Iowa to Alaska with our A128

[gregory]

Wow, what a terrific trip! Thanks for taking your time to update us. Enjoy your travels and stay safe.

Deb

[thehamguy1]

Day 13 extra--
The people you meet on the road can be as interesting as the scenery. We learned that from a quarter-century of motorcycle touring, where nearly every time we stopped someone would wander over and talk about the years they rode. Now we find ourselves in the same position. I just returned from greeting a couple from California who took the last open space this evening. I of course had to establish my biker credentials by talking about touring. Trouble is, it makes me a bit nostalgic. That feeling goes away quickly when it's raining, or windy, or there are 10 miles of chipseal dust to fight.
On our way here yesterday we played leapfrog along the road with two other fellow travelers who were interesting to talk to. The first was a Fairbanks man who was towing a full-keel sailboat, a Flicka, from Washington state back to Alaska. He had driven to somewhere on Puget Sound, bought the boat, sailed it from the San Juan Islands in the Sound to a place where it could be lifted out and put on its trailer. As a long-time sailor myself, we chatted over lunch at a small cafe about our boats and places we'd sailed. My last sailboat of five that I've had--a 1980 Hunter 25--we sold in 1999, so any nostalgia for the sailing years has faded.
The other couple were driving what looked like a surplus European military vehicle with a squarish metal box on the back that was apparently their camper. It was about as aerodynamic as a brick wall, but they plugged along at about 45 mph. We would pass them, then stop to gawk at the scenery, then find they'd passed us again. We caught up to them at a pullout and I went up to talk. They were having temperature gauge problems but were pretty sure they could take care of them. Meanwhile I saw that on the side of the big box was a world map and the legend, "Ton and Anneke on Tour." It was clear they weren't from around these parts. They said they're from the Netherlands and that their vehicle is some kind of Volkswagen truck. I asked if they had a blog or a website, and if so would they mind if I mentioned them in my trip log. Ton gave me a card with the address www.tonenanneke.waarbenjij.nu printed on it, saying it's in Dutch. I suppose there are pictures of their travels there, although because they were busy making a repair we didn't talk long enough for me to ask. I also forgot to grab the camera and take a photo.
The mix of languages we hear daily is an enjoyable part of the trip too. Besides French and English, of course, we've heard lots of German, some Eastern Indian, smatterings of what I took to be Arabic, an Eskimo dialect or two, and in one case Spanish. It's a big wide wonderful world with a glorious mix of people in it.
Finally, for any of the History Channel's "Ice Road Truckers" fans out there, we've noticed that some of the semis we've met carried the Carlile Trucking logo on the side. We couldn't tell whether the drivers were any of those on the series. We'd like to meet Alex. It's probably that show that caused Courty to want to drive up the Dempster as a side trip. Gosh. 500 miles of gravel each way. I'm so excited.

[BelgianSquiggy]

Great write up and pictures! Thanks for sharing!

[KristenDavid208]

Steer clear of Glacier Bay National Park. 5.5 mile landslide.

[KristenDavid208]

[QUOTE="D-mo"]thanks for this ... hoping to do a big trip like this ourselves in the spring .. going south instead of north. drive safe and enjoy our country .. and yours.

d-mo


D-mo- are you heading to Florida or Mexico?

[thehamguy1]

