Yukon to Alaska - 2014

Well, Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska, albeit not the capital and its where we now find ourselves as per the map below, and for future maps we will restrict them to just Alaska for the time being.

Our route into the Yukon

BUT we need to share our time in Dawson City, Yukon first, and it must have been quite a wild, interesting town in the early years with thousands of prospectors flocking there using the Yukon River to get there.  The Yukon River is very long by the way at 3,187 kms.

For us to get to this really interesting historical town was an experience in itself.  We drove out of Whitehorse up the Alcan, crossed through the USA border, again, and before reaching a place called Tok, left the Alcan for the Taylor Highway heading back east towards Dawson City until we reached another little place called Chicken, more on it later.

After Chicken, the ‘highway’ changes from paved to dirt then to narrow dirt, winding its way around the sides of mountains without guard rails, with very steep drops below us and soft edges to avoid, especially when an oncoming truck is barrelling towards you.  In some places it’s called ‘the goat track’ for good reason.  On we went, eyes glued on everything in front and to the sides of us.

on the 'goat track'

The ‘highway’ then changed into what could be best described as a bum vibration massager due to roadworks and cricket ball sized sharp edged rocks being laid as a base layer.  Unfortunately for us, only the base layer had been laid, all 20 kms of it, so at between 10-15 kph we crawled and vibrated our way forward following whatever tracks we could find left by others, to avoid getting punctures like one other traveller we passed.

Once through Canadian Customs, and after they had confiscated out firewood, the Taylor Highway became the Top Of The World Highway, and what a drive this was in multiple ways.  It is mainly a smooth dirt ‘highway’ which takes you across the tops of the mountains for 127 kms to Dawson City, and it is just spectacular.  

Not long into this drive, something else ‘exciting’ was looming up behind us and quickly, a very large thunderstorm with lots of visible rain in it.  Being stuck on a dirt road on top of mountains in a thunderstorm was not our idea of fun!

and the storm looming from behind

It was interesting to discover how well Homer handled dirt roads with little to no other traffic to worry about when there is a thunderstorm bearing down up your ars…, you know what I mean and it made the drive just that little bit more focussed.  

About 10 kms out of Dawson City we reached a steep paved section bringing us down off the mountains, around a final bend to be greeted by the sight of the mighty Yukon River, Dawson City on the opposite bank and a seemingly too small a ferry to hopefully fight the swift current to get us across.  Then… ‘crack’, the sound of thunder, the sky went really dark and down came the torrent.

ferry to cross Yukon River at Dawson City

Dawson City is filled with old historic buildings and timber boardwalks, which is great because the majority of the roads around town are still dirt.  As you walk around, it's not too hard to get some sense of what it must have been like during the gold rush era.  You can see where frost heaves have made the old original buildings sink and buckle compared to the newer ones, which are raised off the ground.

dancers at Diamond Tooth Gerties

We had a great meal at Klondike Kates and enjoyed ourselves at Diamond Tooth Gerties watching the showgirls and enjoyed the company of other interesting travellers.  

It was also great watching an existing rear wheeler (paddle steamer) fighting its way back up the Yukon River from the banks where we were camping, and visiting a grave yard for other old rear wheelers resting in the bush next to the river they had travelled a long time ago.

graveyard for 'rear wheelers' 

Whilst enjoying the food in Klondike Kates, two dirty, disheveled and older looking motorcyclists pulled up out front.  They came in and by luck, seated themselves next to us. It didn’t take too long for some great conversation to start.   

These guys were from Chicago and had ridden to and into the Yukon… so far.  There had been three of them at the start, but one had come to grief, was okay but had written off his bike.  The two next to us had just ridden up and back along the Dempster Highway (all dirt) after trying to reach Inuvik on the north Canadian coast, inside the Arctic Circle.

They had gone some 500 kms up the Dempster before having to turn back due to ice still blocking a river and stopping its ferry from running.  The next day they were heading off across The Top Of The World & Taylor Highways, onto Fairbanks and then up 666 kms of dirt along the famous Dalton Highway to Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay.  

I say this highway is ‘famous’ only because it features on one of those TV trucker shows.  They were also trying to become members of the ‘Iron Butt Association’ by riding 1,000 miles (1,600 kms) in under 24 hours.  It was a very funny night for all listening to their trip tales and their sincere curiosity about Australia.

Next day, we went on our own shorter trip up the Dempster Highway for about 150 kms to stay in Tombstone Territorial Park.  It’s here the landscape and scenery starts to change into tundra, which simply means the vegetation is stunted due to the short growing season and low temperatures.  

