Sept. 2 - Home again, adjusting to a new reality

We're home again, after a wonderful trip.  The north did not disappoint - it is certainly the most geographically exciting place we've been and the wildlife, the hiking, the scenery and the people were all fantastic.  The geology on a grand scale is what most impressed us - the great rivers, the Tintina trench (most northern extent of the Rocky Mountain Trench), the glaciated landscapes and the unglaciated refugia, the rugged spines of the newest mountains, the braided river deltas, and the ancient folded sea floors.  The northern landscape of glaciers, permafrost, muskeg is so different from our experience, and the changing nature of the north with the pressure of climate change is frightening.

This trip was unique in the sheer number of superlatives it contained -  most northerly road accessed from the south in Canada (the Dempster Highway to Inuvik), most westerly part of NA (Alaska), most northerly park in Yukon (Ivaavik), highest mountain in NA (Denali), highest mountain in Canada (Logan - close but still unseen), crossings of the Continental Divide (10), and crossings of the Arctic Circle (2).

We travelled 13,100 km. in 98 days.  Eighty five of those nights we spent in the camper.  We didn't do the world any favours with the amount of diesel we used, but on the other hand, we didn't consume much in the way of energy for heat, light or hot water.  Our solar panel and propane tanks did all the rest.  We had 3 flat tires - 2 on the Dempster, 1 in Haines, and fixed them all ourselves, but we damaged a wheel on the Dempster and spent $1900 on new tires and wheel repairs.  Otherwise no serious mishaps although we narrowly avoided disaster with a full grown moose in Alaska.  She got a close trim of her whiskers on our front fender, and we had to change our underwear.

I feel we need to name all the highlights so I'll simply list all the top spots:

hottest day - Inuvik - 30 deg. C

coldest day - Arctic Circle, Dempster Highway - snow, rain, wind, 4 deg. C. (3 days earlier)
longest day - June 21 of course, as we watched the sun go all the way around the horizon on the Dempster, just below the Arctic Circle
 

best hiking - Ivaavik National Park, Yukon with Parks Canada

best kayaking - Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, with Sea Wolf Adventures

best canoeing - Boya Lake, BC

best fishing - Klondike River, Dawson City, Yukon

best swimming - Klondike River

 

best commercial campground - Hi-Country RV Park in Whitehorse - fresh flowers in washrooms, long hot showers

best wilderness campground - Muncho Lake PP, BC for scenery, fishing, hiking

best wayside attraction - Liard Hotsprings, BC - duh!

best museum - Beringia, Whitehorse - fascinating background on northern glaciation, the Bering land bridge and migration patterns, and geography of the north

best park - Denali National Park, Alaska - wildlife viewing, alpine flowers, hiking, scenery, wilderness

best  meal - Liz - freshcaught lake trout - Muncho Lake

                   Norbert - 229 Park Hwy. Restaurant near Denali - his birthday dinner

best unexpected delay - waiting for truck parts for a week in Dawson City

best local experience - volunteering for Yukon River Quest, Dawson City
best hospitality - Gary, for taking us in for a week in Dawson City

 

best mosquito swatter - Alaska State Park map - folds perfectly to fit hand, flexible yet strong, and Sarah Palin's face is perfect target on back cover.

most mosquitoey spot - Wonder Lake, Denali National Park, Alaska - only place we had to wear head nets.

worst mud - Dempster Highway (we had clods of mud on the roof of the camper!)

stupidest mistake - driving down the highway with camper stairs attached 

best salient lesson - horrible residual effects from 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska

biggest regret - never made it to Tuktoyaktuk, but it does give us another good reason for the next trip.

We would go back in a minute, and we've decided to see a bit of the north in winter.  With any luck we'll have a trip to Whitehorse this winter.  The night sky (which we missed all summer) should be great, and the northern lights are always on my priority list, plus we'd like to volunteer for the Yukon Quest.  (1000 mile dog sled race across Alaska and Yukon, for those who weren't raised with Rin Tin Tin.) But for now we need to adjust to living in a house, with running water and all the mod cons again.  It seems like the ultimate luxury to stand in the shower daydreaming, or have hot water come out of a faucet!  What a funny world we live in where the simplest of pleasures are taken for granted!

Thanks for coming along with us.  It's been a fantastic voyage and sharing it has been a great joy for me.  Let's hope we all have many more years of health and ability to enjoy together.

 

The massive Salmon Glacier on a grey day outside of Stewart BC.

