East of Eden

Well, west of Edmonton, really, but we made it this far. We’ve stopped early on Sunday at an RV park in suburban Edmonton, reasonably close to the West Edmonton Mall which we may check out tomorrow since it seems to be open regardless of the holiday. It’s Heritage Weekend around here though I’m not sure if that’s the official name for the August Civic Holiday in Alberta.

We crossed into northern Alberta as planned yesterday, kind of through the back door, and the terrain is eerily reminiscent of the highway from Windsor to London, Ontario, i.e. rather boring. The differences would be in the number of oilcompanies and the prevalence of “communities” of manufactured homes and prefab boarding houses. If you come out here alone, it seems, you bunk in the company housing; if you bring your family, you buy a house at the house store (I saw one model for under $60,000, furnished!) and have it delivered to a lot you’ve bought or – I imagine – leased (possibly from the same company you work for?) 

Whatever you’ve heard about the cost of living out here is probably true. Breakfast specials that would run in the neighbourhood of three or four dollars in Ontario go for nine or ten and that’s only in a truck stop sort of place. I don’t imagine we’ll hit any high spots.

I did check out a yarn store in the suburb where we had a KFC picnic lunch. It was very nice and had a good selection including fibres for spinning and weaving yarns but I may be shopped out in that area. Nothing cried out to be mine and I have a lot of nice yarns at home. Had Ed take some pix of an interesting yarn winder, possibly plier, bilt on a treadle sewing machine base. Kelly might want to cobble one, I’m thinkin”.

Barney and I are a mite road weary to be honest. He can’t sit still so I can’t knit or do anything else I might normally do on a not so interesting  road. The remainder of this afternoon will probably be spent in doing laundry but that’s OK as long as I’m static for awhile. Ed got the water pump working (again) which would be more important if I were actually using any. I never got into cooking meals in the camper. It’s soo tiny you have to – as they say – go outside to change your mind and the fridge hasn’t been on steadily enough to risk keeping stuff. It works OK but won’t stay lit (propane) when we’re driving so is really onlyon ovenight when we freeze ice packs to chill our cola and water in the cooler bag in the cab the next day. We refill our water bottels and use that for most purposes, taking advantage of showers at the various campgrounds. The most important amenities are showers and wifi (and it’s nice to have a server actually working at our site for a change) though we’ve mostly had power and water as well, only using our generator once or twice in unserviced campgrounds. We’ve learned to avoid those as the mosquitoes and black flies tend to be  unbearable in those sorts of locations.

It hasn’t really been much like camping in the sense I used to do with my parents and later my kids but it’s served us well for the most part. It’s nice to be able to sit outside awhile after the relentless rain that persisted through this morning as well as the northern cold. I could hope it didn’t get any warmer. The sun is very hot but there’s a nice breeze. I hear it could get much less pleasant as we get nearer home. I hope that has run its course before we do.

Our neighbours here are three dogs: an English Bulldog, a Bloodhound and a Basset, lying in the shade as is Barney who isn’t even barking at them.the Bulldog looks a tad embarassed to be hanging out with the other two yet too tired to worry about it. They probably have come to some sort of arrangement. Barney was excited (or incensed, it’s hard to tell) to see red squirrels when we came in. Perhaps he misses his traditional adversaries at home and these guys are smaller, might be attainable.

Kelly reports she has Boris at the farm again. He’s relieving his stress by chasing her Hera and Hera is thrilled. It’s her favourite game! Kitty is fortunately still residing chez Kelly so we can hope there will be no further misadventures. Ed remembered he had pine tar ointement which Kel is now using on Rexie’s ears which may finally have a chance to heal.

I’m missing everyone more now and will not be sorry to get home when we do. I have so far been unable to contact my Edmonton friend and it is likely he is away for the summer in any case. We may well be on our way again tomorrow depending on mood, weather . . .  whatever.

We clearly will not be attending the wedding in North Bay next Saturday. Even if we wanted to barrel straight back that way, we would be missing a visit with Janet and her family in Thunder Bay. It means we won’t see Ed’s brother and sister-in-law but they may be visiting us on their way to see their son in Colorado Springs in the early fall.Ed didn’t actally pack clothes for the wedding and would have had to go shopping. He did buy jeans and a sweatshirt the other day and even a pair of dress pants (on sale) but doesn’t even have shoes with him I’d be seen in public with.

I’m kind of putting off working so should be about that laundry. Hey! You spend your lazy Sundays your way and I’ll . . .  knit while the washers are going. 