The mountains and scenery are quite different to what we have been seeing and was why we came.  Mind you, the yet to be found shot grizzly bear somewhere near the campground, was something we had to seriously be wary of explained the Ranger.

the tundra of Tombstone Nat Park

We had one night in Tombstone with snow threatening and it was time to head back through Dawson, back across the Yukon River and The Top Of The World and Taylor Highways in order to now invest our time exploring Alaska.  Our drive back across The Top Of The World this time was just stunning due to there being no thunderstorm, and having the opportunity to absorb the drive itself.  

Top Of The World Highway

The Yukon is quite a place to visit, large with very few people and spectacular scenery everywhere.  There is a poem by Robert Service we found in local tourist material which aptly describes how the Yukon made us feel, and here are the first and lasts verses from it:

The Spell Of The Yukon

I wanted the gold,and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy-I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold and I got it-
Came out with a fortune last fall,-
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn’t all.

There’s gold and its haunting and haunting;
It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder;
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that fills me with wonder;
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

So after crossing back through USA Customs into Alaska this time, I know, it’s confusing and not getting any punctures on sharp stones, we drove into Chicken, an interesting town with lots of character and you would guess it, themed around chickens.  

Originally it was meant to have been called ‘Ptarmigan’ after a local bird prolific in the area, but too many people had difficulty spelling Ptarmigan so they changed the name of the town to Chicken. Once we re-joined the Alcan and before reaching Fairbanks, we again camped a few nights either next to rivers or lakes at places called West Fork then Moon and Lost Lakes.

We had to stop however at a town called Delta Junction for two reasons.  One to buy some bison steak and smoked deer sausages and second, to celebrate having driven the Alcan or Alaska Highway, all 2,232 kms of it.  

So we found the official marker post at milepost 1,422 for a photo, and to savour the moment before pushing on to Fairbanks. Fairbanks is a city also originally founded on gold, much later supporting a large military contingent like Townsville, and supporting the Alaskan oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.

reaching the end of the Alcan

Reaching Fairbanks has also meant sleeping is getting a little harder, because the sun is setting around 12:15am and rising again near 3:30am… great AND each day, the amount of sunlight is getting even longer!  There is no real darkness at all and birds break into song at very strange hours of the ‘night’.

Before handing Homer back, we had one more destination to explore, Denali National Park.  We arrived at one of the visitors centres and got our pass to drive into the park - about 50 kms to Teklanika River campground, the furthest the public are allowed to drive IF they have a campsite booking at this campground.  

Once there, you can’t drive your vehicle again until you drive back out, so to get around, you use green shuttle buses which you can get on/off wherever you like.

driving into Denali nat Park

The drive in was amazing, the panoramic vistas of a more tundra like environment with the stormy clouds in the distance was quite something as were the cooler temperatures.  

A few times we were in shorts in Fairbanks but now we were all rugged up again, but the scenery was beautiful.  Denali is huge at around 6 million acres or 24,281 hectares and if luck is with you, you might see its ‘big five’ - grizzly, moose, wolf, caribou and dall sheep.

Homer camping at Teklanika in Denali

First night in camp we joined a briefing by one of the Park Rangers on scat, or animal poo.  She did a great job with so much enthusiasm about scat and handed around fur pelts from each animal and containers with their winter and summer scat in it.  One of the other campers attending was also a scat devotee and there was much excitement between him and the Ranger when he produced a plastic bag from his pocket with wolf scat in it!

Our time in Denali was essentially 2 full days of ‘touring’ in green shuttle buses and was also 2 different days weather wise.  Our first day, we hopped on a bus to take us to Toklat, which meant travelling through Sable Pass and then through something called Polychrome.  

As we neared the pass… it happened!  Out of the bushes right next to the bus emerged our first ever grizzly bear, nonchalantly feeding and giving us an occasional glance.  

our first grizzly!

We were rapt and had been getting close to believing that grizzlies were a fallacy. We also got to see another animal absent to date, Dall Sheep with their big horns.

and down came the snow

Then the weather kicked in for much of the rest of our travel that day and keep in mind it is officially summer here.  First is was some rain, then came the sleet and then finally the snow blizzard blowing horizontally down the road.  We could only see about 15-20m from the bus so had no real idea of what lay beyond the road.

When we arrived into Denali and ‘checked in’ we also booked seats on a bus to Wonder Lake for day 2 of our ‘touring’ in Denali.  The weather forecast had suggested this would be the better day for this trip, so on that morning whilst still in bed, we pulled up the blind with high hopes and yes, blue sky.  

Promptly at 8am the bus arrived and we were off back down the same road as the day before.  What a difference a day can make, as we discovered there were large mountains off in the distance and it wasn’t too long before we saw our 2nd grizzly, this one basking in the sun on the side of the road.  Then came a moose up high on a hill, some caribou lying in a paddock and next a beautiful looking red fox sitting next to the road also sun baking.

crossing Polychrome - great views, nothing in the way

Sable Pass looked like nothing we had seen the day before, and when it came to travelling through Polychrome… wow!  The road, which by now is narrow dirt, is hewn around the side of a mountain with no guard rails and 500-600m sheer drop offs to a beautiful long valley below with a river snaking its way through it.  

