On to Anchorage

From Chicken, we headed to Anchorage via Gakona Alaska. The mile house here was historic on its own account, but then in 1942, the US Army Corps of Engineers constructed additional buildings to serve the construction of the Alaskan Highway to help defeat the Japanese in World War II. Today these buildings serve as a restaurant and a tavern.

When we were in Alaska in 2010 we hadn’t yet learned about Pete Wolf Toth. It turns out that Toth’s gift to the state of Alaska was at the community college in Valdez, giving us a reason to make the journey to visit there once more. It was worth the long drive.

We had vague recollections of Valdez, but we didn’t really remember just how beautiful it is. You would swear you were in the Swiss Alps when you stand on the water’s edge in downtown Valdez. A well placed geocache got us out to the best view in town. We had a nice lunch at the Fat Mermaid not far from here, so took in this view while eating the locally caught halibut special.

We had been to several spots in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, but somehow missed the Visitor Center. The largest National Park in the system, it boasts some amazing stats. The Park is larger than Yellowstone NP, Yosemite NP and Switzerland combined! 9 of the 16 highest peaks in North America are within the boundaries of the Park. It’s the home to the North America’s largest sub-polar ice field.

At this particular rest area with a spectacular view of the Wrangell Mountain Range we stopped to stretch our legs a bit, water the pooch, and see if there might just be a cache – often there is one hidden in a prominent rest stop. Well there was – and the Woman used her geo

sense to lift up this post cover to find it – nice job!

We will be in Anchorage for a bit visiting places we never made it to in 2010. We may be on and off on the blog front as we make our way by plane, ship and foot around western Alaska.

Talk to you soon!

Finally, after 8 years!

In 2010 we drove over 25,000 to and around Alaska, seeing everything we could in our 5-month visit. Unfortunately, we were challenged by massive fires that closed several roads and highways, as well as heavy rains that washed out and closed some as well. We were able to find out about small caravans escorted by the DOT through a few of these roads, but the wash outs on the Taylor Highway were so many that there was actually no way to get to Eagle Alaska, one of few Alaska cities on the Yukon River, by vehicle. Fortunately for us, this year there is extensive road constructions, but no complete closures that are affecting us.

Eagle was fascinating. In 1898 it was the largest city in interior Alaska, boasting a population of nearly 2,000. US Customs in the region was headquartered there – in 1898 the only effective way into internal Alaska from Canada was to walk or take the Yukon River, so Canadian’s poured into the US through here. There were 3 federal court districts in the state of Alaska in 1898 – the 3^rd district housed in Eagle under Judge Wickersham. There was an Army base – Fort Egbert – at its peak with over 250 enlisted men and officers. At the turn of the century, all arrows pointed to this being the growth of central Alaska.

The advent of rail and road building, along with the car, changed all that. By 1903, Judge Wickersham and the 3^rd district court was moved to Fairbanks. By 1905 the customs office was closed. In 1911, Fort Egbert was abandoned. It looked like it was possible that Eagle would become a ghost town, but many of its hearty residents refused to be daunted. Today the official population of Eagle is under 200, with around half of those residents being Cheechakoes – an Alaskan term for a summer only resident.

In 1947 the state of Alaska began construction of the Taylor Highway, 161 miles from Tok to Eagle. It was opened to all traffic in 1953 – so it’s my age – but when I look in the mirror, I think I have weathered my 65 years a bit better than the Taylor. About half the highways length has never been paved – permafrost issues – which is part of the reason it so readily washed out in 2010 and prevented our visit that year. Fortunately, we chose to leave Colectiva in Chicken this year and found the Falcon B&B to stay at for a couple of nights in Eagle. The road is so narrow and primitive I don’t know if we would have made it in 2010.

Eagle was gearing up for a whopping 4^th of July celebration. Local pilots were practicing for their planned flyover during the afternoon celebrations. In addition to the historic buildings in town, there are several other historical artifacts. The local museum has a 1913 Jeffrey Quad, apparently the first 4WD articulated steering vehicle ever built, and one of only two in the US that are in operation. The museum director plans to have the Quad running for the parade. Interestingly enough, this 1913 vehicle had solid rubber, in essence “flat proof” tires on steel rims – Amerityre is a company I was the audit committee chair for a few years, and I had been of the impression that they had invented that technology.

Among the other non-building artifacts, this Stearman Biplane that was built in the late 1920’s. The owner was a bush pilot in northern Alaska and settled in Eagle, moving most all of his aircraft here. He was practicing all the time we were in Eagle, making sure he was ready for his time at the flyover the afternoon of the 4^th.

