Lewisville, TX to Whitehorse, Yukon
Hello everyone!
This is the first time that we've been able to get on-line to send e-mail. I don't think that we're going to be able to send and receive mail as often as we would have liked. Instead, Ed and I are going to jointly compose an account of our travels and mail out installments as often as possible. These are likely to be quite long, so if you're not interested in reading all of this, just reply to this message with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line. So, if you're ready, here goes:
(Ed) The Alaska Trip officially started at 9:10AM on 21 June as we departed Albertsons supermarket in Lewisville. The drive thru the Texas panhandle was unbelievably boring, as usual. We made it to New Mexico that afternoon and camped at Sugarite Canyon State Park near Raton. On the way to the park, we witnessed a pickup driving the other way up a mountain road with a dog on top of the cab. Yes. The dog was standing with all four feet on the roof of the truck. It was an unusual sight. The most interesting thing about the campground was the bear alert, as a bear was rooting around some of the campsites. The rangers tried to shoo him away, but it took a rubber bullet to finally get him to leave the area.
We continued northwest and stopped in Colorado Springs where we saw a city park called Garden of the Gods, with cool red sandstone formations and many tourists. We camped in Ft Collins that night.
Still making tracks north, our next stop was the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming. There were ominous storm clouds along these snow-capped mountains (I think you will hear the term "snow-capped" a lot), but it cleared up as we went into the mountains.
(Kenneth) We camped in a secluded camground that night and took a long day hike the next day past at least a dozen mountain lakes. The lakes were beautiful as were the mountain views, but a fire ten years ago had left a great deal of fallen timber that detracted from the hike somewhat. That night we ran into a couple who were also making their way to Alaska. They are both teachers and plan to find teaching jobs there if possible. We sat by the fire and talked until bedtime. We've met at least 5 or 6 people already who are headed to Alaska. We're starting to wonder if there will be any room for us.
On Thursday (6-25) we headed north again. We drove through Billings and Great Falls to a campground in northern Montana. Here we met a caravan of 3 RV's headed to Alaska. The next morning we woke up to a light rainfall and drove north again to Calgary and then on to Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. It rained on and off the whole way to Banff.
Knowing that we would probably be doing a great deal of hiking and camping in the rain, we decided to brave the weather and reserved a back country campsite for the next night. Saturday morning we got up and hiked to Taylor Lake, which is a beautiful lake in a hanging valley high in the mountains. It didn't rain after all, and we were able to enjoy a short day hike after we arrived at our campsite. Backcountry camping in Banff is pretty luxurious. We had a small picnic table, a privy, cables to haul food into a tree to protect it from bears and, unfortunately, the close company of four other campers. It didn't feel very back-woods, but the lake was fabulous. On Sunday (6-27), we awoke to the rain that had been forecast for the previous day. We scratched our planned day-hike and made the soggy hike back down to the car. It rained the whole day, so we used the time to acquire provisions and vittles in Banff.
On Monday, the rain continued. We drove back into Banff to pick up the shopping bag that I had left in the store the day before. Ed spotted a Radio Shack and bought a mini butane blow-torch to start fires with. Then we drove the Icefields Parkway north to Jasper. The drive is a long one, but it stays light here until about 10:30 (It's dusk at 10:45 as I write this), so we still arrived at our campground well before dark. Our campfire attempts that night were a disaster. Ed's blow torch ran out of butane almost immediately (it had most likely been on the store shelf for several years) and all of our attempts to build a fire with wet wood met in failure.
On Tuesday (6-30) we did a short day-hike up spectacular Maligne Canyon in the morning. In the afternoon, the weather finally gave us a break and we drove up to Maligne Lake for some hot chocolate. We also saw Medicine Lake which has no visible outlet. It was thought that there was an underground stream leading to Mailgn Canyon, so years ago a park ranger dumped two truckloads of Saturday Evening Posts into the lake in hopes of tracking the water flow. That attempt led only to a soggy mess, but years later university students proved the existence of an underground stream using MooseHead beer. OK, they actually used flourescent dye. We then drove back down some of the Icefields Parkway that we had driven in the rain to actually see the mountains. Along the way we got some great photos and video of mountain goat and black bear. That night we splurged and went in to Jasper for a great meal.