Tiny Hyder, Alaska, pop. 100.  Only accessible from Stewart BC, or by sea, but still the bars are thriving!

Lovely grey wolf who came to the river outside of Hyder just as we were watching the spawning salmon.  He caught a big fish in his teeth, thrashed it to death on the shore, and ate it all!



Norbert fishing along the Stewart Cassiar Highway. (A seriously misguided name - Stewart is 60 km off the highway, and Cassiar doesn't exist any more.)



One of several standing poles in Kispiox, BC.

Horses grazing at Hat Creek Ranch outside Cache Creek, BC, our last morning on the road.

Our home for three months, vagabonds happily wandering through the wilderness.

 

Aug. 24 Heading south, back into BC

Sat. Aug. 24, Iskut, BC

I'm finding it hard to believe that we're on the homeward leg now, heading south down the Stewart-Cassiar Highway in BC.  We really enjoyed our last few days in Whitehorse.  It's a town I could live in - lovely setting nestled on a bench above the Yukon River, surrounded by rolling hills of pine forest.  Coffee shops, bakeries, library, rec center and really nice people.  There's a very large Francophone community, partly because of the federal government offices, and an air of sophistication and education that is missing throughout Alaska and most of the north.  We decided we'd have to come back to see what it's like in winter as well!

We spent a great day biking along the Yukon with a friend from North Van who now lives in Whitehorse.  Pretty challenging trails, but great views of the canyon.  I was a bit concerned that one small mistake would send me into the river and I'd find myself in Dawson City again!

We've said farewell to Yukon now, and crossed again from the Arctic watershed into the Pacific.  We're taking a different route home, heading south along the western edge of BC.  The highway is gorgeous - narrow, twisty, quiet, and incredibly scenic.   Yesterday we met a big male moose crossing the road, several ruffed grouse (they stop and dither half way across, unlike the moose who bolts once he sees us), and a big black wolf (or a very lost domestic dog.)  The campground we stayed in on Boya Lake had canoes for rent, so we fished (unsuccessfully) and watched beavers, otters, loons, and an osprey on the lake.  More wildlife in one day than most of the holiday!  

The scenery is spectacular here - black volcanic cones rising above ancient sea beds, pink and grey granite mountains fissured with deep green valleys, sparkling rivers sliding into blue-green lakes.  Tonight we are camped in a moosie looking meadow, above a shallow bay that opens into a deep mountain lake.  Norbert has spent a happy hour with his fly rod out beyond the reeds, and there's three fat rainbow trout in the pan.  We'll take our time for the next few days and enjoy the end of summer up here.  

We have only one more week of blissful carefree travel before we have to make the transformation into civilized folk again.  Although I long for a shower that's all my own, I know I'll miss the sound of the wind in the trees at night, and the uncluttered view from our windows.  I love the brisk morning air outside our cozy bed, and the night sky sparkling when I go out for a last pee.  I feel more connected to the seasons, the weather, the moon and the stars than I ever do in the city.  Luckily we can continue to travel, and many more days and nights lie ahead.  

Aug 20, Whitehorse - new photos added to previous post!

Aug. 17, Sea Wolf Adventure

Sat. Aug. 17, Haines, Alaska

Imagine you are bobbing gently at anchor in a deep turquoise bay.  Steep green hills rise from the sea, laced with rivers of ice.  Silvery salmon leap, tiny porpoises curl and dive, massive dark whales rise, graceful and mysterious.   A sea otter mom bobs on her back, grooming her tiny baby on her belly.             Beside the sunsparkled river a brown bear strolls to dinner, while raven watches.  Close your eyes and feel the soft forest breath on your skin.  Hear the mew of gulls, the cry of eagle.  A flock of murres take flight with their frantic eggbeater slap of wings on water.  A humpback exhales a deep and fishy sigh.

This is how we spent our afternoons on the Sea Wolf last week.  Our home for 6 days, we cruised through Glacier Bay National Park on the south coast of Alaska, mostly alone in the wilderness, amongst abundant wildlife in stunning scenery.  Sea Wolf is a 96 foot classic wooden yacht, beautifully appointed, and wonderful to cruise on.  We kayaked every day, close to floating icebergs and calving glaciers, along verdant estuaries alive with salmon, bears and birds, and past rocky islets inhabited by sea lions and puffins.  Humpback whales appeared daily, sometimes lazing quietly on the surface, sometimes erupting torpedo-like in a feeding frenzy.  

