Our First Week in Alaska

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We have been in Alaska almost two weeks - and we've done a lot and seen a lot already.

First stop for us was Tok. Traveling by land, unless you come over the Top of the World Highway from Dawson City, Yukon, Tok is the first city you come to. It's an unincorporated area - they don't want any government. Several RV parks, motels, restaurants, a grocery store and a health food store. We stayed a couple of days to decompress. We were disappointed to find out that the Salmon Bake was not open yet. Now we'll be waiting until we get to Denali for our first salmon.

10:30 in the campground in Tok - sunset at midnight

We made a day trip to Chicken and Eagle. There is a fire up near the Canadian border - we saw the helicopter carrying one of those big waterbuckets.

We arrived in Eagle at midday ready for a meal at the cafe that we thought was here. Unfortunately, we missed hearing that the breakup of ice on the Yukon River was really hard on Eagle. Basically, they had a couple of really hot days while the ice was still real thick and not ready to break up. The water forced the ice to break and the ice came up into the town, destroying much of the property along the river banks (up to 1/2 mile inland). That of course included most of the tourist services that the town depends on for income in the summer - cafe, lodge, the riverboat that runs up the Yukon to Dawson City, etc.

They had a basic store open, but all the tourist activities were still closed. About 40 familes are still homeless and need to have something livable by the time it starts to snow in September. Evidently FEMA wants to send TRAILERS to Alaska where it gets to 60 below zero! But the residents have put together a plan to build basic cabins like people that people are used to up here in the interior and hopefully FEMA will help them with supplies and materials that they need.
We did not do much sightseeing, knowing how it feels when one is trying to get on with life and recover from a disaster and people are sightseeing with you as the "sight". It is a pretty area and hopefully we'll get back someday.

Firefighting copter near Chicken

Evidence of the Taylor wildfire in 2004 - the area on the right was "backfired"

Visit to Eagle, AK

On the way back, between Chicken and Eagle (this is the definition of the middle of nowhere), we had a flat. Something put a great big hole in the side of a back tire. We had a good spare, so no big deal, right? Wrong... After Tom got the lug nuts off and put the truck up on the jacks, the tire wouldn't come off. He tried beating at it, kicking it, anything to loosen it up, but no results. Luckily a couple heading up to Eagle to help with the cleanup stopped. The guy had a great big jack and a more substantial tire iron. He works on cars and is used to flats, but it took both of them taking turns beating at the tire to get it off. It was not a quick fix. After that, we were on our way in just a few moments. Thanks to the good Samaritans!

The Chicken Post Office - Friday, June 5th

Saturday the 6th, we took a day off to do laundry and we planned to watch hockey. The laundry got done, but we had to listen to the game over the internet. We did get to use our aircard again, but we had a very poor signal.

On Sunday, we headed up to Fairbanks, passing the official end of the Alaska Highway about halfway up the road.

Uh-oh - looks like it may be a bad year for mosquitos!


End othe Alaska Highway for now...

We spent one night at the Faribanks Walmart on June 7th. It is nice of them to let people stay in the parking lot. We spent over $200 there ( a new tire to replace the blown out truck tire, plus food and supplies). We are still trying to get used to the short (non-existent) nights. It's even lighter here than in Tok. It's almost solstice!

10:30 at the WalMart Parking Lot - still a couple of hours of daylight left

The second night we spent at North Pole - really - tonight we wanted electricity. We stayed at a pretty, nice place right on the river. Moose scat right in the campground, but no sign of the moose.

We did more errands (at least Tom did – I played at a yarn shop while he drove around to parts stores). At this point, we lost our internet connection and spent a couple of hours on the phone with Verizon trying to get it working again. Unfortunately, they have no towers in Alaska, so we suspended our service and started depending on free wifi providers again... Safeway in Fairbanks has an internet cafe right in the store (right next to the Starbucks). That was real helpful!

We returned to the Silver Gulch Brewery for dinner and some really good beer, then headed home to North Pole to get some sleep. Sally woke up at 3:30 am smelling smoke from a distant wildfire - smoke collects in the river valleys. Then she spent at least an hour killing about 20 mosquitos that were intent on dive-bombing her.

View of the Chena River near North Pole AK

And th moose scat in near the RV

Tuesday, we decided to head on down to Healy. Our original plans included driving the Dalton Highway again, but we decided to put that off for a while. We don't really start work till after the 15th since the RV park is not real busy yet, so we'll have plenty of time to get settled in and do some touring down south instead.