Heading back Chicken where we had parked Colectiva, we enjoyed what for us has become synonymous with Alaska. We had picked up a list of important places near Eagle to see at the BLM visitor center, and at mile marker 143.5 on the Taylor Highway was a restaurant, gift shop and liquor store. When we had found out Eagle was dry, we had briefly considered picking up a bottle of wine for dinner here, but quickly dismissed it. Good thing! When we arrived at MM 143.5, the building was boarded up. We learned later that the owner had died over 5 years ago and his wife had just shut the place down. Is that any reason to remove it from the official list in the BLM office? Not in Alaska. Closed businesses that are still on the map is a staple here.

While we had spent more time in Chicken back in 2010 waiting to find out the highway conditions, and the availability of escorted caravans. However, we still enjoyed being back in this odd and quirky place, maybe only still here as a stopping point between Tok and Eagle, or Tok and Dawson City, being about half way.

We learned about the big music festival that is held in Chicken every year. In fact, we had only missed it by a bit. While I didn’t recognize any of the names of the artists on the list of entertainers in this year’s festival, there was something very familiar about the name of it. Rings a bell just a bit.

Believe it or not, the census in Chicken is considerably smaller than Eagle today. The 2010 census in Chicken came up with 7! However, the planned 4^th of July picnic must have drawn folks from all over the area. A state senator was scheduled to be present, kid’s games, some raffles, and a huge grilled steak along with Dutch oven potatoes drew a sizable crowd. We decided to pass – we didn’t need to visit a town with a total of 7 residents to stand in a long line for food!

Talk to you soon!

Finishing up the Canadian Gold Trail

Heading north from Whitehorse we hit the remains of the Montague Roadhouse. During the late 1800’s the only form of transportation other than by river was on foot or by horse. Accordingly, distances that could be traveled daily were very limited. Entrepreneurs established roadhouses each some 30 or 40 miles on commonly traveled routes, providing a bed, food and possibly some provisions – and most of all some warm and dry time.

This is all that remains of the Montague Roadhouse. Built at the turn of the century, it was actually built by the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway that eventually connected Whitehorse with Skagway Alaska through the White Pass. When we were in Alaska 10 years ago we actually road the historic route from Skagway to White Pass.

We had been to Dawson City back then as well. But its location on the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, surrounded by the high peaks makes it a place worth visiting again. The town itself seems to have changed little. The most prevalent businesses we had frequented were still booming. The town still has no paved streets other than the last mile of the highway, and many of the buildings are very much in decay and unoccupied currently.

The thing that always stuns me about Dawson City is the evidence everywhere of the intense mining at the turn of the century. Dawson City was the epicenter of the late 1800’s gold rush. First mined by hand, then in groups, eventually all the claims were bought up by mining companies and mined using dredges. The dredges would chew up daily what would have taken thousands of men to do and left all tailings in tall mounds that haven’t moved in 120 years. The acre upon acre of tailing mounds may never be dealt with here, unless somehow, they discover an economical way of extracting the fine gold buried in this array of rocks – and there is gold in there they say!

Having been in Dawson City before, we had already visited the home of Jack London, author of Call of the Wild. London had lived in Dawson City as a youth, working the gold fields like all the other hopefuls. He didn’t score any significant gold but did score memories that made for impressive writing later in his life. Almost next door to London lived Robert Service, known as the Bard of the Yukon. Again, we had toured his cabin before, but still sought them both out. They lived close enough that they could have tossed plot ideas to each other.

We finally decided to venture up the Dempster Highway. The Dempster is claimed to be the first highway to travel up north of the Arctic Circle. Lile the Dalton Highway in Alaska that goes from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay, the Dempster is unpaved due to the permafrost that would tear apart a paved roadway in no time. Along the way we found Tombstone Territorial Park.

The Dempster runs through beautiful mountain ranges all the way from Dawson City to Inuvik on the Arctic Sea. There is only one small town on this 460-mile dirt highway about half way to Inuvik, Eagle Plains. The highway was named after the famous Yukon Mountie William Dempster who earned renowned for his discovery of the lost patrol.

 In February 1911, Francis Joseph Fitzgerald led a mail patrol from Fort McPherson bound for Dawson City. When they never arrived, Dempster was sent out to investigate and found the bodies of Fitzgerald and his party. It was logged as one of the Yukon’s greatest tragedies. However we discovered another one – since the snow in this area only lifted recently, we assume this semi has been here for months.

Talk to you soon!

The mighty Yukon - gateway to gold

We continued north through the various Canadian gold fields. We stopped in again at Watson Lake where they tout the world’s largest sign jungle. When we were here 10 years ago we thought it was really big. But it is at least 10 times bigger now. We are not sure that it has room to get a lot bigger, maybe a few more years until they are out of space!