(Ed) Wednesday we left Jasper westbound on the Yellowhead Highway through a beautiful valley, stopping to view Mt. Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. The scenery changed to rolling hills as we came into the city of Prince George, population about 85,000, the largest city by far that we'll see for quite a while. We made dinner at scenic Bijoux Falls, where we learned never, ever, put leftover canned salmon in the cooler, even if it's in two ziplock bags, because the cooler will probably smell like canned salmon for the next 1000 miles. That night we camped at Moberly Lake where the weather was actually nice for a change and we skipped stones until we were tired, not because it got dark, it never gets dark now that we're this far north.
Thursday was a red letter day- day one on the Alcan. We took the obligatory pics of the Mile Zero cairn in Dawson Creek, the official start of the Alcan, now called the "Alaska Highway," but still affectionately known as the Alcan to savvy travelers like ourselves, or those using outdated maps. The best thing about Dawson Creek was actually the laundromat that also had SHOWERS, which are getting scarcer with every mile we head north. We also made a point to shop in Dawson City as we thought it would be the biggest town for a while. Of course the next town, Ft. St. John, was bigger and had a Safeway as big as any supermarket in Dallas. The coolest thing about the town was our tour of the Canadian Forest Products sawmill. We got a personal tour from the plant safety officer who showed us the sawmill, planer, and sorting/packaging plant. We were surprised at the level of automation. For instance, a computer scans each log and determines what size boards can be cut to make optimum use of the log, and automatically controls the cutting using both vertical (band) and horizontal (circular) saws. The plant produces enough lumber that it ships about 130 truckloads a day during cutting season.
Friday (7-3) we drove into Ft. Nelson where we toured the local museum which had good memorabilia on the Alcan construction, lots of "mystery machinery" (a must at any local museum), and a half-hour film on the construction of the Alcan that was incredibly boring. The scenery improved as we headed northwest, following the northernmost part of the Rocky Mountains. We are now in the northern part of British Columbia and treeline is only at about 5000 feet, which means the animals are all down near road level and boy did we see some today. We saw Stone sheep, mule deer, and even a moose with calf. We did a couple of short hikes to see some hoodoos (spire-like rock formations) and animals which were supposed to be at some mineral licks by the Toad River, but instead they seemed to like whatever was on the road surface. Lake Muncho was a nice blue-green color and surrounded by tree-covered mountains which dropped right into the lake. We are now camped near the Liard River, which flows into the McKenzie River, which we will NOT follow all the way since it flows into the Arctic Ocean.
(Kenneth) Saturday (7-4) was Independence day but, suprisingly, no one up here seemed to care! They had their fireworks on the first (Canada Day). We woke up in broad daylight as usual. The sun rises at about 4:30 AM, but it never really gets dark, just twilight. We drove a very short distance on up the Alaska highway to Liard Hot Springs. These are thermal pools first discovered by American soldiers building the Alcan. They've been improved and are now a Provincial Park, but still free. The vegetation growing around them is not found anywhere else this far north since they moderate the climate around them. The park has high tech toilets which use no water so that they keep the pools clean. They have a huge sign outside them explaining how they work. I believe they really work by being so foul smelling that no one can use them. We drove on until we reached the town of Watson Lake (pop. 1700). There we stopped at the signpost forest. This is two blocks of signs put up by any travellers who are so inclined, with their home town on them. Many of the signs are obviously highway signs stollen in the dead of night and carried all the way up here to post. The signpost forest was started by an American GI during construction of the highway and has been growing ever since. There are signs from all over the world, some quite creative. We drove on through some very beautiful mountain scenery and an occasional shower until we reached the outskirts of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Whitehorse has about 22000 people and is by far the largest city in the Yukon. We could tell we'd reached a major destination since all the campgrounds were full. We finally wound up in an RV park (yuk!) with a miniature picnic table, but the price was right and they had hot showers. I hope this campground situation isn't an omen of things to come.