Talk about coincidences - there are two other workamper couples here this summer. One couple is from Metairie and the other is from Bend, OR (which is the closest big town to Malheur refuge)! We have already had a pot luck with the folks from Denali Park Motel, which is owned by the same people that own the RV park. Looks like we'll have a more active social life than expected! Sally's going to knit night Tuesday and Tom plans to play at the Open Mike Night at the Salmon Bake on Monday night.

In the meantime, we took a ride into the park on our first full day here and --- saw the mountain! Beautiful view!

First Denali sighting - the day after we arrived (June 10th)

Our first lunch at the Salmon Bake - Halibut and Chips and Salmon Chowder

The next day (Thursday the 11th), we took a drive across the Denali Highway. The Denali Highway was built in 1957. Before that, you had to take the train, plane or dogsled to Denali. The road is 135 miles (23 paved). And it is gorgeous. We saw Denali (the mountain) again - from Mile 11. Close to Paxson at the other end are beautiful views of glaciated mountains in the Alaska Range. It's amazing to think that Denali is about in the center of the Alaska Range. The eastern end is south of Tok. We've never been anywhere near the western end. I think you have to fly over there!

View of Denali from Mile 11 of the Denali Highway

Paxson Lodge - at the east end of the Denali Highway


Glacier Covered Mountains on the Denali Highway

Tundra Swans on Denali Highway

Stay tuned in for more exciting adventures as we continue to explore the area. We've already bought our "six-pack" of tickets for the Denali shuttle bus. We'll spend many of our "weekends" in the park. We're looking at other places we didn't get to last time - Chena Hot Springs, McCarthy and Kennicott down near Glenallen, the Anderson bluegrass festival. And we're looking to repeat some of the activities we especially enjoyed, like the Red Green Regatta and the other events of Fairbanks Founders' Days.

Traveling to Alaska and seeing lots of wildlife!

We had an auspicious start on our trip to Alaska. We were searched as we crossed into Canada. We thought that odd, as it was the first time that had happened to us. We now know that was a blessing, because the timing allowed us to see many species of wild animals within the first eight hours of entering the country.

We saw White Tail Deer less than an hour into Canada. There is not much special about these deer to people from the south, but it started a streak we thought was amazing.



About an hour later, we saw a Black Bear on the side of the road. He was eating plants with his backside toward us and did not pay much attention to us. We did not catch that bear in a good picture, but a day later we got this one in the Kootenay National Park.



To enter Kooteay National Park, you must stop and pay an admission. The route we we taking led us up a tall, steep mountain. A motor home pulling a small truck moves very slow up steep grades. We caught this female Big Horn Sheep and lamb licking the salt off the road. We were moving very slow at this point, so they did not have any fear until we stopped to snap the picture.



We also saw many rabbits and squirrels which are ideal meals for fox. Tom saw a fox, but it was too quick for a picture. We want a camera placed on the motor home that takes pictures in each direction we look. It alos needs to do justice to the beautiful landscapes we see. Right after stopping and looking off into a valley that went on forever, we ran upon this Mountain Goat. He stopped to pose for us, then took off trotting down the hill. We suppose he was headed for his herd of females.

Elk are plentiful in the area, but these bucks with the felt still on their antlers we not disturbed by the large vehicle that stopped beside them. We guess they get lots of attention. If the vehicle does not act like a predator, they just do not care.

Moose, on the other hand, just do not like attention. This female started moving away just as soon as we stopped. We saw a couple of males, but they were really too far away to get a good picture.

There are many similarities between big horn sheep, mountian goats and this creature, a Stone Sheep. Note the head, the females of all three have the same shaped horns. The rams have horns of different shapes.

This young Grizzly only gave us a moments notice, but we got the shot. The Brown Bear and the Grizzly are the same bear. The difference in size depends on their diet. Bears that get fish are generally larger than their cousins that eat other protein.

Wood Buffalo (American Bison) were hunted and/or driven from the Alaska/Canada border many years ago. The Bison were reintroduced by rangers on both sides in hopes of bringing their numbers back. This chapter is not finished, but the numbers do appear to be increasing.

The animal sighting chapter is not finished for us either. We have yet to board a bus to go out into Denali National Park, but we expect more of these and other animals during our visit. Thanks for visiting us here.

We're in Alaska!