The bird life was incredible, but I reached the point where every rare and wonderful sighting became a slurry of marbled murrelet, harlequin duck, red necked phalarope, tufted puffin, etc. until I just called them all marble cheesecake.  My mind never being far from my stomach, the confusion was easily understood.  The cook on board kept coming up with fabulous meals - fresh baking, local crab, salmon and halibut, and amazing salads.  Despite the constant activity I find my pants a bit snug today!  

There were 12 passengers, mostly very nice, some a bit challenging.  Good time to practice my zen-like tolerance when conversations moved to free market economics and the American political landscape.  At least there was wine to smooth over some rather heated exchanges!  And the free thinkers amongst us scored a direct hit when we stripped off on a warm afternoon and dove into the icy sea at the end of a hike.  Several horrified faces greeted us as we waded ashore!  Americans can be very funny!

I'm writing this on the ferry to Skagway, the last of our Alaska stops, and the beginning of the famous Chilkoot Trail.  We'll follow the same route, though not so arduous in the camper, back to where our Klondike adventure began in Whitehorse, Yukon.  It's good to be back in our little turtle home, and we're happy to be on our own again.  Adventures await!

A wonderful museum in Haines - 8,000 hammers of all kinds.  Lots of fun.

Posted Aug 17 at Skagway Alaska.  Sorry - no photos again.  The internet is too slow to cope.  Next time!



A lovely fish packing plant in Haines.  The process fish, crab, clams, etc, and it's all fresh and delish!

Momma and baby grizzly on the Chilkoot River in Haines.  The fishermen have just reluctantly ceded their positions along the bank as she made her way downstream fishing.

The ferry trip to Juneau was beautiful, through a long fiord lined with steep mountains and glaciers.

In Juneau we found this 1912 pipe organ, transplanted from an early theatre into the state legislative building.  There was a concert during the lunch hour so we stayed for the performance.  Phantom of the Opera at its best!

Our cruise left from the tiny hamlet of Gustavus, just outside Glacier Bay National Park.  This is their original and still only gas pump!

Our home for 6 days, the Sea Wolf.  Wooden boats are so beautiful.

Our cabin - beautifully appointed and cozy.  Many of the fittings are original from the 1940s.

Kayaking in front of a glacier.  So many I can't recall their names, each a bit different and some actively calving.  This one had a couple huge thunderous collapses while we watched.  The sea was littered with big and little bergie bits - very fun to kayak through.

Calm seas, sunny skies, beautiful scenery.  Wow!

Hiking amongst the bergs.  This glacier has formed a landlocked lake in front so the bergie bits stay put until pushed out at high tide.  Some are as big as apartment buildings, towering above the beach.  Not to be taken lightly!

Some have amazing shapes, weird indentations, and fancy curlicews.

Cruising past sea lion rocks.  The smell and the noise was hilarious.

The geology of the park is fantastic.  It's all about glaciation - the entire park, right out to the mouth of Glacier Bay was filled with ice when Captain Vancouver sailed past in 1796.  In 200 years the ice has retreated 65 miles, leaving behind moraines, alluvial fans, and these massive erratic boulders.

Hiking with grizzlies!  Bigger than a frizzbie but with claws.

Our last morning - misty with whales.

Flying back to Juneau in a Cessna 206.  It was held together with masking tape, which I suspect is a step down from duct tape.  Only a little anxiety provoking!  Luckily the scenery was spectacular.  Juneau is not very big, despite being the capital of Alaska, and is dwarfed by the Mendenhall Glacier above it.  Pretty nice setting!

 

Aug 9 Haines to Juneau - fall, fish, and folly

Fri. Aug. 9, Juneau Alaska

Well quite an eventful few days!  We drove south from Kluane, back into Alaska to the coast at Haines.  It's very familiar landscape - coastal rainforest rising to alpine peaks, but the difference here is the more northern climate maintains huge icefields at the higher elevations.  Glaciers reach down into every fiord, many touching the sea.  Fabulous for photography!

The seasons are clearly changing now.  It gets dark at night and we've started to see some stars in the brief nighttime sky.  The fireweed, a harbinger of spring and companion of summer is all gone.  And the salmon are coming up the rivers to spawn.  That means bears are coming down to fatten up on fish before winter, so the rivers are alive with fish, fisherman, and grizzly bears.  Very dramatic, and not the sort of peaceful angling I imagined.  We decided photography was a safer option after watching several fisherman lose their catches to a momma grizzly.  