Sunday (7-5) we decided to check out some of the sights around Whitehorse. We went to the McBride Museum where we learned quite a bit about Whitehorse history. The town came into existance during the Klondike gold rush of 1898 (They are celebrating this year as you might imagine). In 1897, 100000 people left Seattle for Skagway to get to the gold fields. First, they had to carry 2000 lbs. of supplies each to the top of the 3000 ft Chilcoot pass (which we hope to hike later in the trip). The Canadian Mounties wouldn't let anyone into Canada (the border is at the top of the pass) without a ton apiece. Then they had to carry the goods another 20 miles or so to Bennett Lake which was frozen over. They spent the time waiting for the lake to thaw building boats to carry them across the lake and down the Yukon river. When the lake thawed in late May, 7000 boats left the shore of Bennett lake in a single day! They made their way down the Yukon until they reached Miles Canyon which is a very narrow stretch of river (and quite pretty) which was extremely dangerous for boats. There, their goods had to be transferred to a wooden tramway which ran along the shoreline several miles until after the whitehorse rapids. This tram was not free, as you might imagine, and the man who built and operated it became very wealthy. There, they could put their goods back on boats that they made or bought and float them the rest of the way down the Yukon to Dawson City and the gold fields. Once at Dawson City, of course, they found out that all the good claims had long since been taken and that they didn't have the money to get home. At any rate, Whitehorse was founded at the far end of the whitehorse rapids on the Yukon river to supply prospective miners before they continued their boat journey down the Yukon to Dawson City. After we finished at the museum, we drove over to Miles Canyon and walked to the now vacant site of Canyon City. This was the settlement were the miners had to transfer their goods from their boats onto the wooden tram up to Whitehorse. Only foundations and rusted cans remain. Then, after stocking up on supplies, we started up the Klondike Highway toward Dawson City. We got about 1 miles before being stopped. The road was closed due to a forest fire. We had to turn around and go back to Whitehorse for the night. And those miners thought they had it rough! We got another campsite and toured the local transportation museum, which was actually very interesting. There was a photo of a man plowing a field with sled dogs and an early 4-wheel drive truck (about 1915) on display with mud (1915 mud?) still on it!. We then went to a recommended restaurant for a very good, relaxing meal.
This is the first time that we've been able to get on-line to send e-mail. I don't think that we're going to be able to send and receive mail as often as we would have liked. Instead, Ed and I are going to jointly compose an account of our travels and mail out installments as often as possible. These are likely to be quite long, so if you're not interested in reading all of this, just reply to this message with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line. So, if you're ready, here goes:
(Ed) The Alaska Trip officially started at 9:10AM on 21 June as we departed Albertsons supermarket in Lewisville. The drive thru the Texas panhandle was unbelievably boring, as usual. We made it to New Mexico that afternoon and camped at Sugarite Canyon State Park near Raton. On the way to the park, we witnessed a pickup driving the other way up a mountain road with a dog on top of the cab. Yes. The dog was standing with all four feet on the roof of the truck. It was an unusual sight. The most interesting thing about the campground was the bear alert, as a bear was rooting around some of the campsites. The rangers tried to shoo him away, but it took a rubber bullet to finally get him to leave the area.
We continued northwest and stopped in Colorado Springs where we saw a city park called Garden of the Gods, with cool red sandstone formations and many tourists. We camped in Ft Collins that night.
Still making tracks north, our next stop was the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming. There were ominous storm clouds along these snow-capped mountains (I think you will hear the term "snow-capped" a lot), but it cleared up as we went into the mountains.
(Kenneth) We camped in a secluded camground that night and took a long day hike the next day past at least a dozen mountain lakes. The lakes were beautiful as were the mountain views, but a fire ten years ago had left a great deal of fallen timber that detracted from the hike somewhat. That night we ran into a couple who were also making their way to Alaska. They are both teachers and plan to find teaching jobs there if possible. We sat by the fire and talked until bedtime. We've met at least 5 or 6 people already who are headed to Alaska. We're starting to wonder if there will be any room for us.
On Thursday (6-25) we headed north again. We drove through Billings and Great Falls to a campground in northern Montana. Here we met a caravan of 3 RV's headed to Alaska. The next morning we woke up to a light rainfall and drove north again to Calgary and then on to Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. It rained on and off the whole way to Banff.
