

But slowly the houses peter out, and farmland gives way to a sickly-looking spruce forest. It could be the spruce budworm, which doesn’t kill the tree, but weakens it. We took a short detour on the old Alaska highway to see the only remaining curved wooden bridge on the highway. This part was scenic. We spent the night in Fort St. John.

The next day we took a side trip to see Peace Canyon Dam and W.A.C. Bennett Dam. Of the 32 hydroelectric dams in BC, these two provide ⅓ of the power to the province. Peace Canyon had a very nice visitor’s center that not only explained the dam and its construction but also interpreted some of the dinosaur finds in the area. 

A very friendly young woman gave us an excellent personalized tour of the visitor’s center. Then we watched a video of how they shipped four humongous turbine rollers from Russia, where they were made. They had to build a special transport truck and roads to get the turbines, one at a time, to the dam. It took them two years. At the Bennett dam you go on a bus tour inside the dam itself and learn all about it from a tour guide. By this time it had started to rain. It rained the rest of the day. It rained all night. It poured rain in the morning. How could this much water fall from the sky? David got soaked emptying the holding tanks. This was beginning to get old. 

We continued along the highway. Still not very scenic. Eventually it began to get hillier. We could see the Rocky Mountains west of us. I saw a couple coyotes. The forests began to diversify. It stopped raining. There was quite a bit of traffic. Neptune complained all day. We watched the kilometer markers carefully and pulled into an unmarked road where you can camp for free in a former, unmaintained provincial campground. No one else was there. We picked a spot and had lunch. A car pulled into another slot a few rows down. The driver sat on his tailgate and ate lunch.

prickly rose

We debated what to do. It was still early, but the next campground was a bit far, and there was a trail I wanted to go on here. But the mosquitoes were insane. It started to rain. We decided to check out the trail. We put on our mosquito jackets and rain jackets, got our insect repellant and set out. Our neighbor from the car was walking by. He had a pair of binoculars around his neck. “Are you looking for birds?” I asked him. “Yes,” he said. “I just saw a black and white warbler, and I could confirm she was nesting because she was carrying food.” He was surveying nesting birds in the area for some organization and camping in his car. He wished us a good day, and we set off looking for the trail. The first one we tried turned into a rivulet. So we went to the other side of the campground and walked down another trail. We met the man again. He was holding a can of bear spray in his hand. “Did you see a bear?” asked David. “Not now,” he said. “But I’ve seen three grizzlies and about 20 black bears in the area in the last week.” He proceeded to tell us about a run-in he had had with a grizzly some years ago. To get away from it, he had jumped in some water. The bear jumped in after him and pursued him in the water. He barely made it out alive. In the course of the story, he referred to himself as “Birdman”. He told us some other stories while we stood there with mosquitoes swarming around us. It stopped raining. We continued our hike. David was concerned about meeting a bear. We walked slowly and looked carefully all around us into the woods. We got to a point where we had a good look at the large, rushing Prophet River and then we returned to our camper. By this time another RV had arrived, and two or three ATV’s were buzzing about. We decided to stay and hang out the rest of the day. Later that evening, Birdman walked over and talked with David about getting stuck in the mud, the metric system and other topics.

That night in bed David told me he left one of the windows in the bedroom partly open. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” 

“No,” I said. “A bear could stick his paw right through the screen.” David closed the window.

The next morning around 5:30 a.m. we heard some kind of scuffling outside. I thought a bear or a person was trying to get into the truck. “You have to go see what it is,” I said. David got some clothes on and opened the door. A big black bear was standing on the other side. David slammed the door in his face. I looked outside and saw the bear leaving. He looked back at us, then headed to the other campers. They had a fairly large dog who was sitting outside. The dog watched the bear approach. The bear saw the dog and decided to head into the woods. The dog ran after it. I thought maybe the bear would eat the dog, but the dog returned unharmed. Meanwhile, David couldn’t get the door open. He had to climb out the window, disassemble the door handle and reassemble it. He had closed the door so hard, something had slid out of place. He fixed it. We could see muddy bear prints on the side of the trailer near our bedroom window. Well, finally things are starting to get interesting.

We got an early start this morning. In Fort Nelson we emptied the tanks, got fresh water, went to the visitor’s center and used their free wifi to call VISA to ask them to allow us to use our card again and got gas. We paid $5.40 a gallon (1.429/liter). 

Stone sheep

caribou 

While David was emptying the tanks, Neptune, unbeknownst to us, jumped out the back of the truck bed and tried to get into the trailer, but the door was closed. Some people walking by noticed him and asked David if it was his cat. I was in the truck reading. I looked in the mirror and saw Neptune jumping at the trailer door. He climbed up the door handle. David approached him, and he ran. David called me to help, but by then, Neptune had jumped back into the truck. Neptune was uncharacteristically quiet the rest of the day and didn’t try to get out of the truck every time we stopped as he usually does. 

On this day we finally got into some very striking scenery: big peaks, rushing rivers, steep cliffs, sparkling lakes and wildlife. We saw five more black bears, several caribou and maybe a dozen Stone sheep. We took a short hike to some erosion pillars and mistakenly drove a mile down a narrow, gravel road thinking it led to a campground. It led to a creek bed. David had to back out the entire way (with the trailer.) I stood on the bumper with a walkie-talkie and helped him stay out of the bushes.

We camped in another former provincial park right off the road, near a crystal clear river with a huge beaver dam. What a great day and not a drop of rain!

Passing through Alberta

We spent only a few days in Alberta on our way to the Alaska Highway. We plan to see more of it, including Jasper and Banff national parks, on our return trip. On our way to Elk Island National Park in Alberta we stopped in Vegreville to see the largest pysanka (Easter egg) in the world. It’s 31’ high and slowly turns in the wind. The pysanka is a traditional icon for the Ukrainians, who immigrated here in large numbers in the late 1800’s. 

We thought maybe the rain had gone, but we were in for more. It rained all night and continued raining the next day. It would pour, drizzle and then let up for a bit before repeating the cycle. 

Between downpours, we drove around Elk Island park looking for bison. We found plenty. The bison roam freely so it’s not always possible to see them. We saw several lone bison strolling along or beside the road and an entire herd in a field. Later that day we got a glimpse of the Woods Bison herd, which live in a separate part of the park from the Plains Bison, presumably so the two sub-species don’t interbreed. 

We saw our first moose who disappeared quickly into the woods. We managed to squeeze in a short trail through a marsh and along a lake. The pink, prickly wild roses, the official flower of Alberta, were abundant and often the only other color to offset a sea of green. Bluebells were also plentiful in the woods, and yellow flowers bloomed in the sun. It poured rain all night. Also, it was colder (lower 50’s) than it had been. 

The next morning, it was--can you guess?--raining! I had planned a big day of sightseeing in Edmonton, but we weren’t really motivated to do anything outside. 

We visited the legislative building and got a private tour with a friendly, knowledgeable guide. She did a great job educating us about some aspects of Canada. We drove along both sides of the North Saskatchewan river, which runs through Edmonton, and then headed to Starbucks for wifi access because, although the campground we were staying in supposedly had it, it was unusable.

The next morning we woke up to a surprise--sunshine! Yay! We thought the rain would never stop, but it did. We drove for about three hours, then stopped for lunch at a rest area. As we got out of the truck and headed to the trailer, David said, “What’s that hissing noise?”  He leaned over the tire and discovered that it was leaking air. “I’m sure glad we stopped when we did,” he said. He was able to plug the leak successfully, and after lunch, we were on our way. June 21st--still light at 10:30.