We've been distracted by all this bountiful scenery and had a slight camper mishap this week.  When first driving an RV we did a lot of reading about what not to do - there's plenty of that sort of literature!  Things like not driving out of the campsite with the clothesline still tied to the RV, or the dog.  Ensuring all the roof vents are tightly closed before taking off at highway speed  - they tend to fly off.  Closing the back door before driving - it's amusing for other drivers to watch the terrified cat on the doorstep.  Disconnecting the sewer and electrical hookups before departure - obviously!  Our folly?  We were fishing a lovely stream, and failed to do our usual pre departure walk around.  A mile down the highway I said to Norbert 'Did you put away the stairs after lunch?'  Odd, the sound of aluminum stairs bouncing along behind the truck!

We've now abandoned the camper in Haines for 10 days and we're off on a different sort of adventure.  We've taken the ferry to Juneau, and tomorrow another ferry to the hamlet of Gustavus, just outside of Glacier Bay National Park.  We'll be off on a mothership kayak cruise for 6 days in the park, aboard a 96 ft. ex-navy minesweeper, the Sea Wolf.  Sounds like wonderful luxury, and we can't wait!  Tell you all about it when we return!

Posted at Driftwood Lodge, Juneau.  No photos this time, sorry!

Aug 4 Hiking with bears Kluane National Park

Fri. Aug. 2, Kathleen Lake, Kluane National Park, Yukon

I see we've been out of touch for a week now, and I haven't been able to access the internet since I wrote my last post, so I'll post both together once we return to civilization.  We've spent a delightfully lazy week in Kluane Park, hiking, fishing, reading, doing not much of anything.  We haven't been through anything resembling a town for a week, and haven't missed it at all!  We're almost out of water and fresh food - down to canned peaches and pancakes, sardines on crackers, and spagetti.  May have to shop soon.  

The park is enormous in scale as well as elevation, but is almost entirely inaccessible except by mountaineering or flying.  It is adjacent to Wrangell -St. Elias Nat. Park in Alaska, Tatshenshini-Alsek Wilderness Provincial Park in BC, and Glacier Bay Nat. Park in the Alaska panhandle, covering millions of miles of mountains and icefields.  Together they form the largest protected area in the world.  The St. Elias Mountains are relatively young, still very geologically active, and undiminished by the erosion of eons of time, so the peaks are massive, jagged, and snow-covered.  We were hoping to get a view of Mount Logan, Canada's highest peak at 19,545 ft (just barely less than Denali), but it's position in the far south eastern corner of Yukon puts it 110 km from the nearest road.  We even drove 40 km back one day because it was clearer than the previous day, in order to try to catch a glimpse, but no such luck.  

Norbert is proud to have done one of the toughest day hikes in the park - 18 km return up an enormous bowl onto a ridge to the peak above the lake. His photos are fantastic, but of course not downloaded yet!  We both did another trail to a viewpoint at 1400 ft, which I found arduous enough!  And we had a much too close encounter with a grizzly on a piddly little hike just off the highway!  We always sing and talk to make noise on the trail, but we came around a bend and were suddenly 20 feet from him.  Luckily he seemed as frightened as we were, and we all leaped backwards at once.  He watched us warily as we slowly backed away, and continued to eye us as we made our short descent back to the truck.  It doesn't make it any easier for me to go off into the bush!

We've spent a lot of time fishing all week, with very little to show for it I'm afraid.  The lakes are closed to rainbow and kokanee and the lake trout seem to be down too deep to find.  The rivers are full of grayling, which even I've been catching, but they're barely big enough to make a McNugget.  But I've had a chance to improve my casting, so hopefully the practice will pay off later.  

Kathleen Lake is a beautiful turquoise glacial lake, picturesque, but pretty brisk for swimming.  The scenery has been beautiful, the weather perfect, and the relaxation very satisfying.  A perfect summer holiday week.  

Posted Aug 4, Haines, Alaska

The view from 1400 feet above the Kluane River.  Looking deeper into the park, the peaks get more impressive.

The mountain that Norbert hiked.  The trail begins by the campsite just to the left on the lake, goes up through the trees to the tongue of gravel, on to the lip of the hanging valley.  Then it heads up the left side of the bowl to the ridge, across the top, to the peak on the right upper corner.  Wow!

Kathleen Lake on a perfect summer day.

The scenery everywhere you look is spectacular.

