Fairbanks and beyond

Heading toward Fairbanks, we decided to detour to Chena Hot Springs for a look and maybe camp there. The hot springs turned out to be a little too upscale and crowded for out taste so we continued on to Fairbanks. In Fairbanks we camped at the Tanana Valley Campground for a couple of days then we drove out the Steese Hwy to Circle on the Yukon River. Nice drive through goldrush area, but there wasn't much at Circle itself. We had a look around and headed back down the Steese Hwy to find a place to camp and then out the Elliot Hwy to Manley Hot Springs.  We camped across the road from the Manley Roadhouse and dinner and breakfast in their bar.

The campground office at Tanana Valley CG was a replica of a cabin used by early residents of the Fairbanks area. The campground is pretty central to everything in Fairbanks. That door is only about 4 or 5 feet tall so watch your head!

Informative sign at the end of the Steese Hwy in Circle, AK.

Al headed over to the Manley Roadhouse for an adult beverage. Manley seemed primarily oriented to sport and subsistence fishing. Fun drive out, good for overnight and return to Fairbanks.

From Manley we drove back to the junction eith the Dalton Hwy and decided to take it north to the Yukon River. We have now seen the Yukon from where it begins in B.C. to as far west as we can without going to the Bering Sea.

After Amy arrived in Fairbanks, we did a ride on the Discovery riverboat. It is somewhat like a Disney ride where they take you downriver about two miles to a replica indian village and then back to the landing and it's souvenir store. It was fun, pretty hoakey, but educational too!

Amy's hand showing a cabbage at the U. of Alaska botanical gardens. Plants really benefit from the long hours of sumer daylight.

Amy liked Denali Park.

First grizzly at Denali Park.

Mt McKinley, we were some of the people lucky enough to visit the park when the mountain is out for viewing. Only about a third of visitors get to see the mountain.

Another grizzly bear. Unfortunately, on the day we left the park, a hiker was mauled to death trying to get too close while taking pictures. We were taking pictures from the safety of the bus.

Another view of Mt McKinley.

Dawson City, Yukon and finally...Alaska

From the Dempster Hwy we made our way up the short distance to Dawson City. Nice little town, not too touristy and a lot of goldrush history.

This is a picture of the Yukon River and Dawson  from the "Dome," a mountain rising on the edge of Dawson City with a road all the way to the top.

The goldrush began with the discovery of gold on Bonanza Creek, This is the gold dredge Number 8 out on Bonanza Creek. It is unbelieveable how these behemoths dug their way up a creek floating on a pond that they kept moving forward by taking in the streambed at one end and depositing it out the other end. Minus the gold, of course.

We finally crossed over into Alaska on the "Top of the World Hwy" and I had to stop and get a picture of this cabin near a small roadside business. Our first place to visit would be Eagle at the end of the Taylor Hwy on the Yukon River.

Eagle is a long way from anywhere in Alaska, but it sits on the Yukon River just inside of the US. The Yukon was the main thoroughfare back in the goldrush days and the feds wanted to look after US interests so Ft Egbert (US Army) was established in 1899. In 1901 the Federal Courthouse pictured above was built to handle legal/criminal matters until the court was moved to Fairbanks two years later.

                                   
Eagle has a population of several hundred. Here is a map of the town with some info on the place. After we left Eagle headed for Fairbanks, we stopped in a little wide spot in the road called Chicken. The name was chosen after the inhabitants could not agree on how to spell Ptarmigan. What happens in Chicken, stays in Chicken.

Here is the Milepost 1422 marker which is the end of the Alcan Hwy. The Alcan ends at Delta Junction when it meets the Richardson Hwy running from Valdez to Fairbanks.

Unfortunately while we were in Delta Junction Al was cornered by a pair of the Alaskan state birds, fortunately he had used his Deet 10,000% earlier that day.

A few miles past Delta Junction we came to Rika's Roadhouse, one of many that were spaced along the Valdez to Fairbanks Trail, later called the Richardson Hwy. Rika's has been preserved by the state and is a great historical stop on the way to Fairbanks. 

Roadhouses were spaced every 15-20 miles and offered hot meals and a place to sleep for weary travelers. Another shot of Rika's, from the back.
Next stops would be Fairbanks, Circle on the Steese Hwy, Manley Hot Springs on the Elliot Hwy and a short run up the Dalton Hwy to the Yukon River.

Skagway to Inuvik

As I mentioned earlier, we were ahead of schedule to meet Amy in Fairbanks, and we had reports that the Dempster Hwy was a mess from continual rains, so we decided to head south from the Campbell Hwy to Atlin and Skagway to give the Dempster some time to dry out. We stopped in Whitehorse for a couple of hours at the Yukon Transportation Museum and the Beringia Museum (about the land bridge over the Bering Sea) and continued to Atlin, BC. We would be stopping again in Whitehorse on the way back to the Dempster Hwy and Inuvik. Pix of Atlin and Skagway were in prior post. Both were very scenic, but Skagway came across as a sort of goldrush disneyland owned by the cruiselines (sorry Skagway, my opinion). While in Skagway, Al and I took the ferry to Juneau for the day, a very worthwhile trip. We saw lots of eagles, whales, seals, waterfalls and glaciers.

Al and I on the Juneau Express Ferry, good sightseeing trip.

 A shot of me at the AK/CN border on our way back to Whitehorse.

Picture in the same area. As I said before the last 20 miles or so to Skagway are pretty spectacular. 

