Beginning the Alaskan Highway--the ALCAN Dawson Creek to Dawson City

BUT FIRST--Some of our faithful blog followers have questions regarding our accommodations.  So here's the scoop! 

The Bailey Buggy has wall to wall carpet, sky lights, an attic fan, air conditioner, flat screen TV, DVD player, DVR, a printer and very convenient toilet facilities less than one step away from our king size bed.  All these amenities make up for the less than spacious living area!  The galley kitchen offers a sink,  microwave, frig, two burners (never used), 20 inches of counter space.  Objects appear larger than actual size!  All of this supports fabulous dining—meaning that if you’ve exercised enough, ANYTHING tastes fabulous!

Galley

We are in Hinton, Alberta at a very nice KOA campground which is booked a year ahead. They met us as we pulled in and escorted us to our site—PAINLESS!  Our back window has been leaking slowly getting the sheets, mattress pad and some pillows wet before we realized it.  So we stripped them off and into the dryer and we’re good for now.  It rained all day so we spent the morning watching old Big Bang reruns all cozy in our sleeping bags and then off to the hardware store to get some caulk for this window.

We went to see the Beaver Dam Boardwalk which was amazing.  It was a natural wetland where the beaver had made 4 dams to create a pond with their den right in the middle!  The boardwalk and trails were neat—around the pond and into a beautiful woods.

The Army Corps of Engineers could learn a thing or two from these beavers-not a leak in sight,  better than Buckeye Lake

Our Adventure Caravan leaders provide morning coffee and donuts, as well as a get-together at 5 pm every day.  We get a quick overview of the next day, snacks and wine.  In the morning Joe goes around and hits all the tires around 7 am or before  with a 9 iron which is ostensibly to check for flat tires but I really think it's our alarm clock!  No one will admit to this!  The pace is perfect for us.  Carol, Dan, Jewel and Joe all work very hard—I would not like to do their jobs but they love it!

Up at 6:30 am to hit the road to Dawson Creek, BC—276 miles.  Most of the roads were fine until we hit pot holes and had to slow down.  We stopped  at a Costco on the way to get gas—a bargain at $1.27 per liter!  The Costco set up is a replica of the ones in the states—down to the $1.50 hot dog and drink and the samples!

Our campground is a bit soggy after 4 inches of rain in 4 days but the canola fields are loving it.  

View from our campground!

 A speaker came to our campground and gave a  presentation on the construction of the Alaskan highway.  Dawson Creek was the most northern stop on the Canada railroad so when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the big push was on to connect Alaska to the lower 48.

Dawson Creek is “Milepost 0” of the Alcan highway (1500 miles) which was miraculously finished in 8 months!  It is an amazing story. 

The sun is shining today and we had a great walk around town checking out its history.

The original milepost 0, but the traffic circle makes pictures diffiult

People over 55 are great to travel with—this group is ALWAYS on time and follow directions!  We had this photo taken in 10 minutes. 

 

The photo op milepost 0 about one block away

Our back window started leaking again with all the rain so we put trash bags and towels under the window.  We had offers of  couches to sleep on, trash bags and spray sealer that is guaranteed to keep us dry! Pete masked off the paint and window and sprayed 4 layers of the magic stuff so we will see how that goes!

Fort Nelson is our first stop on the Alaskan Highway.  There was a neat Heritage museum right next to the campground.  It has all kinds of neat old cars and the100 year old owner to tell you all about each one.  

Off to Liard River, British Columbia.  On the way we stopped at a small place Muncho Lodge to buy a cinnamon roll and heard about how RVs have ruined the lodge business in Canada.  People no longer need rooms because RVs have taken over and I’d say it is 3 to 1 RVs to cars on the road.  However, she does sell over $200,000 a year in fuel to them along with the 400 cinnamon rolls a day!

Here are some funny signs along the way:  BACON IS THE DUCT TAPE OF FOOD!   and THERE ARE TWO THINGS ON THE MENU—TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT!