Fishing for grayling.  This is the loveliest river - turquoise glacial water, sparkling ripples, but few fish.

The highways are lined with summer flowers.  These are mountain avens - the flower symbol of the Yukon.  In early spring they have a pretty white daisy-like flower, then by summer they have this fluffy white seed head.  Looks great with the pink fireweed.

Million Dollar Falls - a lovely view.

The road to Haines goes through this high alpine meadow for 20 km.  Just beautiful.  This is the start of the Tatshenshini River.

Fish trap on the Chilkat River in Haines.  Fisheries uses these to count the salmon going upstream to spawn, currently sockeye. 

 

 

Aug 3,Kluane Lake housekeeping detail

Sat July 27, Congdon Creek, Yukon

A rainy afternoon, and we've settled into a lovely campsite on the shore of Kluane Lake.  The domestic chores need doing, and it's a good day to stay put. Every few days we need to pay attention to the trivialities of life on the road - groceries, showers, laundry, water fill-up, sani dump, sweeping floor, cleaning windows, or simply tidying the mass of tourist info we accumulate.  (I would just toss it once it's behind us, but Norbert keeps almost everything!  We each have a nice storage space alongside the bed for our things.  Mine is full of clothes, computers, knitting and books.  Norbert's is overflowing with fishing rods, maps, tour guides, camera gear and books.  A chaque-un ses choses.)

I'm thinking of writing a book about sanitary facilities after this trip.  Emptying the sani tank is something you learn by experience.  We now have a system that works smoothly and cleanly for us, involving rubber gloves, duct tape and a plastic bag, and careful choreography.  Others, not so much.  We've seen the most awful flaws in technique, mostly resulting in very regretable spillage.  Not for the faint of heart!

Outhouses- oh how I could go on about them!  We're so happy to be back in the Yukon where the cute green and white woodies are always clean and well supplied.  Somehow Alaskan campsites haven't quite measured up.  For one thing, they use an unfortunate design - the precast concrete mausoleum.  You have to lock yourself inside a large, sealed, concrete box, hardly conducive to a pleasant morning's contemplation.  They are not sex specific, so I've discovered that some men (it has to be them) don't have very good aim despite their more advantageous anatomy.  I object when I have to roll up my pant legs.  And the American toilet was obviously designed by an alien species who don't go.  It is mounted on two metal bars that transect the space below where you sit - obviously not a spot you want to place any obstruction.  Things get hung up.  It's not pretty.  

Showers sometimes aren't much better.  I've become inured to trying to get clean in a dirty space, but really, I'm tired of trying to fit into these miniscule cubicles.  Only a contortionist could shave her legs in a 30 inch square shower.  Not that there's time to shave anything when your toonie only yields 6 minutes of water.  I'm so grateful when we find a nice clean, hot, spacious, generous shower!  I do love how travel brings you perspective on the important things in life.  

It's interesting who we meet doing the travelling up here.  Along the Alaska Highway there's lots of massive motorhomes towing SUVs - retired Americans who've sold their homes and now live half the year either with their kids or in a tropical condo, and half the year in a 40 foot luxury RV on the road.  They have more mod cons than we do at home, and usually like the 100 amp service in the private campgrounds.  They sometimes travel in packs,  in order to have cocktail parties I think.  Very odd people.  There has been quite a smattering of uber-enthusiastic Europeans in massive heavy duty camperized all terrain vehicles equiped for global exploration.  They camp off road, alone, often in gravel pits, I guess for the scenery.   Also they're cheap.  There are lots of motorbikes, often in convoys of 2 to 10, nearly all BMW off-road bikes.    I don't know where they camp - perhaps they just keep driving.  

We've met lots of nice people camping like us, in smaller RVs, VWs, rental motorhomes, and tents.  They make great neighbours in campgrounds - happy kids, talkative retired people, friendly tourists.  We've been able to practice our French and German regularily, and we always get great advice about hiking trails, wildlife, or farmers' markets.  We've also run into a few intrepid cyclists on this trip.  There are occasional escorted, supported groups who clearly are doing only the choice stretches of highway, but there have been a surprising number who are knocking off the Dempster, or the Alaska Highway just for the hell of it.  As I said before, to each his own!

So I've whiled away a rainy day writing this, and enjoyed the luxury of a timeless afternoon.  More of that to come as we slowly wend our way south along the Kluane mountains.  

 

Posted Aug 3, Haines, Alaska