 

This trip has been hard on Ed

 

Almost every North American has heard of the large, hairy “Ape Man”, called Sasquatch, who appears mysteriously from time to time along the Alaska Highway. To date the only hard evidence we have of “Big Foot”‘s existence consists in casts of large footprints, found at Pink Mountain, Mile #147 of the Alaska Highway, and some poorly focussed photographs taken by staff of Mag and Mel’s in Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Mile # 293 of the Alaska Highway. The bulk of evidence to support belief in the Sasquatch’s existence comes from personal accounts given by tourists and area locals who claim they have seen him. In Pink Mountain, early trappers and settlers in the region began to hear stories told by natives of a large, hairy, manlike creature called the Sasquatch and soon newspapers carried accounts of sightings of such a creature by both natives and non-natives.

On July 3, 1884 a trapper based out of Fort Nelson reported the capture of a Sasquatch in one of his wolf traps. The creature was four feet and seven inches tall, weighed 127 pounds and was covered with glossy hair an inch long. The creature “possessed extraordinary strength”. Its keeper planned to take it to Vancouver to exhibit it but neither of them ever arrived in the lower mainland and there is no record of the Sasquatch’s subsequent fate.

In the late sixties and early seventies, there was renewed regional interest in the search for the Sasquatch. Trappers and Outfitters were searching all over the area between Pink Mountain and Fort Nelson. After years of searching no one had seen or found anything relating to the Sasquatch until the winter of 1975 when everything changed.

The famous researcher, Richard Crossing, a big game hunter from Europe, was at one of the oil rig sites near Fort Nelson. He reportedly caught a Sasquatch in one of his research traps. Richard made plans to have the creature transported back to his facility in Europe but on route, somewhere near Mile # 147, the Sasquatch used its extraordinary strength to escape. From that day forward, the Inn on the Alaska Highway at Mile #147 has been called Sasquatch Crossing after Richard Crossing, the man who had captured it for the second time in history. The Sasquatch now roams the highway between pink Mountain, Sasquatch Crossing and the oil rigs in Fort Nelson.

He is seen frequently, especially when the kitchen at Mag and Mel’s is baking cinnamon buns. This is the Sasquatch’s favourite food and he delights in feasting on the buns dropped by frightened tourists. Richard Crossing has since returned to North America and is relentlessly searching for his escaped Sasquatch, combing the area between Mile #147 and Fort Nelson, funding his expeditions by working as a cook at Mag and Mel’s.

The above account is thanks to the hostess at Mag and Mel’s where we had dinner and caught the above photograph before camping for the night at Charlie Lake, just outside Fort Nelson. Personally, I think someone took up chainsaw carving and failed miserably. His wife said, “That doesn’t look like a bear. It looks like Big Foot and you’re not keeping it in the house!”

The section of highway we drove today was long and boring for the most part but we did see elk at last as well as a not-at-all shy herd of Stone Sheep.

 

As usual the good pix are in Ed’s camera.

It is dark as I write for the first time in quite a few days so I should probably take advantage and go to “bed”. Breakfast in the morning will be somewhere in Fort Nelson after which it’s off to Edmonton.

No, the bears didn’t get me.

We camped Tuesday night outside Carmacks and found a really good spot there for breakfast before heading down to Whitehorse.

Wednesday we saw a Transportation Museum with artifacts and stories from the history of the Yukon and the Canadian portion of the highway. We also visited an Interpretive Centre which focussed on the geological background and fossil remains of a surprizing number of prehistoric species.

While the former was interesting, I was fascinated by the latter where I learned some surprising (to me) things about North American geology. I had been aware of the land bridge between North America and Asia which once connected the two continents and made possible migrations of species including man. I had not realized that there was actually a vast expanse of continental shelf exposed, linking the two enormous land masses for many miles.

A variety of horse developed in the North and seems to have travelled to Asia and Europe. The species became extinct here but was reintroduced long after by Spanish invaders in the south. The original Beaver was an animal the size of a modern bear (or an Austin Mini). Picture the dams that guy could throw up!

As an aside here, I have come to an understanding, I think, of some features of the style of Native American art. The first epiphany came with the sight of patches of snow on the mountains when I recognized the characteristic curves and swirls of much stylized “Indian” designs. Then I saw ravens up close and realized that the huge beaks on the native masks and totem representations of the bird are not at all exaggerated. They could open cans with those things! The skeleton and reconstruction of the pre-historic beaver brought the realization that the legends around our National totem are based on a racial memory of a much more imposing creature. Seeing that fellow crunch a log would have engendered respect for sure.