Knowing that we would probably be doing a great deal of hiking and camping in the rain, we decided to brave the weather and reserved a back country campsite for the next night. Saturday morning we got up and hiked to Taylor Lake, which is a beautiful lake in a hanging valley high in the mountains. It didn't rain after all, and we were able to enjoy a short day hike after we arrived at our campsite. Backcountry camping in Banff is pretty luxurious. We had a small picnic table, a privy, cables to haul food into a tree to protect it from bears and, unfortunately, the close company of four other campers. It didn't feel very back-woods, but the lake was fabulous. On Sunday (6-27), we awoke to the rain that had been forecast for the previous day. We scratched our planned day-hike and made the soggy hike back down to the car. It rained the whole day, so we used the time to acquire provisions and vittles in Banff.
On Monday, the rain continued. We drove back into Banff to pick up the shopping bag that I had left in the store the day before. Ed spotted a Radio Shack and bought a mini butane blow-torch to start fires with. Then we drove the Icefields Parkway north to Jasper. The drive is a long one, but it stays light here until about 10:30 (It's dusk at 10:45 as I write this), so we still arrived at our campground well before dark. Our campfire attempts that night were a disaster. Ed's blow torch ran out of butane almost immediately (it had most likely been on the store shelf for several years) and all of our attempts to build a fire with wet wood met in failure.
On Tuesday (6-30) we did a short day-hike up spectacular Maligne Canyon in the morning. In the afternoon, the weather finally gave us a break and we drove up to Maligne Lake for some hot chocolate. We also saw Medicine Lake which has no visible outlet. It was thought that there was an underground stream leading to Mailgn Canyon, so years ago a park ranger dumped two truckloads of Saturday Evening Posts into the lake in hopes of tracking the water flow. That attempt led only to a soggy mess, but years later university students proved the existence of an underground stream using MooseHead beer. OK, they actually used flourescent dye. We then drove back down some of the Icefields Parkway that we had driven in the rain to actually see the mountains. Along the way we got some great photos and video of mountain goat and black bear. That night we splurged and went in to Jasper for a great meal.
(Ed) Wednesday we left Jasper westbound on the Yellowhead Highway through a beautiful valley, stopping to view Mt. Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. The scenery changed to rolling hills as we came into the city of Prince George, population about 85,000, the largest city by far that we'll see for quite a while. We made dinner at scenic Bijoux Falls, where we learned never, ever, put leftover canned salmon in the cooler, even if it's in two ziplock bags, because the cooler will probably smell like canned salmon for the next 1000 miles. That night we camped at Moberly Lake where the weather was actually nice for a change and we skipped stones until we were tired, not because it got dark, it never gets dark now that we're this far north.
Thursday was a red letter day- day one on the Alcan. We took the obligatory pics of the Mile Zero cairn in Dawson Creek, the official start of the Alcan, now called the "Alaska Highway," but still affectionately known as the Alcan to savvy travelers like ourselves, or those using outdated maps. The best thing about Dawson Creek was actually the laundromat that also had SHOWERS, which are getting scarcer with every mile we head north. We also made a point to shop in Dawson City as we thought it would be the biggest town for a while. Of course the next town, Ft. St. John, was bigger and had a Safeway as big as any supermarket in Dallas. The coolest thing about the town was our tour of the Canadian Forest Products sawmill. We got a personal tour from the plant safety officer who showed us the sawmill, planer, and sorting/packaging plant. We were surprised at the level of automation. For instance, a computer scans each log and determines what size boards can be cut to make optimum use of the log, and automatically controls the cutting using both vertical (band) and horizontal (circular) saws. The plant produces enough lumber that it ships about 130 truckloads a day during cutting season.