Polychrome gets its name because of the abundance of colours in the land through this area.  Beyond the valley lay a long row of snow capped mountains heading off in the direction we were going.

some of the view from Polychrome

We stopped half way along Polychrome to take photos and simply absorb the vista laid out in front of us, simply stunning, before moving further into the park.  Then we saw it, one of the things many people come to see in Denali IF they are lucky… Mount McKinley.  At 6,193m it is big and certainly stands out from all the other mountains around and next to it.  

Mt McKinley is also Nth Americas highest mountain and the bus drivers and Rangers all advised only 30% of people visiting Denali ever get to see McKinley.  Our next major stop was at Eielson Visitor Centre and there we had Mt McKinley laid out in front of us and what a view it was.

first view of Mount McKinley (click on the link at end for more)

After probably too many photos we moved on and just after a few bends again coming down a small gully next to the road where yet another grizzly was feeding on grasses. BUT this one had 2 very young cubs in tow.  The two cubs nervously hid in the scrub for quite awhile before emerging, whilst keeping a very close eye on mum as she confidently moved down right next to our bus, just fantastic!

As this trip takes all day, so we had to leave the bears and again headed off, to Wonder Lake for a brief stop before starting our return journey.  Mt McKinley was quite quickly being covered again by cloud and as we got close to Eielson when yet another grizzly popped out of the bushes onto the road in front of us and started walking in the same direction we were travelling.  Wildlife has right of way here, so the bus very slowly followed as the bear strode out in front in the middle of the road.  

Ok... let's follow the bear

Eventually we had to go past it because it was showing no signs of leaving the road.  When we reached our brief stop at Eielson again, we could still see the bear heading our way as did the Rangers on duty.


Other buses arriving and stopping here, also soon heard a bear was on the road and people rushed from these buses to get a view.  We left them to it and headed back to camp viewing more wildlife along the way but nothing too dramatic.

We had our last campfire in Denali that night and a few wines to celebrate a truly great day and got ready to head out of Denali early in the morning, bound for Anchorage.  

It was a grey, cloudy and dull morning as we drove slowly back the 50 kms towards Denali’s main entrance and after rounding a bend fairly close to exiting Denali we saw a green shuttle buses in front of us, stopped and with hazard lights flashing.  This is usually a sign they have spotted wildlife, but what was it?

We slowed down and crept closer, not wanting to frighten anything away and here trotting down one side of the road straight towards us… a wolf, the final of the ‘big five’ to see and the rarest.  A few years back there were over 130 wolves in Denali and now is down to around 50 and only 5% of visitors to Denali ever get to see a wolf.  

Here was one walking straight towards us but suddenly it walked across the road and headed off into the bush.  We managed to get a few quick photos through the windscreen and as it rapidly disappeared, but what a privilege.

we were oh so lucky to see a wolf

Our finale in Denali was now complete!

last campfire with  Homer

The drive into Anchorage took most of the rest of the day due to the many places to stop and check out scenery before having a night in a State Park about 20 kms from Anchorage.  

This allowed us to start the task of cleaning Homer thoroughly inside and out, including all the outside storage lockers full of dust from the Top Of The World Highway.  

In Anchorage before we reaching the RV park, we stopped at a car wash to clean Homer’s bodywork and then finished the cleaning task inside at the RV park before a short stroll around downtown Anchorage.

Next morning it was time to hand Homer back and we both felt a bit sad that our 6 weeks and 7,654 kms of this form of travelling was over.  We have still more interesting things to come BUT must say we thoroughly enjoyed the freedom this sort of travelling provided, including staying in the various parks throughout BC, the Yukon and Alaska.

As they say though, it was time to move on and our 6 weeks in Homer are now a very fond memory.  Well, it's not time to head back to Australia yet but you will just have to wait to see what happens next.

Yes there are more photos, probably too many but you know the drill by now, just click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos - Onto Alaska 2014

The Yukon - 2014

GOLD is constantly in the history of the Yukon, and whilst we knew about the Klondike gold rush simply didn’t appreciate the influence of gold on the rest of the Yukon.

Last post, we had just reached Skagway and we’re now in Dawson City as the route map shows and covers for ease of clarity, just the Yukon and parts of Alaska.

So Skagway turned out to be quite an enthralling little town and wow... what a 105 km drive from Carcross down the Klondike Highway into it.  Initially the highway twists and turns between steep snow capped mountains following a large lake.  With the weather fine and not a breath of wind meant reflections of those impressive mountains on the lake.  They were in an area closer to the summit described as being ‘lunar landscape like’ accompanied by lakes, snow and ice.

Then there is the steep section winding its way down through White Pass, one of the famous trails the gold seekers followed when heading north  and many died trying. From an elevation of about 1,000 m at the summit, the elevation declines to sea level over 30 kms including having to pass through USA Customs along the way.