We saw a sheep family munching along the road and a baby bear that ran across the road too fast to photo.

This lodge had its own bush plane to take people out on fishing trips and apparently it is such strenuous work that they need their own bar to regain strength!

Liard River Campground blew out its circuits with so many RV air conditioners running—some of these big rigs have 3 of them.  It was cool enough so our fan did just fine.  The big excitement was a buffalo wandering around in the campground!  Pete decided to follow it to get this picture.  I am reluctant to include this picture because I don’t want to encourage this behavior but he’s out of control!

The Liard River Hot Springs was across the road and great fun.  There was a long boardwalk through a wetlands where moose hang out—on vacation while we were there—that led to the best hot springs ever.  It was a natural setting with one end 98 degrees to 125 degrees.  Pete’s kind of place!

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Fireweed grows everywhere!  It blooms from the bottom up in summer and when the top blooms are out, then you know it’s time to head home—winter is close!

We met a group of 15 girls bicycling from Houston, Texas to Fairbanks, Alaska in 70 days—makes my thighs burn just to think of doing that!

Liard River to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory

It is hard for pictures to do justice to the gorgeous scenery.  The scale of the mountains, rivers, lakes, and sky is so immense!  The forests are endless and so thick that the trees are 2 feet apart.  Makes me feel less guilty about all the paper plates we’re using!

Black Bear

This buffalo was grazing right along the road and there was a black bear ignoring Pete who was of course out of the car to get this picture!

Bears are so soft to pet

Watson Lake is famous for its “Signpost Forest” and museum.   

A lonely young man made the first one while building the Alaskan highway.

First sign made by the lonely soldier

There must be thousands of signs that people have added over the years.  Our RV caravan made this sign and we all signed our names.

I saw one sign from Dublin, Ohio.

Our caravan sign

Whitehorse, YT

 Off we go with a stop at Rancherie Falls which was a hard to find turnout that a lot of us missed.  Pete and I just did a U turn but the big boy rigs had to go up the road to a turnoff to get back but it was worth the trouble!  Very nice path down to two falls.  The drive was outstanding!

We saw another bear on the way and this time Pete decided to back up along the berm and then get out of the RV so he could tell if this was a Grisly bear!  We wonder why men don’t live as long as women!

WHITEHORSE

We had a great time here even though the Pioneer RV Park had us crammed in like sardines!  The weather has been gorgeous and we are glad for the AC.  It is hard to travel in the summer without AC so that makes the National Parks without electric less attractive.

Note the Reindeer Milk!

We started off touring the famous paddle boat S.S. Klondike which was the lifeline between Whitehorse and Dawson City.  It could only operate about 5 months because the Yukon River freezes.  They loaded it down with all kinds of supplies—especially Whiskey to last the long dark winders.  Nice movie there also. 

Visitor center gave us free parking passes and off we went to the pre-paid museums.  The MacBride Museum tour was given by Jana who grew up in the arctic circle.  She knew a lots of the grandchildren of the originals famous settlers.  One of the exhibits was about the merchants who supplied the gold rush miners and made a lot of money.  One of the investors was guess who….Donald Trump’s father!

Yukon Transportation Museum was a couple miles away and nice.

The salmon are on their way back to lay their eggs where they were born.  They come from Japan, California etc where they’ve been for 2-5 years and swim up the Yukon river 1500 miles against the current to spawn.  Whitehorse has a hydroelectric plant that stops the progress so they built a “staircase” around it to get the fish up and over it.  There was a camera in the water and we could see the salmon trying to figure out how to get around the power plant.

 There was a piano down on the viewing platform inviting guests to play and lots of people did—including me!

Miles Canyon was our favorite place today with that green water made from the glaciers scraping the rock…called rock flour.  Steep cliffs with a suspension bridge was part of a long hike along the gorge.  Three guys jumped off the rocks as we were watching!  A long but wonderful day!

Before the dam this was wild whitewater the gold rushers had to negotiate on their way to Dawson