Days 14 - 15 - 16
F=(2C - .2C)+32. That's my formula for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit in my head. All that 9/5 C+32 stuff is hard to do in your head, so I've been using this variation I, and probably millions of others, worked out. Try it; let me know if it doesn't work for you.
Things've been far too interesting the last three days and I've been too tired to log anything. Today, after a 3km hike to an abandoned Gold Rush-age stopping point outside modern-day Whitehorse, I'm ready to catch up.
First, if you're planning on using The Milepost as your road guide for your own Yukon or Alaska trip, there are a few corrections you'll need. At least three places that might have been critical fueling sites have closed since our 2012 issue of The Milepost was printed. If interested, PM me when we return and I'll tell you about them.
Our stay at Strawberry Flats was enjoyable and we went to bed the second night having decided we'd stay a third night, but we woke up Wednesday morning ready to press on. The roads continued to be mostly excellent and immensely scenic, though the chipseal patches were plentiful. We stopped at Liard River Hot Springs so Courty could soak a bit (hot springs aren't my thing). We recommend that you plan to stop there if you travel this way, but don't plan to camp there. The mosquitoes are thick and hungry and evidently radio-dispatched, for they descend on you in squadrons as soon as you step on the boardwalk from the parking lot to the pool. It was breezy, which helped dispel the sulfurous smell a bit.
The road from there to Watson Creek gets better as the chipsealing places thin out. Along the way we saw brown bears, black bears, wild horses, and several herds of Woodland Bison in the right of way. None were actually on the road as we traveled through, but many were close enough we thought it prudent to slow down when passing. One black bear was close enough that the slipstream from the semi ahead of us bowled him over and he rolled down the ditch. It's been wetter and cooler than usual this year and the berries the bears depend on are scarce, so they're fortifying their diet by moving into settled areas. The radio today told of a Whitehorse break-in perpetrated by a bear, who then menaced an RCMP officer and was killed. Don't mess with bears OR the RCMP.
The Cassiar mountain range we were passing through is beautiful; every curve and hilltop provides a new gasp of awe at the rugged beauty of the countryside.
Gas at Contact Creek was the cheapest we'd bought in days; ask the locals for current recommendations.
We were planning to stop for the night at Watson Creek but got there early enough that we decided to go a bit farther, and drove on to Rancheria, which isn't a town at all, but a motel, gas station, restaurant and RV park. Wi-Fi and showers were advertised, but what we got were the Dogpatch versions of them. Wi-fi is only available in the restaurant, and for showers they let us use a bathroom in one of the many empty motel rooms. Even though the laughingly labeled "RV park" was less than cheery, it was paradise next to the motel room. Does the name "Bates Motel" conjure any images? Then you get the idea.
After a forgettable night whose only bright feature was a chance to upload a portion of the log to the Forum, we went on toward Whitehorse. We've been seeing lots of bikers along the way, so be prepared to share the road with lots of bikes, both motorized and non-motorized varieties. Give bicyclists a full lane when passing, and don't crowd up behind motorcycles. Both kinds of bikers need a little room to make a mistake without getting killed for it.
Teslin, on Lake Teslin, is a picturesque sight as you wind down from the heights into the town. They provide a convenient pullout with signage just before you cross what I think is the longest bridge on the highway. It's a great photo op. At Teslin, another relatively cheap gas stop is at the Yukon Motel, where they give people with campers a 4-cent/litre discount on gas. Staff is friendly there, too, they asked me to say. Next to the motel is a museum, which we passed up only to find out later we should have visited, but we were hot to go on about 3 miles up the road to the Tlingit Cultural Heritage Centre. This is a good place to stop, plenty of room for parking, a nice new timber building, and quite sophisticated displays and video presentations. If you stop, ask to have Arent (rhymes with Erin) show you around. This social-worker-to-be is a member of the Tlingit First Nation and a knowledgeable and personable young woman. Visit the gift shop to buy some Bug Dope Soap, a homemade local concoction of ingredients that you can use to wash yourself or your dishes. Its big feature is that it repels mosquitos. We bought some--it works, and it smells nice too.
This stretch of road from Teslin to Whitehorse is mostly east-west, and straddles the BC-YT border, crossing it 7 times before deciding that it really belongs in Yukon Territory. When you cross the border the last time you're almost to Whitehorse.
Of the some 34,000 people in the Territory, around 22,000 of them live in Whitehorse. It was something to travel for days through wilderness and then find ourselves in a place with traffic jams, at least at Rush Minute. We stopped at Pioneer RV Park for our 3-day stay here. A quick setup and we went off to the weekly Farmer's Market.
The rest of our sojourn here will consist of museum and cultural centre visits and lots of discussion about whether our next stop--Dawson City, which is off the usual route to Alaska--will itself include a nearly 1000 mile side trip up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik and back. All the locals say to do it, but we've heard you want to avoid it when it's rainy and rain is in the forecast. If we go we'll try to find a place to leave the camper while we take the truck to Inuvik, which might take us 5 days round trip. If any of you've done that before, let me know how it went.

[D-mo]

this is a fantastic trip log .. if i wasnt a member of this forum i would have this bookmarked .. thanks so much for all this info .. a great guilde to what is expected up north ... an adventure for sure.

d-mo

[Jeep4Two]

Many thanks for keeping this trip log. It's been a treat to hear about your journey.

[D-mo]

[QUOTE=KristenDavid208;222309]

Originally Posted by D-mo

D-mo- are you heading to Florida or Mexico?

