Week 144 - The Alaska Highway - 05-17-2009

Welcome to the Alaska Highway,

We always thought the Alaska Highway was in Alaska. Of the 1,372 miles, only 220 miles are in Alaska! The rest is in British Columbia (BC) and the Yukon Territory (YT). Prior to the construction of the highway, the reasonably traveled roads ended in Dawson Creek, BC. After the attack of Pearl Harbor the United States Army approved the highway. Five days later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress authorized the project. Amazingly the original 1,522 mile highway was completed in 8 months and 12 days! The highway was open to the public in 1948. The highway has been shortened over the years from 1,522 to 1,372.

Our travels this week and a guess at the future.

1) This week we drove from the beginning of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek, BC, ending in Whitehorse, YT. 2) This portion of the road is typical of the 882 miles we traveled. It is always this pretty or better.

The Peace River Bridge in Taylor, BC is one of the two suspension bridges on the Alaska Highway.

A contrast in facilities. Every 100 to 150 miles there are services available. 1) Most of them look like this; old and needing repair but the people are delightful and fuel is available. Many stops have restaurants, RV parks and motels. 2) By comparison the Northern Rockies Lodge, on Muncho Lake, built in 1996 is beautifully constructed and well maintained. Fuel however was $5.45 per gallon versus the $2 to $3 we paid in Canada thus far.

Again contrasting the old versus the new. 1) Downtown RV Park in Watson Lake, YT. It's an RV park, not a parking lot or is it? Downtown RV was only $2 less than 2) Hi Country RV Park in Whitehorse, YT. Still they both have full hookups, cable TV and free WiFi. According to several RV park owners, they are asked "do you have WiFi" more than "do you have hookups".

Further south the Birch trees were all dormant with only some having leaf buds. Here you can see the lovely light green color of the Birch trees interspersed with the Pine trees. For the most part the Birch and Pine mingle. Rarely you see only Pines or only Birch.

Snow covered peaks begin to dot the landscape and continue all the way to Whitehorse.

The further you move North, the more rivers and lakes appear. Most, in May, are frozen over or in the process of thawing.

1) Just South of Muncho Lake the snow began to fall. Turn the heater up and keep on moving and soon it clears up again. 2) Of the 882 miles only 4 miles were gravel and these were very smooth with no opposing vehicles flinging rocks at us. Reaching the Yukon by mid-May is a little early as many RV parks and other services do not open until May 15th. However, we would do it again as there were almost no vehicles on the road. There are very few turnouts, but we could stop in the middle of the road for pictures.

One of the many frozen lakes. Or this could be a river, they are huge up here.

This lake has beautiful God-made designs on the icy surface.

The Nisultin River Delta just south of Teslin, BC-YT.

The Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park offers dry camping or day use. Stop here, even for a few hours as we did, and enjoy the springs. The surface temperature of the water varies from 108 to 126 degrees Fahrenheit. While soaking up the heat, we met nice folks from the USA and Canada and learned about more "must see" locations.

Overall the road thus far is in great condition with a maximum speed of 100 which we drove all the time, except . . .

when we encountered wildlife. Another great asset about early May travel is that when we spotted animals ahead, we would slow down to a crawl and finally stop right next to them. There was no other traffic scaring them away or wishing we would move on. Moose kneel in order to eat. Who knew. The moose are recluse and immediately ran into the forest.

The cariboo were less shy but moved on slowly. It is easy to get pictures from the rear, but a bit tougher to get profiles.

The bison were the most prevalent.

Everyone's favorite, by far, are the bears. We saw three at different times. We are hoping to get more and better pictures during this trip.

This 180 degree picture of frozen Muncho Lake is our first attempt at "stitching" together nine photos to create this one. Many thanks to Richard "Panorama" from Ashland, Oregon who took time to explain to Pete how these photos are created. We will detail more of how this is done in the future.

The end of this week's trip took us to Whitehorse, YT. Based on the towns we saw along the way, we did not expect much. But Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory, was delightful. It is nestled between snowy mountains and the Yukon River. The main town is about six by twenty blocks with the river on the East and the airport on the West. At around 20,000 people, it has 66% of the Yukon Territory population.

We took a tour of the Yukon Brewing Co and had a fantastic fish and chips dinner at Klondike Rib and Salmon. The Hi Country RV Park was the nicest we stayed at since we left Vancouver, BC.

We are pretty excited as next week we will head south 112 miles and reach our first stop in Alaska, at Skagway.

Have a blessed week,

Love, Pete and Ellen

Photos from May 2009