In the Territories Now
Trip Start
Apr 10, 2005
1
19
25
Trip End
Dec 20, 2005
Whitehorse,
Yukon,
Canada
Saturday, August 13, 2005
We drove Hwy 37 into the Yukon. This was a more backroadsy kind of highway with several gravel sections, and we took three days of driving to get North of 60. We followed our guidebook's hint and took the must-see sidetrip along 37A to StewartBC/Hyder Alaska. The route didn't dissapoint, as it rivals the icefields parkway in Banff/Jasper. In some places it is especially cool because the mountains close in around you as you curve around a windy road and have to press your head against the window glass to see sky at all. We passed Bear Glacier which has that beautiful haunting blue tone to the ice. Unlike the Athabasca Glacier on the icefields parkway, you are not able to climb onto this one. There's a big lake separating the road from the glacier. Stewart BC is the little border town at the end of highway 37A, and is ok for restocking supplies, but is otherwise fairly forgettable. Except that it joins with Hyder Alaska. We almost didn't bother to cross the border, but I'm glad we did. Now, this is hardly a border. Hyder doesn't have established transportation networks other than through Stewart, so there was no border patrol to get into the US
01 There was an old Woman...
. And Hyder remains on Pacific time, not Alaska time, and they accept Canadian money as the common currency. That said, there were many Americans who had made their way here. The big big attraction is Fish Creek. About 5 miles (they do use miles) down the gravel road (none are paved here) you pull off to walk onto a constructed boardwalk of sorts, along the creekside to watch Grizzly Bears catch fish. Almost like clockwork, they arrive at 7pm and you get to have a good, fairly safe look at Grizzlies in their wild habitat. We saw three of them, and two of them had a good little chase so we could see their amazing speed and agility. You're toast if one of these wants to have you for dinner, let me promise you that. Wow. We spent about two hours watching the bears before heading back toward the border. The town of Hyder is extremely funky. There's a chinese food vendor in a roadside stall (chip wagon style) alongside some BBQ vendor. There's a modern coffee house and some kitchy shops. Most of the establishments were closed by the time we got there, but the Sealaska Inn had a bar that was open, so we stopped by, hooked up some tunes on the jukebox, played some pinball and drank a cold beer.The next night we stumbled upon a free campsite near Dease Lake and the following day we reached Watson Lake on the Alaska Highway, in the Yukon Territory! I didn't really expect to be excited to reach the Yukon, but I was. Each day the daylight hours get longer and you start to get this buzz of excitement (which does disturb sleeping patterns)
02 Starting along the Stewart-Cassier Hwy 37
. Watson Lake was the biggest little town we'd seen in 3 or 4 days, and with 1500 or so people, it isn't very big at all. This is the home of the sort-of famous Sign Post Forest (and for those of you who've read about Brad's travels to the Northland, you may recall this). I did expect a bunch of signs, but this was an even more impressive attraction than I'd thought. It was fun to check out the different signs that folks had left over the years, since 1942 when the first ones were setup. We found one quaint little note written on paper with ink, and stashed in an Altoids box that was nailed to one of the dozens of posts. The note said something like "so and so family was here, on this date". I don't remember the names or the date, but it was certainly a fun artifact to locate. We found a copy of the Motorcyle Diaries for sale at the local Video Store. This film was relatively important inspiration for us in planning this trip this year, and at $9.95, the price was worth it so we bought the DVD and watched it again that night. Although we had seen it before, it was Steve's first viewing and he seemed to enjoy it an awful lot as well. For those who haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. Perhaps the book is better, but since I haven't read it, I don't know.
We left Watson Lake the next day, driving the Alaska highway bound for the thriving metropolis of Whitehorse. Whitehorse is the largest city in the Yukon, with 2/3 of the population - just 25000 or so
03 Bear Glacier along 37A, going to Stewart
. The city seems bigger than would be needed to service just 25,000 people, and this must be because of the huge volume of summer transients that come along. The highways aren't exactly packed, but RV's outnumber all other vehicles by far, at least at this time of the year. I wish I could say that Whitehorse was thrilling. It was fun to have more daylight again, but except for the lack of stench, it isn't a whole lot more enticing than Prince George. We washed the car for the first time since "Part II" of our trip, that was the most excitement we had in Whitehorse. Oh...one honorable mention is the scarily strange dude at a ranch/campsite that we almost visited. Right out of Deliverance, this guy approached our car with a dazed and confused expression, a pair of overalls, an off-kilter strawhat and an unlikely-to-be-real-but-what-else-would-it-be frazzle of hair, cut in a bob style, poking out from under the hat. I think his teeth were bucked as well, but we didn't stick around for a closer look.We were convinced that the real fun was to be had in Dawson City, so this is where we headed next.