Headed to Florida we'thinks .. landing in pensacola or thereabouts in march. we are in the prelimary planning stages now ... finding a nice route and good spots to stay and see.

d-mo

[gregory]

Lovin' the updates. Terrific photos, Courtenay! Such beautiful scenery.
Safe travels
Deb

ps:
@ D-mo,
I'll hijack this thread, one quick post, for a few Pensacola suggestions:

We visited this memorial park in 2003. We've never been to The Wall in DC:
Pensacola Wall South

We climbed this light house in 2011. We toured the naval aviation museum in 2003:
Pensacola Lighthouse and Museum

We camped in this state park in 2011. We enjoyed the boardwalk area as well as the facilities:
Welcome to Florida State Parks

[mike54]

great write up of your trip hope we can make this trip someday.
here is a picture of that couple RV it is homemade

[GlacierGus]

Great logs! I'm taking notes. Keep the stories coming. Thanks.

[thehamguy1]

It's Sunday, day 18 of our trip, and tomorrow we resume the journey after 4 nights and three days in Whitehorse. There are lots of reasons to break one's trip here, and I'll share a few shortly, but first an observation or two.
Coming as we do from places where there are two kinds of pedestrians--the quick and the dead--it's refreshing to find that here they really take pedestrian right of way seriously. Cars will stop for you not only while you're crossing the street, but while you're standing at the curb wondering if you WANT to cross the street. If someone doesn't stop it's almost a sure bet they're not from around here.
There are lots of pricey things to buy, and it seems from our unscientific comparison that things generally are more expensive in Canada, but the one thing that's been reasonable wherever we've shopped has been groceries. You could pawn the family jewels to pay for a hamburger along the Alaska Highway ($27 in one place we stopped), but when we go to buy food it's no more expensive than back home.
So why would you want to stop and sit awhile in Whitehorse? It's the trading center of the Territory, and there are well-known big-box retailers (Canadian Tire and Wal-Mart) here; you can resupply. There are dealers, and thus repair shops, for the major auto brands, plus a couple of large RV repair shops. It's a good place to get an oil change, wash the camper and the TV, do the laundry, hike picturesque trails, and see the sights. The Berengia Interpretive Centre tells the history of the glacial epochs that have affected much of North America. It's a top-flight museum, staffed by at least one Paleontologist we met, and is the rival of any such center in the world. The Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre explains the history of the First Nations people who lived here and other places in the region for thousands of years. The center is new and the displays well-thought out. Whitehorse, for a town of less than 30,000, is a hopping place. The people are nice, too.
If you stop here, stop at the visitor's center and pick up a Yukon Gold Passport. It's free. It lists attractions in Whitehorse, Teslin, Dawson City, and other towns in the Yukon and Alaska. Each of those attractions you visit will stamp your passport and when you get ten stamps you can be entered in a drawing to win 2oz. of gold. If you collect 20 stamps you enter the drawing for 5oz. of gold. At current prices either prize is worth trying for. It would be a nice trip bonus to have some cash flowing IN for a change.
Maybe I'll think of some more reasons later, but it's time now for us to go meet a couple who just returned from pulling their camper up the Dawson to Inuvik and back and had no trouble at all--saw only a semi or two, for example, and didn't get a flat or lose a windshield. After I talk with them I might decide to give up my idea of storing the A-frame in Dawson and driving the Dempster without it. It'll be so much more convenient--and cheaper--to have the camper along on that trip.
By the way, we've now spotted three other A-frame campers, all Aliners, along the route. I talked to one of them who have had their camper since 2000 and have been to Alaska and back 3 times. They winter in Florida, too, so they've put some major miles on their vehicle. We here on the forum have some catching up to do!
Photos: Miles Canyon, on the outskirts of Whitehorse; Berengia Centre display; 2 photos of the Kwanlin Dun Centre; the Yukon River as it enters Miles Canyon.

[walterw11]

The first week in June my family was in Skagway on a cruise and we rented a jeep and drove up the Klondike highway to Emerald lake, which is just north of Carcross in the Yukon territory. We thought about heading to Whitehorse but decided not to. I was surprised to see so many campers on the road. The scenery is breath taking. If you are heading to Skagway, stop in Carcross, neat little town. Have fun, a keep the pics coming.

[clong46]

Hi..Just catching up with you. We were on Project AWARE last week and I've just quit sleeping off the experience. Love the photos and commentary. Looks like a wonderful experience. So glad we get to share it, even vicariously.