We spent some time in downtown Whitehorse which is quite lively and interesting but unfortunately, along with the rest of the territory, pretty much handicapped inaccessible. They’re beginning to make alterations but the old buildings are challenging while being historic enough to warrant preservation. A resident told me that The Yukon is ten to fifteen years behind our urban society in these matters.

We had our final seafood dinner of a fettuccine at a popular local spot. It was very good and is one of my favourites anyway.

We’re in Teslin tonight (Wednesday), between Whitehorse and Watson Lake, familiar territory until we get past the latter when we will enter B.C. on the Alaska Highway this time, crossing the north eastern corner of that province and entering Alberta (where the highway actually began in Dawson Creek).

 It rained a wee bit off and on but wasn’t too bad though cool (which is fine). The sun is very hot when it comes out but the temperature doesn’t get above 70. I do hope the heat dome the rest of the continent seems to be suffering resolves itself before we meet it. We actually bought an extra blanket today.

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The above was written Wednesday night, the twenty-seventh (or early this morning, Eastern Daylight Time). It’s Thursday morning here now and I’ve been trying without success to navigate to Word Press. I can’t even open e mail on the incredibly slow service at this campground where we are having or breakfast in the restaurant. I have a “strong” signal; it just doesn’t seem capable of much over glacial speed and everything times out

We have a road and a direction but little in the way of expectations before Edmonton so the trip remains an adventure even as we turn homeward. I’ll tell you about it if I ever again have a connection.

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And now, Thursday night, we are at Toad River in the Northern Rocky Mountains in British Columbia again. There is internet service which, of course, I cannot connect with from the site though I have hopes for doing so and posting this tomorrow morning over breakfast in the restaurant accompanying the campground. This morning I had no such luck and – when Ed went to pay the bill for our meal, they couldn’t connect over the net either and used the telephone connection instead so it was the fault of neither me nor my laptop.

Today was long and the early part of the drive a tad monotonous but after lunch (in Watson Lake), the mountains rose around us again in all their magnificence. As if that weren’t enough, there were Wood Buffalo along our route, so many that you had to drive with great caution. (Sadly I saw one who had been hit, likely by a semi since there was no wrecked car next to the carcase. There are warnings all over the place. How can anyone callously drive without concern for the animals‘ prior rights?)

The mountain sheep again failed to materialize as practically guaranteed but I did see a young cow moose who slipped shyly into the woods as we passed, my first moose this trip.

There are few services along this part of the highway, along any of it really. The drive through Muncho Lake Provincial Park was unbelievably beautiful but many of the lodges and gas stations, restaurants, etc. are closed and some of those remaining may not be here much longer. I don’t know about the volume of traffic though I expect fuel prices have taken their bite but the speed today means longer intervals between stops, rendering many of the locations redundant. The survivors are clearly at the logical points as we frequently encounter the same travellers at several stops over the course of a day or even days.

It is late and we are tired so I must stop this again and hope to get it up on the site in the morning before we head off toward Fort Nelson and Dawson Creek, probably stopping somewhere between those points tomorrow evening.

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And now morning has threatened to get away from me but I am on line and might remain connected. W are spoiled with outr instant connectivity. You can’t take it or anything else for granted in the north.

I feel like I dressed in a box with no mirror and no shower; oh, wait, I did! Then I got out of the camper to be awed first by the lake and the mountain, then by the woman nearby, camping with a party of at least a half dozen motorcyclists, who was making breakfast at their site and had brought bananas!  I used to be like that! Now I rely on restaurants wherever we are. Oh well, it’s a vacation, right?

Ed says to tell you that it was nine degrees Celsius when we left the campsite yesterday morning but had reached eight by noon. (That’s forty-eight and forty-six Fahrenheit, approximately, for the challenged.)

Ramblin’ on . . .and on . . .and on . . . .

Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota,South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, Alaska . . . nine states and – with Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba between us and home –  six provinces and territories! Not bad for an old broad who had previously visited only Ontario, Quebec and Michigan. Nice way to do it, too, given my own limitations. I am exceedingly lucky to have someone willing to make it possible. Having expected to at least be able to share the driving, it’s been difficult to watch Ed bear the whole load plus having to pack and unpack, fetch and carry while I sit feeling like left luggage. He’s a good man and I only wish he could realize how much I appreciate that. I am not the easiest person to live with (nor, to be honest, is he) but we seem oddly suited much of the time and better so perhaps than either of us would be with another. He’s touring Dawson as I write. The rain eventually let up, leaving us to discover how few plaves serve a late breakfast on a weekday here. We found a hotel dining room, the one in fact initially recommended by our hostess whose own eating establishment serves breakfast only on weekends, and ate well but then the rain began again. I was frankly weary of navigating a very handicapped inaccessible – not to say unfriendly – municipality and retreated to the truck cab while Ed reloaded the scooter. He felt guilty but I insisted he shouldn’t miss the town and he went off in search of souvenirs for the children. It has of course since stopped raining, it’s getting quite warm and I (as at any inconvenient moment) need to use the bathroom. With better than usual timing my guy has just shown up and wr are off like herd of turtles. I shall post this at the next opportunity.                                        ******************************** . . . And this would be that opportunity, sitting at a picnic table at our campground near Carmacks, Yukon. Ed had expected to spend the day in Dawson and camp just outside but found the town had less appeal than he’d thought. We left shortly after 1:00 o the Klondike Highway toward Whitehorse but got only about halfway. If we hadn’t stopped here (lateish) we’d have had to press on to Whitehorse and it would have been ridiculously late. There is as little or less on this road as on the “Top of the Road Highway” between Alaska and the Yukon and the road is better but still winds and dips through mountains.  Pretty in a northern Ontaio with mountains sort of way but our senses are dulled. I dozed for awhile and woke stunned to find we had barely escaped Dawson relatively speaking. So not the best day of our travels but – on the bright side – there is one; the rain has stopped at least for the evening. I expect it will actually darken more and perhaps earlier as we are further south than we have been in some while. Since it is still somewhat cloudy, it’s hard to tell. For fun, here are some pix, first Boundary, Alaska, about 3 miles short of the border with The Yukon:

The sign claims “the best coffee in Boundary” and I can’t dispute that. This is absolutely all there is in Boundary!

Here’s a shot from Chicken, Alaska for my daughter:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the road again – and what a road!

So I’m sitting in the truck in Chicken, Alaska while Ed and a surprizing number of other tourists explore its limited attractions. The presence of any other visitors is surprizing given the road we drove to get here and the reportedly worse one from here to the Yukon border.

Everything is dusty. I didn’t think the camper could get any more gritty. I was wrong.

The town – and I use the term very loosely – exists because of gold and the original mine site is its tourist attraction. The original settlers wanted to call it “Ptarmigan” but no one could spell it and “Eagle” was already taken by the folks down the way.

The one store must be interesting because Barney and I have been sitting here quite awhile. I’ll let you know.

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The road into Chicken did not prepare us for the road out; nothing could have. We’ve gotten pretty good at mountains and the scenery was magnificent but I don’t think Ed saw much of it, having to watch what passed for a road as well as oncoming and overtaking traffic. There were actually people (one assumes locals) who passed on the narrow track which had no guardrails . . . or pavement. It’s hard to say whether it was a road with potholes or a pothole interrupted by traces of road. It was brutal and long and required less than moderate speeds, winding over and around mountains for 75 miles or so to Boundary which was much smaller than Chicken. We got coffee there but really wanted only a bathroom and couldn’t drink the coffee on the remaining carnival ride to the border anyway. 

The reward for endurance was two sightings of caribou close up.  One herd was made up of a large male, a smaller and a number of females, ambling along the road until they were ready to climb the hill. The second was a pair – male and female – who were quicker to vanish over a rise. I love the way they move. They look so self assured and trot with heads held high (which they must of course, due to the weight of their antlers). The male in the second pair was enormous though the older male looked large enough in his herd. The females have smaller racks (of antlers). They almost made up for the road but you couldn’t pay me to do it again. We also saw a very large porcupine beside the road but he turned tail and left precipitously. I saw one porcupine yesterday but he was sadly road kill, almost the first such I’d seen barring a nasty smear of ground squirrels a few days ago. I have to admit those little buggers ask for it, playing some elaborate game of chicken, daring each other to run across the road as close as possible to oncoming vehicles like drag racing teenagers on a Saturday night. I don’t know if clean up is more efficient, drivers more cautious or scavengers plentiful and more observant but I do not look forward to returning to our part of the continent where the drivers sometimes seem to me to aim at the wild (and domestic) life.

