This year's annual vacation was a bit different from past years. Instead of hopping on a plane and heading South (or East), we hopped in the car and headed due North. Destination: [the rest of] BC, the Yukon, and Alaska. Instead of boring you with all the details (of which I am fast forgetting), I will cover where we went, what we saw, and some other highlights. But just be warned, once I start writing, I may go into details anyway...Our first day goal was to make it from Vancouver to Barkerville. Which we did. Sort of. We drove up through the Fraser Canyon, planning to take Hwy 99 on the way down (mother nature had other plans though). We made it all the way to Barkerville, and stopped in Wells (just west of Barkerville) to find somewhere to stay. Turns out for the first time ever there were no vacancies due to four reunions taking place that weekend. It was late, I was tired, hungry, and getting really grumpy. We had dinner in Wells, and made the drive back to Quesnel.The next morning we got up, drove back to Barkerville, did the tour, drove back to Quesnel and finally started heading north towards Prince George, and on to our next destination Ft. Nelson. We managed to make it as far as Chetwynd, and spent the night in the Chainsaw Carving Capital of BC (or was it the world?) and dined at one of the many Chinese-Western diners. Our third day was probably the shortest traveling day of the whole trip. We cut up through Hudson's Hope and popped onto the Alaska Hwy, just north of Ft. St. John. I was promised lots of Moose on this leg of the trip, at least that what the signs kept telling me... but I didn't see one. We arrived in Ft. Nelson after only a few hours on the road, and spent the afternoon, evening, and stayed over night with an old friend of mine I hadn't seen in ten years. It was a fun visit! The next day we decided to drive all the way from Ft. Nelson to Whitehorse. A 12-hour driving day, with a nice break at the hot springs in Liard Provincial Park - nature's hot tub! It was awesome, and difficult to get back in the car!We pulled into Whitehorse around 11PM... and it was still light out. Welcome to the land of the Midnight Sun. I have to say, I was not overly impressed with Whitehorse. I expected it to be more like, well, Dawson City. I don't think our first hour in Whitehorse set a good tone either: We went to Boston Pizza for dinner. Not our first choice, but given the time of night, and what was available, it was our best choice. We walked into the restaurant around 11:15 PM. We both know this for a fact, because that's what time it was when we got out of the car. We were told they stopped seating people at 11:30. We decided not to make a stink about it and left. Strike one for Whitehorse. We settled on a gourmet meal at Timmy Ho's. I ordered a egg salad on brown bread. They only had chicken salad left. Strike two. And they only had white bread. Strike three. The donut options were very limited, but I managed to get a chocolate one. Which Colin accidentally ate. He offered me his donut, but it was maple, and I hate maple... I just wanted to cry at this point. And get the hell out of Whitehorse. But we stayed for a couple of days. We walked around the city, and along the Yukon River; we visited the Beringia Interpretive Centre; and visited Muktuk Adventures, a kennel just west of Whitehorse with a 120 dogs who run the Yukon Quest. This visit somewhat redeemed Whitehorse. We had the opportunity to visit with the dogs and pups, and learned all about mushing.
We left Whitehorse and made our way to Dawson, the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush. Now this was a fun town. Dawson is home to literary greats Pierre Burton and Robert Service. And Jack London spent a lot of time there too. We visited a couple of museums, took a walking tour, visited Dredge #4, and panned for gold. We also spent the evening at Diamond Tooth Gerties - the thing to do in Dawson. But we never got the guts up to 'drink the toe.'
We left Dawson after a few days, and continued West. We drove the Top of the World Highway (aptly named) into Alaska and visited Chicken (named for all the ptarmigans in the area) and Tok. We only spent half a day or so there, so we headed back into Canada via Beaver Creek and spent the night in Haines Juction. The following day we began heading South, and found ourselves in Skagway, Alaska. This was our first time camping on the trip, and it was cold and poured with rain. And our site was merelt feet away fromt the train tracks.... But despite the weather, and being woken up by trains at 5 am, Skagway was a neat place, and the perfect bookend for our trip to Dawson. This is were the trek to Dawson began: in Skagway (Whitepass) and Dyea (Chilcoot Trail) - now a ghost town enveloped by a forest.
After Skagway we headed back towards Whitehorse (yee haw!) and begin to work our way back to BC. This time we headed down the Stewart-Cassier Hwy with Stewart/Hyder as our next destination. We dined in Dease Lake and spent the night in Bell II. We arrived in Stewart the next day, and got a good glimpse of Bear Glacier. When then crossed the only unmanned border aournd into Hyder, Alaska - a ghost town for all intensive purposes, even though there are a few live souls kicking around.
We visited the state park to see the Grizzly Bears. We paid $5 each to get in. Stayed for 45 minutes. Saw nothing, decided to head back to the car. Saw a grizz walking down the street...
We then began climbing our way up to Salmon Glacier, crossing back into Canada. Salmon Glacier is the largest glacier in the world accessible by road, and the fifth largest glacier in the world. It was something else.
We returned to the State Park (since we could still use our passes), and this time got to see a grizz enjoying a tasty salmon dinner and frolicking in the water. A couple of my favourite past times...
After our day in Stewart/Hyder we made our way to Prince Rupert - the warmest and driest part of our trip - oh the irony. We passed through Terrace, birth place of Colin and spent the night in Rupert. The next day we drove around, visited a museum, and decided to start heading east towards Prince George. We stopped in Terrace for lunch. It was strange for both of us, sitting eating our lunch and thinking this is where Colin is from. He was around one when his family moved to Richmond, and had only been back to Terrace a couple of times when we was very young.
We called a good friend of ours who returns home to Vanderhoof every summer for a visit, and it turned out he just arrived back home. We met up with Adam and his dad in Burns Lake and spent August 1st (our ten year anniversary) fishing... on a boat on Babine Lake. We spent our first date on a boat, but instead of fishing, we were watching fireworks. But a perfectly fitting way to spend the anniversary of our first decade together. And I caught my first fish ever - a nice, juicy lake trout.
We spent the evening at Adam's family farm, and enjoyed a crazy game of Gin. The next day we toured the farm and made our way home. But we had to return through the Canyon instead of passing through Lilooet and down the Sea-to-Sky because of a massive rock slide the essentially shut down the highway between Vancouver and White Rock.
The Highway 99 re-opened half an hour after we returned home...
