We're in Alaska!

We made it!

Construction Scenes

Frost Heaves present a challenge
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Tom - Posting our sign at ...Sign Forest .............And another one from Anniston

Well, we finally made it to Alaska. We are in Tok, the first town you come to on the highway after crossing the border.

This trip is incredible – I wish everyone could have the experience!

We have spent the night in some really beautiful, picturesque spots – Liard Springs, on the shores of Teslin Lake – and some not so picturesque. Some of the parks have been little more than a gravel lot with electricity wired to posts at each parking place. But even at the most simple parks, there are the mountains, forests and lakes in the background to divert us.

We’ve seen animals and birds that we would never see at home – caribou, elk, wood bison, trumpeter swans, bears, beavers, arctic terns, stone sheep, Dall Sheep, mountain goats, Big Horn Sheep… And Sally finally got to see a moose live. (The picture is rotten, but the moose was real. There was even a baby that sprinted for the trees before we could get the camera out).

We have seen some of the most beautiful scenery there is and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly experiencing what the highway has to offer:
- We’ve enjoyed a natural hot springs less than 10 minutes walk from the highway (really hot – 40 degrees Celsius hot) at Liard Hotsprings Park.
-We went to a museum that featured a wooly mammoth fossil skeleton (among other prehistoric skeletons). We learned about the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. The museum even has working “atlatls” which are devices that the early people used to increase the power behind their spear throws so that they could kill larger and faster animals in order to survive.
- We hiked to the ruins of Canyon City where the gold rushers coming up to the Yukon had to portage around the White Horse Rapids in the Yukon River.
- We have tasted the cinnamon buns that are a highlight of the Alaska Highway trip. I think Toad River has the best and Tom likes the ones at Johnson Crossing.
- We put up our sign in the signpost forest at Watson Lake. The “forest” is about an acre I would guess. It consists of 10 foot high poles covered with signs that Alaska travelers from all over the world have left behind.
- We have killed our first mosquitos - they really are the size of small birds. They sell mosquito traps and claim that you can make a mosquite-fur coat with only a few pelts ;-)

We had heard that the Alaska Highway was a very tough road to travel, but for the first two weeks we didn’t see what people were talking about. There are rougher roads in Maine or Louisiana or (insert state name here). BUT – now we know what they mean. The last two days, we have sometimes been reduced to 5 mph to get over the worst of the frost heaves. We traveled about 110 miles yesterday in a little over 4 hours. The math is pretty simple – even if you subtract about an hour for lunch and photo ops it's less than 30 MPH!

So now what? We plan to visit Chicken, Alaska, and take a side trip back into Canada to visit Dawson City - the gold rush town. then on to Faribanks and finally to our summer location near Denali National Park. Stay tuned for more adventures.

Daily Log:
-Sunday, 5/14 - Fort Nelson, BC
-Monday, 5/15 - Toad River, BC
-Tuesday, 5/16 - Liard Hotsprings, BC
-Wednesday, 5/17 - Watson Lake, Yukon
- Thursday, 5/18 - Teslin, Yukon
- Friday - Sunday, 5/19 - 5/21 - Whitehorse, Yukon
- Monday, 5/22 - Beaver Creek, Yukon
- Tuesday 5/23 and 5/24 - Tok, Alaska