On the Canadian side, the road was better but still wove through even more and higher mountains until we arrived at West Dawson where we took a complimentary ferry (paid for by the Yukon Territorial Government) across the fast, wide Yukon River into Dawson City proper (or improper; there is a well preserved bawdy house that was apparently operating into the sixties).

Like Virginia City, Montana,  Dawson is a bit of the Gold Rush era preserved. There are original buildings restored and fitted out with displays appropriate to their purposes. There is a grim looking mortuary, Mme. Somebody’s Establishment (store) and I don’t know what all because we haven’t gone exploring yet. The difference here is that it’s also a functioning town with a pretty good look and feel of the 1800’s. All the buildings are authentic looking and there are themed restaurants and entertainment. We are in a cabin behind Klondike Kate’s Restaurant and dined ensuite on Caesar salad with smoked salmon from that establishment. This is our what-the-hell night for this week (and the trip in a way; the place and menu are not cheap.)

The decision to stay in town was predicated on a  desire to walk and scoot about tomorrow exploring the sights.  I hope the weather cooperates. It’s raining now, of course. It hasn’t rained all day but there were showers and a brief torrential downpour in the mountains. We’ll have breakfast and see what we can before heading down toward Whitehorse to rejoin the Alaska Highway for the beginning of our eastward trek and the experience of the remainder of that famous road.

I stood under a hot shower this morning as long as I could stand (literally; I could have stood much more hot water.) and look forward to doing so again shortly as well as in the morning. I have so far avoided going or even looking into the camper as we neglected to close the window this morning and the roof vents have been open all along. Even without the dust, the drive this afternoon is certain to have flung the contents pell mell though I had everything stowed as neatly as possible this morning.

From inside here, the rain is almost friendly and it does make everything very lush and green. I could even sit and knit on the verandah . . . but I believe I’ll get out of my gritty clothes instead.

 

Can I have a musk ox, please?

Just visited a musk ox farm outside Palmer, Alaska. Almost makes up for not seeing Denali Saturday especially since I am given to understand that a view of the mountain is something rare. It is so large that it manufactures its own weather and even on a clear day may be shrouded in clouds like Brigadoon. The restaurant where we had breakfast had magnificent photos  from a couple of locations we had tried and I’m sorry we were not privileged but perhaps I will find a poster. A postcard simply cannot do it justice.

Musk oxen are a wonderful species, essentially unevolved since their prehistoric origins since they are already ideally adapted to their northern habitat. The combing yields about eight pounds of the fine qiviut undercoat per animal per annum. I is kept until 600 pounds is accumulated, the minimum volume the cashmere mill in Rhode Island will clean and adjust its machinery for. Cashmere, though coarser, is the closest in fineness to the qiviut so only such a mill can handle the precious fibre. It does not shrink in water of any temperature. It does not take dye well, being hollow, and dye will break down the fibre long before its natural lifespan.

I succumbed to the purchase of one more skein along with a pattern for one of the laces the local Inuit women produce as a means of sustainig their commnities.

At 2:00 p.m. Sunday we left the farm, heading toward Dawson but spent one last night at the Sourdough Campground where we stayed near Tok on Thursday and I am entering this at the breakfast table there on Monday morning before continuing north for the last time in our current adventure. After Dawson we will essentially be on our way home, going east and south from then on, but the trip to that city could be challenging as the road is purported to be possibly the worst yet.

I will stop at a post office to send my last greetings and parcel from the states and using up my remaining US stamps and we hope to cross the border later this afternoon. Our last Alaska stop will perhaps be in Chicken where the summer population of 23 shrinks to 6 in the winter.

Signing off for now . . . .

Mountain? What mountain?

Once on the road yesterday morning after a really very good breakfast buffet at the campground (at least as good as a much fancier and pricier one this morning in Fairbanks that was marred by a couple of large families of undomesticated children), we continued on to Fairbanks, stopping at the North Pole (Really, it’s on the map!) for photo ops and souvenirs.

I can now claim having shopped at a yarn shop in Fairbanks, Alaska, “Inua”, where I bought a couple of skeins of Qiviut (kee-vee-ute), yarn spun from musk ox hair and blended with merino and silk. It was also available blended with cashmere and silk as well as another blend I do not recall but the stuff is expensive. A whole ox might well go for les than the pure spun fibre. Kelly and I can play with scarves or hats or mittens or somethng from the lovely laceweight.

Nearby we found a neat new and used bookstore where Ed browsed and actually bought stuff!

