It’s been nine days of hurry up and go moving north through Canada, like delivering the boat versus sailing somewhere. But we know this trip is not one and done, and BC is pretty easy for us to visit another time (or more). So we hustled on up to get into Alaska, and have completed the 2,142 miles from Bainbridge Island to Tok.

We made four more stops between Lac La Hache and Tok. The first day was longer than planned because we were stopped by the school bus wreck. The second day was long from a mileage standpoint but became longer as we slowly traveled through the Northern Canadian Rockies. And the last day through Canada was exceptionally slow with frost heaves and horrible roads for 200 miles into Tok.

We ended up with a 431 mile day to the official start of the AlCan in Dawson Creek. Since our day had been longer than planned, we simply grabbed our “Starting Here” picture, had dinner, and headed back to the trailer. We were in an RV park and after a week in campgrounds we decided to do a quick load of laundry. Traveling by RV is much like on the boat, when you have the opportunity for services or dinner out you take them.

I knew we had a long driving day to get to Liard Hot Springs, but didn’t realize the trip through the Northern Canadian Rockies would be such slow driving. We took a one hour lunch break and ended up with an eleven hour trip that day. Good news is, once the weather broke and we could enjoy the scenery of the Rockies, the view was spectacular. There are so many places we plan to go back to.

Liard Hot Springs totally lived up to what we had hoped for. We stayed an extra day and enjoyed some time in the springs.

Before we relaxed in the hot springs we went for a short hike to a waterfall. This is Smith River Falls, near the hot springs. It was a nice easy hike with beautiful results.

We came back from the hot springs and found a black bear just across the fence from our trailer. This is the first time we have camped with Nonnie’s Diner inside an electrified fence. We were accustomed to that in Africa where game animals roam freely, and now here we are with another apex predator right across the fence. Good news is the bear could care less about us and knows what the fence is about.

Along with bears, we have been watching for bison and found some herds after we left the Hot Springs.

We made a lunch stop in Watson Lake and took a few minutes to check out the sign post forest. There are currently over 100,000 signs left by travelers, a tradition first begun by one of the original construction workers on the AlCan in 1942. Maybe we’ll have time to make up our own sign before we head south. We did take a few laps around trying to find the one left by our friends Marcie and David last year, but no joy locating theirs.

The next two days were just miles north and stays in Yukon Territory provincial parks. Both were lovely, and both had free firewood! That was a treat so of course we had a fire the first night. The second night in YT we were near a creek and drove up to do a short hike up the creek. It was a nice walk, but then Jon realized a rain squall was heading our way and it was a race back to the trucks before the rain got to us.

When we left the campground this morning I opened up the Milepost (our travel guide for the AlCan) and it said “watch for grizzly bears along the road in this area”. And sure enough, a few miles up the road we found this guy (girl?) munching on something delicious by the side of the road. We stopped for a few snaps but like in Africa, we wisely stayed safely inside the truck.

We knew the road between Destruction Bay and Tok would be the worst we will find this summer, and true to expectations we found it. I don’t have pictures of the frost heaves, but we certainly found them. Both the Canadian and US governments are working hard to figure out how to manage the impact of the thawing permafrost, but this pic of what the power lines look like tells the story. I’m really interested in how the climate change is impacting Alaska, and will be watching and learning this summer as we travel.

Pix from this leg are Here