[Tomscat]

Lee and Courtney, you need to put all this into a book. Have you thought about something like Shutterfly. It would be so awesome and the photos.... BEAUTIFUL!
I am green with envy.
I have breakfast with my 87 year old father every Wednesday, and I am reading him your journal, he loves it too.... Please continue to post.

[2lvrvn]

I agree, you should write/make a shutterfly book or something like that. It has been so much fun waiting for your daily accounts and seeing the photos. To be there in real life must be "totally awesome Dude!"

[thehamguy1]

Days 19 and 20. To describe traveling in these parts, the guidebook repeats the phrase often used to describe desolate areas: "Miles and miles of miles and miles." That's so apt a description of the road between Whitehorse and Dawson City that I can't improve on it. Though the road surface has been generally good, the right-of-way has narrowed to the point that roadside weeds are growing right on the edge of the road, just like country roads instead of major routes. We traveled through places with names like Carmacks and Pelly Crossing, and past roads leading off into the wilderness to places named Mayo, Ross River, or Faro. We saw one moose and one bear the whole day.
At Carmacks we took a stroll on the boardwalk along the river and looked at the remains of some early settler's cabins and a partly restored roadhouse, then ate our lunch in the town's gazebo before heading a mile or two north of town to the local First Nations interpretive center, Tage Cho Hudan Interpretive Centre. Unlike the obviously well-funded center we visited in Whitehorse, this one was obviously homemade. Nothing was slick or explained on video, and the displays were built by the people who started the center. It's an earnest attempt by a First Nations group who don't have a lot of money to tell something of their culture to the rest of the world. A nature garden is out back where plants the early peoples used for food are grown. We couldn't go into it that day because a mother bear and her cub were in the area and had shown a clear interest in that particular spot.
The overcast day never got above the upper 50s F. The nights have been cool too. Bring rain gear and warm sleeping togs when you pass this way.
At Pelly Crossing, the Selkirk First Nation Cultural Centre was hosting a display of craftspeople from the tribe. Courty, who used to weave and who still has a rug loom in our basement, was entranced by the work and explanations of Charlene Baker, a weaver from Whitehorse who was displaying there. After an hour of discussion and an exchange of FaceBook info, we went on, blithely leaving Court's raincoat there, with our spare set of keys in it.
That night we stayed at a Yukon Government campground about 100 miles from our goal of Dawson City. It was a nice place, though they warn you about bears and about boiling the water for at least 10 minutes before using it. We were almost the only ones there when we pulled in but by morning there were some dozen camping units set up, from bicyclists in tents to 5th wheels. The $12 per night fee seemed reasonable compared to commercial camping places.
Today we drove the last leg to Dawson City, a place that has had its share of ups and downs. At one time, and for only about one year, it had a population of 30,000. When the gold rush petered out, things went downhill from there and today there are a lot of restored buildings and about 1,800 permanent residents. We stopped at the visitors center, where they kindly phoned back to the Selkirk Centre and arranged to have them entrust Court's raincoat and keys to someone heading for Dawson, who will leave it at the visitors center for us when we return from Inuvik.
To cross the Yukon River you take the free ferry, which we had to do to get to the Yukon River YTG campground. As it happened, our timing was perfect; we got the last empty site. We're here for two days, maybe three. It's dry camping but so far the batteries seem to be holding out. The solar panels have been dead weight the whole trip. If we've camped with electricity we didn't need them and if there was no electric the campsites were too heavily wooded to be able to use them.
The Yukon is one h___ of a river. Wide and strong, it starts in the mountains not far from Skagway and courses its way through the Yukon Territory and all the way through Alaska to the Bering Sea. When you come this way, you'll enjoy seeing the Yukon River and the beautiful scenery it passes through.
Another day of exploring the sights in Dawson City tomorrow, then we're off to make the run up the Dempster. The only wi-fi spot in town is the library, so if you're reading this we scored some free time online there. Meanwhile, here are a couple of websites we recorded from two campers we've seen that are not from the US of A or Canada. Maybe they'll have something interesting to say:
www.travessiadasamericas.com.br and www.panamericanarte.com
Photos: settler's cabin, Carnacks; Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon River; Charlene Baker, weaver; on the George Black ferry, Dawson City; the Yukon River from the ferry

[thehamguy1]

More Dawson photos:
Sidewheeler on the Yukon; Bluffs across the river from our campsite, where peregrine falcons live; permafrost-settled buildings before restoration; interior of Robert Service's cabin (author of The Cremation of Sam Magee and other Yukon poems).

[Tinsu]

Really enjoy you posts. Cheers.