We were in overflow at the campground but didn’t really care and were off early this morning for the aforementioned breakfast buffet. Checked out the Large Animal Research Station at the Unversity of Alaska but they are not open on weekends so views of the caribou were from a distance only. I did see reindeer (which wikipedia claims is simply the north american term for caribou) unsurprizingly at the North Pole but the LARS differentiates though – since they were closed – I was unable to ask questions.

Ed browsed a small Farmers’ Market which I might have enjoyed but chose not to have him unload the scooter. He found blueberry scones to have with our coffee later on. There was yarn; there were dolls; mine was the wiser choice.

By late morning we stopped for coffee and facilities at Nenana, a small railway town, where Ed found postcards for the children and bad coffee for us.

We proceeded down the highway toward Anchorage (where we are not going), driving by and through parts of Denali National and State parks, stopping at all the advertised viewing spots for Mount McKinley (aka Denali). Unfortunately the day that had dawned bright and sunny reverted to the fallback cloudy and rainy and hid the majestic mountain as effectively as any David Copperfield illusion. Neither driving nor patience yielded even a glimpse of the snowy heights though there were other mountains aplenty along the way.

We found an interesting community (Trapper Creek) of homesteaders from the forties, fifties and even into the seventies, the most famous of whom were the “Detroit Fifty-Niners”. I doubt many of the original pioneers remain and most of the properties are for sale or derelict but there is one lovely clutch of cottages or cabins I only wish we could have rented. The sign warning of a “sled dog crossing” rated a photograph but we didn’t linger at least in part due to another sign that forbade “shooting within 1/4 mile of the road” notwithstanding the bullet holes in other traffic signs.

We auditoned one other campground nearby but my hackles were still up and we are still homeless as I write in a Subway that at least offers wifi and familiar if not gourmet fare.

We have to move on soon in search of a spot in which to recline our heads though “before dark” isn’t really an issue. Have I mentioned that it doesn’t actually get dark here? We are a bit further south tonight, admittedly, but the sky has been no less than twilight all night for several days now. We missed the actual “midnight sun” at the solstice but the effect is pretty amazing.

Assuming we find a place between here (Talkeetna) and there, Ed has found a musk ox farm in Palmer for tomorrow morning’s exploration (assuming that it at least is open as opposed to the Large Animal Research Station and the Mountain!) From there we head northeast toward Dawson, back in the Yukon, though we will not likely get there before Monday.

Still don’t have any decent photos to share. Ed’s been taking most of them lately and he didn’t bring the cable for his camera so they are unavailable until we get home. Mine tend largely toward unidentified mountains often shot through rain-blurred windows.

Friend of mine in a message I read yesterday commented that her experiences of Alaska had tended toward strings of “Oh, Wow!” and I fear she may have been disgusted with my last post on the subject but today I understood her enthusiasm even without Denali. This has been lovely and I am oddly grateful that the park is preserved, allowing little public access and that well controlled. People should not be allowed to muck it up. I could wish we’d taken the bus to the Denali site which we might almost have achieved before the rain began and which – in any case – would have brought us close enough for at least a partial view. It would have been a six hour ride though and the roadside viewing seemed at the time assured.

 

Engineering Monsterpiece

You know the thing with engineers and ADD, Aspergers’s, borderline (?) autism? If you’re not familiar with the phenomenon, thnk “lacks people skills”. Anyway imagine assembling an entire armed forces division of the species and sending them far north to the land of black flies and perma frost (and more on that later) to rather speedily build a highway to nowhere. That’s what the US army did in 1942 and the result, pretty much what you’d expect under the circumstances, is the Alaskan Highway.

The thing about perma frost is that, once you dig into it, it thaws and never, ever freezes again . . . ever. There are several universities with study groups up here testing theories on how to handle the stuff but the best thing anyone’s come up with so far is “seal coating”.

The highway finally got all paved in the seventies (That’s thirty years, people!) but “pavement” like so many things here in the north isn’t exactly what you’re used to on the 401.  Seal coating involves spreading layers of gravel, spaying each layer with water and packing it down and spraying the final layer with oil or tar. It doesn’t last long so it’s an ongoing process, giving us lots of time to watch and ask questions about the job while waiting at construction sites. In between full out seal coating, the potholes are patched with asphalt but the road just keeps on heaving resulting in a ride like a poorly maintained roller coaster with potholes large enough to swallow a tour bus.