Coming out of British Columbia we had a good day – 7 bears, a porcupine and several hundred bison. I am not sure our claim holds for the bears as it was actually only 4 sightings – one of our sightings was a great big momma along with 3 little cubs. We weren’t aware that northern BC had a considerable population of bison. We drove a long way after seeing the caution sign but hadn’t seen a single one. Then all of a sudden, they were everywhere! We also saw a caution sign warning about a large migrating herd, the Forth Mile Herd, of caribou, but we never did spot them. Might be the wrong season.

We then set out to revisit the Yukon River and the town of Whitehorse. The Yukon River fed most of the miners lusting to strike it rich in the Canadian Gold Rush. Between it and the Mackenzie, it brought the majority of the supplies into the gold bearing areas. While riverboats no longer plied these rivers once the railroads arrived, there era left much to admire. The 3^rd longest river in North America, the watershed of the Yukon River is considerably larger than the state of Texas.

We learned that locals have decided to change the names of their towns from what the founders named them. They keep the theme but modify them nonetheless. For example, the residents of Caribou Crossings apparently found that name too cumbersome to use routinely. So, in the early 1900’s, they have shortened it to Carcross. But I think you can take a thing too far as well. The founders named it White Horse in deference to the White Horse Rapids that mane of a horse. In 1957 the locals decided to shorten the name – to Whitehorse. As far as I can tell, it’s the same number of characters. Maybe they wanted to save the ink from not having to print a capital W, or it was just making the name take up one less space on a printed page. None of these thoughts to me justify the cost to change a cities name!

Just south of Whitehorse we discovered Miles Canyon. This was an infamous barrier to the gold miners rushing to Dawson City. The Yukon narrows here to rush through a basalt lava canyon under 100 feet wide. Before the hydro dam was built downstream the rapids here were navigable by only the most skilled and experienced captains. Many hundreds died in the canyon, before a tramway system was built. Miners would stop above Miles Canyon and unload their goods. The tram would transport their goods to a point below the Canyon. Then they would hire an experienced captain to guide their boat through the treacherous rapids. Today, the dam makes the Canyon look like just a pleasant paddle!

Just north of Whitehorse a way we discovered the Five Finger Rapids. At this point, four islands divide the Yukon into five narrow channels. Again, many lives were lost until it was determined that only the eastern channel was able to be navigated, and even then, it wasn’t always successful. A solution eventually made these rapids safer and even allowed for steam powered riverboats to make their way from White Horse to Dawson City. A very heavy cable was anchored to the rocks both above and below the rapids. When a boat came to the rapids, it attached to the cable which helped it stay stable through the torrent, and then detached at the end.

We drove a way up the Klondike Highway to take in the beauty of Emerald Lake. Apparently, the bottom of this lake has white deposits of marl, which causes the sunlight to be reflected in a neon emerald appearance. Marl is a mixture of clay and calcium carbonate. The shallower the lake where there are such deposits, the brighter the neon emerald appears.

I am sure we have mentioned this before, but the amount of graffiti in Canada is so much more than what we see in the states. We see rocks with graffiti, entire hillsides with graffiti, and many various objects in the cities covered with it. However, occasionally they even make me chuckle. Apparently, this artist liked the more physical sports than just hiking or cross-country skiing.

And holy cow do they have big families in Canada. I have seen either front-back or side-side strollers in the states, and I am pretty sure I have even seen a stroller with 3 side by side seats. But I have never seen a stroller like this beast!

We got in one last walk around town with the pooch and made it a point to stroll the path along the Yukon River before we headed on. We had explored this grand riverboat that used to ply the waters of the Yukon when we were hear 10 years ago, but it was still nice to have a sit down between it and the river.

Talk to you soon!

Alcan at last!

In order to get to Alaska by vehicle there is only one road in and out – the Alaska Highway or the Alcan (Alaska/Canada Highway). Although we didn’t need to start at mile marker zero, Dawson Creek was only about a half hour out of our way, so we decided to start our slog there.

On the way to Dawson Creek we stopped in Chetwynd, the chainsaw carving capital of the world. We had been here the last time we visited Alaska, but the carvings are always new, and the sight of the hundreds of them lining the highway is a visual treat. We stopped here for lunch at A&W and the Woman wanted deep fried cheese curds, something all US A&W’s serve. So, I ordered cheese curds, and when we opened the to go bag back at the coach, we found a plastic wrapped handful of chilled curds – naked, not breaded and deep fried. The Woman was deeply disappointed.

In Prince George we found the town had been flooded by hundred-year rains and was only just drying out when we arrived. We managed to find the bike trail along the Fraser River, but could only do part of it. The Fraser, because of the heavy rains, was historically high and had swallowed up huge chunks of the trail.

We also hit the local movie theater in Prince George as many of the small towns we are hitting don’t even have them. Although we didn’t go to see it, that day happened to be the opening of Jurassic World. They sure know how to put on a party up here.