Skagway was established due to the gold rush, which started with a bang in 1898 with over 5,000 prospectors arriving in one of the early months.  The town has an old historic feel to it, with the original timber boardwalks complimenting the historic fronted shops along the main street. If you want to buy jewellery, this street has a lot of shops selling it which leads me to another unusual sight seen in this town.

Cruise liners ‘parked’ at the end of the main street!  One of the first sights greeting us walking down the main street was a large ship looking straight back at us.  There were 3 ships on their Inside Passage trips visiting Skagway whist on the first day we were here, and another arrived the second day.  This means the usual population of 900 swelling considerably, albeit briefly, almost as if the gold rush was still on… to shops instead.

Two trails were used by the prospectors trying to head over the mountains in search of their fortunes,  the White Pass and the Chilkoot trails, more on Chilkoot later.  Due to the sheer volume of people heading to the gold fields and the money to be made keeping them supplied, a railway was rapidly conceived to somehow follow the White pass route and building it commenced also in 1898.  

In July of 1899, the White Pass & Yukon Railway reached Bennet Lake, 68 kms away at 850m of elevation, an amazing feat of engineering, recognised worldwide due to the terrain and environment that had to be conquered.

As luck would have it, the first steam train trip of the season was running during our stay and the 1947 built No. 73 engine did a great job for most of the journey.  When I say most of the way, we did have to back up quite a distance round the side of a mountain and back through a tunnel to get a run up at one of the steeper sections.

Another small town called Dyea, only 15 ks from Skagway, grew briefly with the gold rush because this was where the Chilkoot Trail started, but Dyea didn’t last long because of the railway and the length of the gold rush itself.  We visited the historic ruins of Dyea but there is very little to see. 

Not far from the ruins is a place called Dyea Flats where we saw our first bald eagle for the trip, magnificent to watch through the binos but too far away for the cameras.  We camped in the Dyea park campground overnight, watched seals feeding or playing in the river, before heading back up White Pass.  By the way, the main gold rush was all but over after a mere 12-18 months.

In a few hours we reached Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon and a population of around 27,000 leaving only 9,000 people living throughout the rest of the Yukon!  

Rob on way back to Homer at Whitehorse Walmart

It was time to try a new location for camping friends had told us about – Walmart!  Walmarts in the USA and Canada are like a combined Woolworths/Big W and you can free ‘camp’ in their car parks within designated areas, so that’s what we did.  After re-stocking with food and other essentials we enjoyed a peaceful yet very different camping experience amongst a small community of other RVs.

Whitehorse for us was a 24 hr destination and we managed to see what we wanted during the afternoon we arrived and the following morning before continuing along the Alcan towards Kluane National Park.  This park contains one of the largest glacial icefields outside of the polar regions and a massive lake of the same name.  We weren’t quite ready for the accompanying Kluane Mountain Range… spectacular… albeit shrouded by a lot of smoke haze.

We love camping in amongst nature so as we made our way along and around the lake, over 4 nights we stayed in different park campgrounds.  At Pine Lake we watched various birds including one trying to do headstands in the water. 

Kluane Lake was where Homer was surrounded by scenery, the lake out of the rear bed window and mountains either side.  This campground was also closed to tenting because of the presence of grizzlies. In Skagway we had bought bear spray (capsicum spray) which provided some peace of mind whilst walking the interpretive trail to where the grizzlies are known to feed.

 
Alas, we only saw a ground squirrel known locally as gophers.  Squirrels weren’t the only things we photographed as can be seen below and via the link at the end of this post.

Ground squirrel or 'gopher'

Lake Creek was a more intimate location and where we saw our first big male moose striding briefly down the opposite side of the creek before spotting us and heading into the scrub, no photos of it though but the location was serene.

very nice place to camp

Frost heave!!  Heard about this before because we sure hadn’t.  For about 250 kms of the drive up to the turn off to Dawson City involved dealing with ‘frost heaves’ causing the road to undulate a LOT.  Movement in the permafrost below the road surface either pushing the ground up, or causing it to sink when it thaws is the cause and was at times like being on a ship in rough seas.  The country we travelled through however is called the ‘Land Of A thousand Ponds’ because of the number of lakes it has.

We wanted to visit Dawson City, the place most gold prospectors in the early days headed to, travelling on the Yukon River. In fact 88% of gold in the Yukon came from this area.  For us it meant leaving the Alcan and travelling along the Taylor Highway, crossing the border back into the Yukon and then driving the ‘Top Of The World Highway’ into Dawson City. Will share more on Dawson City in the next post as this is waaay too long already.

Some of you have asked for a few pictures from the inside of Homer so a few are attached along with an indicative floor plan.

For more photos just click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos - Its About The Gold Yukon 2014