Sadly, Alaska seems to handle the maintainance with somewhat more success (and probably a lot more money) but it is what it is. Frankly I think they should have let the Japanese have the place but apparently they didn’t really want it and abandoned the Aleutians asap.

After Whitehorse the Yukon did get a lot prettier but it’s like the drive to Timmins: it’s pretty but there’s just too damned much of it. I can’t help wondering what the visitors who aren’t brought up on northern Ontario vast think as they drive or are bussed through endless mountains past lakes that could swallow The Netherlands whole.

It all kind of got to us yesterday as we drove on what cold have been a treadmill with revolving scenery toward Fairbanks. We finally did make it to Alaska but stopped for the night at a very nice campground in Tok. I’m writing this in the laundromat on site while I catch up with that chore since the two hundred or so more miles to Fairbanks will be an easy day (allowing for the inevitable hold ups for road work). We had very good cheeseburgers here for supper last night and the promise of a breakfast buffet with sourdough pancakes and reindeer sausages made the laundry a much cheerier prospect since they don’t start serving until 7:00.

That time thing again! It’s another hour earlier here where Alaska, like Newfoundland, has its own time zone. This computer, firmly sticking to Eastern Time, thinks it’s 11:26 a.m. Local time closing on 7:30. I don’t know what time it is anywhere and wasn’t real sure of the date when my cell phone was out of serviced areas for a few days. (Look at the Rogers map of service and laugh! I’m better off roaming in Alaska than in Northern B.C. or The Yukon and won’t be back with Rogers until Edmonton, I suspect.) Bell would seem to have what cell service there is in the Yukon sewed up so the tab was on line here and there. Seems like they’d come up with some sort of reciprocal plan for sharing in the interest of serving everybody’s customers. It works with the states (somehow and at cost, I admit).

I have admitted to a flirtation, perhaps even a love affair with mountains. I’ve had a lot of time to observe and think about them and how they’ve affected humankind. I mean, you sure can’t ignore them. The patterns of snow near the peaks gives me an understanding of the type of shapes and forms that recur in Native American painting. I find myself recalling quotations going back to the Bible and understanding how they were inspired. I’ve always had my own theories about dwellers near water as opposed to landlocked communities and knew I could never exchange the former situation for the latter. I expect mountains are like that.  Once we head east, I know I’m going to miss them, perhaps for the rest of my life.

We’re not allowed to upload photos here on this limited rural internet service so you’re stuck with my pontificating today. How much worse can it be than my lousy photography? Anyway most of my clothes are now in dryers (shrinking, I suppose) and breakfast is calling. I have a few postcards to mail when I see a mailbox and I will try to catch up with my e mail correspondents next time I catch a server. Last night I fell in a heap early and surrendered the laptop to Ed, knowing I was in no condition to string syllables together.

We’ll be in Alaska for a few days if we sick to Ed’s plans for a sort of figure eight route. Once we leave, I wil feel as tough we are on our way home even though there will be much yet to see and do. I will not be sorry as I will be very glad to see all our fuzzies as well as my two-legged friends but I am not (yet anyway) impatient. This is a dream vacation, a trip of a lifetime. Ed speaks of another adventure in two or three years if we aren’t too feeble (and my daughter and son-in-law permit) and that would be lovely but – if it never happens – I will have a lifetime of memories and new understanding of our world and I wil be content. 

Is it even possible to catch up?

My faithful readers may well have known my news from home before I did. The dogs are safe but I didn’t learn that until this evening when I finally achieved internet access again (though I stiall am without a cell phone connection). Ulster is apparently tired but well but Kitty, our delicate princess, is not accustomed to living rough, lost ten pounds and tore up her feet. After medical attention, she is recuperating Chez Kelly and Matt, no doubt demanding room setrvice from her sister. Kelly’s latest email on the topic is hilarious so I gather she is also recovering from the frightening ordeal. My “fibre and fluff” parcel arrived which may have helped.

Ed and I finally made it into Yukon Territory where we are camped tonight just outside Whitehorse. So far, except where mountains are visible, the highway is strongly reminiscent of #11 north of Lake Superior  – pretty in a very familiar way. Whitehorse, the capital city, is the first community of any size we’ve seen an is very attractive in the way of a town designed to impress visiting dignitaries. Everything was closed by the time we got here and dinner was A&W in the truck before signing into our present campsite.

I’m glad we are doing the trip as we planned because I doubt the northern portion will be the highlight but it will certainly be interesting and I still hold out hope for seeing caribou and elk. (There’s an Elks’ Club in town here. Maybe that’s where they hang out.) Tomorrow we head toward Fairbanks, a long day’s journey if we make it that far.