Friday (7-3) we drove into Ft. Nelson where we toured the local museum which had good memorabilia on the Alcan construction, lots of "mystery machinery" (a must at any local museum), and a half-hour film on the construction of the Alcan that was incredibly boring. The scenery improved as we headed northwest, following the northernmost part of the Rocky Mountains. We are now in the northern part of British Columbia and treeline is only at about 5000 feet, which means the animals are all down near road level and boy did we see some today. We saw Stone sheep, mule deer, and even a moose with calf. We did a couple of short hikes to see some hoodoos (spire-like rock formations) and animals which were supposed to be at some mineral licks by the Toad River, but instead they seemed to like whatever was on the road surface. Lake Muncho was a nice blue-green color and surrounded by tree-covered mountains which dropped right into the lake. We are now camped near the Liard River, which flows into the McKenzie River, which we will NOT follow all the way since it flows into the Arctic Ocean.
(Kenneth) Saturday (7-4) was Independence day but, suprisingly, no one up here seemed to care! They had their fireworks on the first (Canada Day). We woke up in broad daylight as usual. The sun rises at about 4:30 AM, but it never really gets dark, just twilight. We drove a very short distance on up the Alaska highway to Liard Hot Springs. These are thermal pools first discovered by American soldiers building the Alcan. They've been improved and are now a Provincial Park, but still free. The vegetation growing around them is not found anywhere else this far north since they moderate the climate around them. The park has high tech toilets which use no water so that they keep the pools clean. They have a huge sign outside them explaining how they work. I believe they really work by being so foul smelling that no one can use them. We drove on until we reached the town of Watson Lake (pop. 1700). There we stopped at the signpost forest. This is two blocks of signs put up by any travellers who are so inclined, with their home town on them. Many of the signs are obviously highway signs stollen in the dead of night and carried all the way up here to post. The signpost forest was started by an American GI during construction of the highway and has been growing ever since. There are signs from all over the world, some quite creative. We drove on through some very beautiful mountain scenery and an occasional shower until we reached the outskirts of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Whitehorse has about 22000 people and is by far the largest city in the Yukon. We could tell we'd reached a major destination since all the campgrounds were full. We finally wound up in an RV park (yuk!) with a miniature picnic table, but the price was right and they had hot showers. I hope this campground situation isn't an omen of things to come.
Sunday (7-5) we decided to check out some of the sights around Whitehorse. We went to the McBride Museum where we learned quite a bit about Whitehorse history. The town came into existance during the Klondike gold rush of 1898 (They are celebrating this year as you might imagine). In 1897, 100000 people left Seattle for Skagway to get to the gold fields. First, they had to carry 2000 lbs. of supplies each to the top of the 3000 ft Chilcoot pass (which we hope to hike later in the trip). The Canadian Mounties wouldn't let anyone into Canada (the border is at the top of the pass) without a ton apiece. Then they had to carry the goods another 20 miles or so to Bennett Lake which was frozen over. They spent the time waiting for the lake to thaw building boats to carry them across the lake and down the Yukon river. When the lake thawed in late May, 7000 boats left the shore of Bennett lake in a single day! They made their way down the Yukon until they reached Miles Canyon which is a very narrow stretch of river (and quite pretty) which was extremely dangerous for boats. There, their goods had to be transferred to a wooden tramway which ran along the shoreline several miles until after the whitehorse rapids. This tram was not free, as you might imagine, and the man who built and operated it became very wealthy. There, they could put their goods back on boats that they made or bought and float them the rest of the way down the Yukon to Dawson City and the gold fields. Once at Dawson City, of course, they found out that all the good claims had long since been taken and that they didn't have the money to get home. At any rate, Whitehorse was founded at the far end of the whitehorse rapids on the Yukon river to supply prospective miners before they continued their boat journey down the Yukon to Dawson City. After we finished at the museum, we drove over to Miles Canyon and walked to the now vacant site of Canyon City. This was the settlement were the miners had to transfer their goods from their boats onto the wooden tram up to Whitehorse. Only foundations and rusted cans remain. Then, after stocking up on supplies, we started up the Klondike Highway toward Dawson City. We got about 1 miles before being stopped. The road was closed due to a forest fire. We had to turn around and go back to Whitehorse for the night. And those miners thought they had it rough! We got another campsite and toured the local transportation museum, which was actually very interesting. There was a photo of a man plowing a field with sled dogs and an early 4-wheel drive truck (about 1915) on display with mud (1915 mud?) still on it!. We then went to a recommended restaurant for a very good, relaxing meal.