In a Provincial Park outside Fort St. John we spotted our first Ptarmigan. The only place we had ever seen Ptarmigan was in Alaska, referred to up there as the Alaska Chicken. I guess it is fitting that if we spot a Ptarmigan outside of Alaska that at least it is along the Alaska Highway.

We dodged a huge bullet in Fort St. John. Pulling out of a gas station there were barriers to limit turns, and they were in no way large vehicle friendly. Running up on the sidewalk, a depression resulted in the axel resting on the curb, and Colectiva was totally stuck, drive wheels off the ground. At least a half dozen Canadians helped me to use the leveling jacks to raise up the rear of the coach, place a bunch of jack pads under the rear tires, lower the jacks again and drive off the curbing – in the mean time pissing off dozens of Canadian drives as we totally blocked half the road. Then, getting back to the RV Park we were staying at, we had to contend with the normal things you contend with living in RV Parks.

We are starting to see a fair bit more wildlife the further north we get. On the Alcan between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson we managed to see a huge black bear. We had seen bear on the road to Barkerville, in fact a couple of them. But we had yet to see one just nibbling along the side of a major highway – bonus!

I had to pull over when I spotted this but stopping 10 tons of motorhome and toad is no easy matter. So, I had to run back quite a ways in order to get a close up look. But it was worth the run. We passed this spot on our last trip to Alaska – no other way around it. But I guess I wasn’t looking very carefully back then.

Outside Fort Nelson the Woman suddenly spotted some very large water birds. I said they looked oddly like Sandhill Cranes. Turns out that they were. It turns out that Sandhill Cranes migrate annually through British Columbia between their nesting grounds in Alaska and their wintering grounds in the southern United States. We had seen them in Texas before, but really didn’t expect to see them way up here!

Talk to you soon!

Quesnel BC

So, apparently you don’t pronounce the “S”. This was pretty much our last stop on the Cariboo Gold Trail. There were other gold rushes in different places, but this one rivaled the discovery at Sutter’s Mill. To honor all the dozens of people important to the history of this town, they have made all their fire hydrants into images of those folk. We enjoyed walking around town checking them out but could have used a guide – had no idea who we were looking at!

We headed to Barkerville. Named for Billy Barker, the miner who placed the first gold claim in this area, Barkerville was the biggest town in BC in the 1860’s population wise, but when the gold entirely played out, the town was totally abandoned.  The town has been recreated to look like the 1860’s, with many of the buildings being the actual structures from that time.

In Barkerville we learned all about Chinatown and why they exist everywhere, explained to us by an actual descendant of a Barkerville Chinese resident. Generally, the Chinese weren’t very welcomed anywhere they came. As a result, they essentially set up all their own support mechanisms, setting up stores, banks, and everything they needed that they could not count on the white Europeans to provide. That helped the Chinese, but further separated them from the locals, who received little or none of their economic commerce.

We also learned that at the time of the gold rushes/transcontinental rail projects, the area around Hong Kong – Guangzhou China – was the only part of China that the then government allowed international trade. – Guangzhou in English is Canton. The Chinese believed that to emigrate from China was unpatriotic, and those caught trying to flee China were executed. The people of Guangzhou are the only ones who were able to get communications from the outside world about the gold discoveries in the US and Canada, so the only Chinese to be aware. In addition, the harshness of the domestic government caused many of the locals to risk death, and hop British ships bound for the west coast of North America. That, for the most part, is why when you old farts were a kid, you could only find Cantonese food in the US.

We also hit Wells British Columbia where a gold strike not terribly long after the strike by Billy Barker resulted in a rush to this community. While Barkerville is gone, now only a historic park, Wells still has a hundred or so residents and a few local businesses. We grabbed lunch, which ended up being a cold premade sandwich as no hot food could be found in Wells in the lunch hour.

We also spent some time at the local education center for First Nation folk. We happened to be in Quesnel for National Indigenous Peoples Day, or National Aboriginal Day. Despite the fact that Canadians treated locals really no better than Americans did at the time, it seems like Canadians do a better job of brining current focus on the folk that were here before them.

On the way to Barkerville we found the gravesite established by folk who were part of the Cariboo Gold Rush. Back then, a large number of the folks who needed burying were Chinese. They were buried in the local cemetery along with the white Europeans. Apparently Chinese belief is that in order to find peace, the remains of their loved ones need to be in China, so most of the graves of Chinese folk were exhumed here, and their remains were sent to China to be buried there. We saw lots of the grave sites where obvious excavation had occurred at some time – kinda creepy!

Apparently when you are in such a rural setting, you need to do whatever you need to do to make a living, and to run a business that will last. Can you think of any more services that could be provided by this Wells British Columbia establishment?

In Barkerville they put on a vaudeville style production that brought to life a little of what it might have been like to be here in the 1860’s. We thoroughly enjoyed it!

Talk to you soon!