Last night we hit on a rest stop that asked that we limit our stay to eight hours so we stretched that a bit and stayed there overnight. No amenities but the price was right and we have a generator (for the C PAP). Problem arose when we headed off for breakfast to find that we had to back track to Watson Lake, the “gateway” to the Alaskan Highway, to find a restaurant. Lots of stuff on the highway is closed. You can go father faster than when the road was built by the US army in 1942 so trips are broken less frequently.

Watson Lake is the site of the “Sign Post Forest”, begun by a lonely Corporal working on the highway in ’42:

There’s at least an acre of this stuff as visitors add signs from their own hometowns. I wish I’d known ’cause I sure would have stolen something appropriate. There were 70,000 as of last year. (I didn’t count or look for one from Chatham-Kent.)

Before we got there, we stopped at “Jade City” which is on the map but a sort of family town. If you can’t find a city you like, you can build your own and I can get into that. There was a time I could have done it and it’s a preetty damned good way to live, it seems. The mountains around Dease Lake contain nephrotite, the fancy name for the jade we associate with China and Burma and Jade City exports tonnes of the stuff to those countries annually. Who knew? The residents, family mostly, I gather, mine the rock and rough cut it with equipment set up in the open. They design the products and ship the rock to five countries for processing (as well as the stuff purchased by those nations’ industries) into beads, jewellery and sculpture designed by the Jade City contingent. It is quite lovely and a true Canadian souvenir. The lady of the house and presumably First Lady waited on me in her pajamas. They also stock quilted wallhangings made by an eighty-odd year old neighbour who donates the proceeds to the blind and really lovely leather bags made by a young woman from hides of moose and deer hunted by the natives for food.

We eventually had a late breakfast at a really good diner in Watson Lake. Ed found his copy of the Alaskan Highway Milepost guide, a paperback the size of many phonebooks that describes the highway mile- (or kilometre-) post by post including the pullouts with litter bins!

The remainder of the day’s drive was somewhat anticlimactic what with the resemblance to northern Ontario coupled with the frustration of being unable to get news from home after so long. We drove around Whitehorse somewhat aimlessly before settling on take out from A&W for supper in the truck and a site at a nearby park. (Like Ed in one state park, I paid for our freebie last night in blood, bitten badly by black flies so wanted somewhere where they sprayed!)

It’s late now for us and I have to shut down and get some sleep. Ed is already asleep beside me. I know Ive left out a ton of adventures, sightings of wildlife, local lore . . . but I grow too tired to think anyway. There have been mountains, bears (black and Grizzly), a fox . . . . There are even quilt and yarn shops in Whitehorse.

Back to you when I can . . . .

CK

 

Moving on . . . slowly

I posted Friday’s entry and then tried to repair the links from a few days back but they still aren’t working and I can’t fiddle with ’em any longer right now.

I’m still in the Dease Lake cafe, finishing my luncheon coffee at 4:00 and really have to get going. The travel on the weekend was lovely and the ferry magnificent but our dogs are missing at home and I’ve been incommunicado since Saturday. Cell phone service is non existent and this is the first reliable internet connection I’ve had since Friday.

We had hoped to get as far as Whitehorse this evening but it’s looking less than likely since we’ve been slowed by bad roads and worse repairs. At least we may get phone service once we reach a community of that size. Kelly’s dog is home, thank goodness, but our Ulster and Kitty were still awol last I heard.

Our waitress in the restaurant on the ferry recommended a drive through her home territory and the site of a volcano eruption in the 1700’s that left fascinating lava fields extending for miles (but killed people!) The terrain was quite fascinating as was the drive from Terrace to Stewart, B.C. through a mountain pass lined with glaciers!

We skipped the option of a short run across the border into an Alaskan ghost town since there was no further travel possible that way, retraced our route to highway 37 and then north through beautiful scenery where we saw numerous black and two Grizzly bears.

Elk have remained invisible (perhaps thanks to the bears) but there are miles to go yet and I am optimistic for their eventual appearance.

Must fly now in hopes of going a few miles further before settling in somewhere for the night.

BTW the power was out last night  in Stewart due to a slide so the menu was limited at the town restaurant apparently reknowned for its seafood. We had burgers but made up for it at breakfast this morning, power restored, with a seafood omelette.

Barney and Ed await. Later . . . .