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We made it all the way to Alaska from Oregon in just over a week.
We left Malheur after work on May 27th. On the 28th, we finally got our hydraulic jacks fixed at Truline RV in Spokane. We had thought that the problem was related to having our battery changed out. Turns out we had a broken wire - it only took an hour to get us fixed and on the way. Thanks, Chad!. While we were there, we saw some nice work Truline has done on fixing up RV interiors. We have been thinking about replacing our carpet with linoleum tiles - this might be the spot to get it done. Maybe next year.
That night we stayed at the River Walk RV Park in Coeur d'Alene Idaho. We used our Chili's gift certificate for dinner - a Christmas gift from Tom's dad and Melanie. Really enjoyable meal - our last in the US for at least a week.
We crossed into Canada on the 29th. It finally happened after many border crossings- our RV got searched at the border. We had everything prepared - reduced our fresh fruit and veggie supply, listed our wine and packed it up so it could be sealed up for transit. The agent at first was going to charge us duty on the extra wine and liquor. We asked if they could just seal it up instead since we were only driving through. She said she would ask her supervisor and had us pull over and wait. In a few minutes three agents came out to search for contraband.
We got the cats out and into their carriers, unlocked everything and waited out in the sunshine for about 10 minutes and...that was that! No duty, no sealed boxes of wine. It was relatively painless, except that in the process the mechanism that holds one of the basement doors open broke. It wouldn't close until Tom unbolted it and pulled the whole mechanism off. No pictures yet – you can’t take pictures of customs. Google Maps even has the area blurred out in the satellite view.

However, from here on out, we have lots of pictures. We have so many animal pics, we are planning a separate post for them. Coming in a couple of days....

Heading onto the Icefields Parkway

Our route north took us through Kootenay National Park. This was a surprise - we knew we would be driving up the Icefields Parkway again, but did not realize we also would drive through Kootenay. Within the five miles, we saw a mother big horn sheep with baby and a black bear. The area is beautiful, though portions had been affected by a fire in 2004. The damage is similar to the fires in Yellowstone.

Next we headed onto the Icefields Parkway. We were excited to travel this way again - it is beautiful country. Since we are three weeks later in the spring this time, there is much less snow and much more water. The waterfalls were spectacular.

First signs of construction - building an animal crossing on Canada 1

Strange sight - how did they do that?

The Weeping Wall on Icefields Parkway

More waterfalls

Sunset on our first night in Canada

Two years later, we're back at Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. Ready to roll. This time, it’s much easier and more streamlined. We know what to expect - the unexpected:
As Tom got out of the RV at the visitor center parking lot, the part that raises and lowers the step sheared off. Fortunately, he didn't fall. But he had to use bungie cords to keep the step in a retracted position so we can drive. Ah well - we are on the way.

Setting out on the Alaska Highway again.

We stopped again at Toad River for “lunch”. We stayed here the last time we traveled the Alaska Highway and really enjoyed ourselves. Really good food. We got here earlier than expected - in time for a great breakfast. I couldn't persuade Tom to donate a hat to the collection hanging on the ceilings - maybe on the way back. We did eat our first cinnamon bun of the trip. We hope to limit consumption this time a little better this time.

Return to Toad River - and our first cinnamon bun this year.

Liard Springs was THE one “must stop” on our trip. The springs are gorgeous. Very hot water comes in from one spring (140 degrees) and very cold water from at least one other. They mix in the pool to form a great bathing experience.
We stayed the night and soaked three times. I like it best in the morning, when the cold water and hot water layers are quite distinct. A very different experience.
We did have one concern during our stay. During the evening they had to close the highway about 15 Kilometers north due to a wildfire. We could hear the helicopters carrying those great big water buckets. Fortunately, they reopened the road overnight so we were able to travel straight through after our morning soak.

Liard Hot Springs. That's Tom in near the boardwalk.

Sally in the hot springs - note her red face.



Aftermath of wildfire on the Alcan.

We stopped for lunch at Watson Lake and found our sign from 2007. It's still there. We have plans for a real good sign on the way home, but it's a secret.

Rolling through BC and into the Yukon

We found the sign we posted in 2007 at Watson Lake

We spent the night at Teslin Lake – another repeat stay. It’s a gorgeous place. Plus they had a little bar where we could watch the playoff game on CBC.
This time we were on a roll and bypassed Whitehorse. Got gas and ate lunch at the Village Deli in Haines Junction and just kept rolling. Once you get past Haines Junction, the road gets worse. There is still construction in the Sheep Mountain area. And then you hit the frost heaves, assorted road damage and construction between there and the border. We stopped about 40 miles short of the border at the Snag River Yukon Government Campground on Wednesday the 3rd. Too tired to enjoy the area – we just ate supper and went to bed. Too bad, it was a nice campground on a little lake. Lots of mosquitos though...

Lots of construction this time. This bridge is being resurfaced.

This one was in the same shape 2 years ago. Much better now.

And this stretch sure needs some help! Some places you can only go 15-20 mph safely.

Got up the next morning and drove less than 50 miles to the border. It took us about 2 hours! Had a nice uneventful border crossing. Had fun in Canada but glad to be back in the US!

Just about 2000 miles in Canada

We made it - but we brought lots of Canadian dust with us!