Here is Al headed for the tour of the SS Klondike II in Whitehorse. We both enjoyed this tour very much. The ship is all loaded with cargo, and the passenger and crew areas are filled with items that make the spaces appear to be occupied. A must see in Whitehorse.  After Whitehorse, we continued up the Klondike Hwy to the Dempster Hwy with a stop at the old goldrush town of Keno. There are many active, large goldmining operations going on today, so I guess you could say the new goldrush town of Keno too!

Here is Al at the famous Keno signpost about seven miles above the town. Great views in every direction and the signpost has distances to very far away places, many in Germany. It was on this steep and rough road that I became aware that my left rear airbag was not holding air. This would be a problem down the road with the bump stop being hit repeatedly. No replacement airbag for this Carli setup would be available until I got home. Have to take it easy from here on out.

This picture of the truck at the Arctic Circle on the Dempster shows you that the rain had not let up and the road was not particularly dry.

There are two ferry crossings on the Dempster, this is the one across the Mackenzie River, Inuvik another 130 km.

The "Igloo Church" as it is locally known in Inuvik. Inuvik was about 3,500 population, mostly Inuit peoples. This would be the farthest north that we would get on our trip. It is the farthestnorth you can drive in Canada.

Al and I camping at a rock quarry on the Dempster Hwy. From here we would make our wy to Dawson City and then over into Alaska to the town of Eagle, home of Ft Egbert (1899). 

More Pictures

More pictures from here and there. Some will get more words in a new post. Click pix to enlarge them.

This is the requisite picture taken at Milepost 1 of the Alcan in Dawson Creek.

Finally some wildlfe to take pix of near Muncho Lake, BC.

This is the spot on the marge of Lake Leberge where Robert Service cremated Sam McGee, outside Whitehorse, YT.

Display at Yukon Transportation Museum, Whitehorse, YT.

The SS Tarahne at Atlin, a very cool town with few tourists south of Whitehorse, YT. It's actually in BC, but considered Yukon by just about everyone in Whitehorse.

This info board explains how people and cargo got from Skagway and Lake Bennett to Lake Atlin then the town of Atlin by a 2 mile railroad.

More info on Atlin and the SS Tarahne.

Near CN/US border on road to Skagway. It was very rainy, cloudy so pix were not so good. Coming back out the weather was much better, pix of that later.

Downtown Skagway, USA.

Some Pictures

Angel Lake outside of Wells, NV, about 12 miles, nice place.

Our friends Diana and Allen who were such great hosts in Idaho.

Al at the waterfall wall in Glacier. Very overcast and rainy day.

Prince of Wales Hotel, Waterton Lakes, beautiful park.

Spray Lake in the Kananaskis area south of Canmore outside Banff.

Al posing at Moraine Lake, Banff (near Lke Louise).

More pictures to follow.

After Banff

We continued north from Banff to Jasper with stops at Peyto Lake and the Athabaska Glacier.  Peyto Lake has that beautiful blue color that comes from the sunlight reflected by the suspended dust particles created by the glacial grinding of rocks.  Athabaska Glacier appears to have receded an additional 1/8 to 1/4 mile from from where it was when I visited there ten years ago.  Jasper town seemed the same as before, a lot less touristy than Banff.  We camped near the aerial tramway and rode a gondola up to the top the next morning for breakfast overlooking Jasper down below.  It was a clear day and we could see all the mountain tops named for the winners of the Victoria Cross, England's highest honor to military heroes of the commonwealth.

 From Jasper we made our way to Grand Prairie for our last chance to visit a Costco and a Walmart before Anchorage.  Travelling west we were finally at the beginning of the famous Alcan Hwy at Dawson Creek.  Saw very few tourists in Dawson Creek, and none at mile "0" of the Alcan.  We got our requisite photos of mile "0" with our trucks in the background and headed off for Alaska. 
Over the next two days we drove up to Watson Lake.  In Ft Nelson there is a museum across the highway from the tourist center that no traveler on the Alcan should miss.  The Ft Nelson Heritage Museum has a great collection of vehicles, machines, 20th century technology, buildings, and much more.  It is pretty hard to describe all the "stuff" that has been collected there.  It's a great history of the area and about civilization in the last 100 years.

 North of Ft Nelson we were finally able to see some wildlife, a black bear, a couple of caribou, and about 40 buffalo, all along side of the road.  There wasn't a lot in Watson Lake, but the signpost forest was very cool, and worth the stop.  People have brought signs from everywhere in the world to hang on the posts. Some are so big you would think it was a special trip, or they had to leave a lot of things behind to get the their signs to Watson Lake.

From Watson Lake we took the Campbell Hwy to the Klondike Hwy.  This was a very remote area and more to our liking, but it did pass by a couple of interesting places along the way.  Ross River was a small First Nation village on the Canol Road, a WWII project to bring oil down from Norman Well to Whitehorse was the reason for the road. The project was abandoned with the war's end and the northern half of the road has gone back to nature. The next small town along the Campbell was Faro.  It was a well maintained town that had survived when the mine, the major employer, had closed down in 1997.  It was more oriented to tourism, hunting and fishing, and seemed like a great place for retirement too. We camped near Ross River on the Lapie gorge which was pretty spectacular white water and falls.

Discussing our schedule to meet Amy at Fairbanks airport on the 18th of August, we decided we had come farther and quicker than anticipated so a change in the itenerary was needed.  We decided to go down the Klondike to Atlin and Skagway rather than north to Inuvik, then come back up to Inuvik 4 or 5 days later. Time in this campground is up and we need to leave will continue in next post.