Category Archives: Yukon Territory

North to Alaska (again) – Part 2

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Mile 0 behind us, we continued on the AlCan. The next overnight was on the Peace River at Peace Island Park—a nice little overnight, electric, and water spots with lots of space.

We made another stop at Triple-G Hideaway in Fort Nelson.

The next day we continued, stopping to admire Muncho Lake.

Our evening stopover was at Liard Hot Springs for the famous springs. They have electrified bear fencing around the springs.

We all took a dip in the springs, moving upstream for hotter temps and downstream for lower.

Much like 59 years earlier.

We only spent one night at Liard and continued to the Yukon.

The next stop was Watson Lake and the Sign Forest. We checked on our sign, placed there 4 years ago and the Chens put one of theirs up.

Our sign (license plate) had lost the marker that we put on it over time so we added some back. Here is a view of part of the ‘forest’.

We boondocked in the parking lot near the forest and continued the next day. Another overnight near Teslin Lake with a 15amp spot (I just hooked up Starlink). Our next stop was Whitehorse YT for some restocking, and laundry and we took a day trip to Skagway. We also drove around Whitehorse to see the sights.

On our day trip to Skagway, we stopped to see Emerald Lake on the way.

Skagway was Skagway, touristy and pretty busy since there were two cruise ships in port. On the way back, Marcia spotted some animals. We stopped to see a mother Grizzly bear and her cub. We watched them for at least 20 minutes.

Back on the road to keep going. At Whitehorse, we needed to make a decision. Do we take the Top of the World highway that continues north through Dawson City and on to Tok, or do we stay on the ALCAN highway and head directly to Tok. We looked at the weather report as it had been raining quite a bit and was forecast to do more. The Top of the World highway had quite a bit of construction going on and that could mean muddy roads and ruts. We opted to try to get to the TOTW highway on the return.

We came across a bridge that was no longer in use. I couldn’t help thinking that, in 1964, we may have driven across this bridge with our station wagon and trailer.

We were still trying to get to the elusive Alaska border. We had to stop one more night at Burwash Landing. We boondocked in front of the Kluane Museum of History. The worker there was very friendly and outgoing and had no issue with us staying. The museum is a great little one basically in the middle of nowhere.

The next day we were able to get to the Alaska border and on to Tok for a few nights. A total of 1257 miles from Milepost 0 to Tok.

North to Alaska (again) – Part 1

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We went to Alaska in 2019. It was a kind of ‘spur of the moment’ thing. We saw the RV’ing to Alaska group was having a 4th of July get-together near Anchorage. We signed up and made that a target for our initial travels.

Our friends, the Chen’s wanted to go to Alaska so we decided to go with them this year. We made a decision on a specific date to be at Denali National Park and used that as our target for this trip.

We left our place in Arizona on May 26 and had scheduled to leave Great Falls, MT with the Chen’s on June 19. This gave us time to head to California to visit family. The first stop was to see our youngest grandchild and her family (we also got to see our oldest grandchild here also). Here is Roxie taking Charlee out for a walk in her trike.

The next stop was the middle grandchild, Atlas, and his family. When Hannah and Roxie were doing something, we boys (me, Lukas, and Atlas) went to a park to wait and could overlook San Francisco.

As our whirlwind tour continued, we saw Roxie’s sister (Desiree) and her daughter (Tiarah). We were there for Tiarah’s high school graduation. She graduated from Central Valley High School which, ironically, is the same high school I graduated from 45 years previously. It was still held in the same venue.

After all this California ‘love’ we headed north. The first stop was Collier State Park in Oregon. It was by a beautiful creek.

We headed to Washington and stayed at Charbonneau Park, an Army Corp of Engineers campground. We spent a couple of nights there and did the ubiquitous laundry loads. Here is Roxie telling me something.

We turned east to get into Montana and eventually to Great Falls. We also stopped a few nights to see a family friend and his family, Jared.

Unfortunately, Jared’s family had to leave before we got there to attend to an ill relative. We are sorry we missed them but are glad they were able to go. Jared lives next to Post Falls, so we went to see the falls.

One more travel night and we made it to Great Falls and met up with the Chen’s. They had an extra passenger, their daughter Maya. We knew she was coming along on the trip for half of it. She would fly back home midway through the trip. Great Falls also has many waterfalls around the area.

George is king of the selfies.

We were off the try to get into Canada. I took a shotgun with me the last time and decided to do so again this time. You should declare, on the US side, that you are the owner of the shotgun and use a form that states such. This took a bit of time as the border agent came out to our trailer and verified it, but the longest time was waiting until an agent asked us what we needed.

Now the Canadian side. The initial questioning went easy. The agent did ask about guns and I had already said I needed to get a permit for the shotgun so she never asked about any other guns, which I did not have. Pull over to the side and come into the office.

I got a great agent for my shotgun permitting. All went smoothly and it took some time also. But we were in Alberta.

There was a caribou farm of some type on the side of the road and Roxie had an interest in them as they had a curiosity with her.

We headed north to get to Dawson Creek, stayed in small campgrounds (municipal ones if we could) and avoided large towns as we could. We did make a stop in a Calgary Costco and saw something very Canadian.

We stayed for a few nights in Morinville, AB, just north of Edmonton.

We went to Edmonton for a few days to see the sights. At the University we were able to do some solar observations (sunspots, corona, etc.).

A large replica Stanley Cup.

The city skyline.

And, of course, the largest mall in North America.

Back on the road and after a few more nights we made it where all Alaska travellers want to take a photo. Mile 0.

As mentioned previously, Roxie and I were in Alaska in 2019. However, I went to Alaska with my family in 1964. It was my dad, mom, sister and me. We drove from Southern California and had a total of 9 flat tires. Some of that 1964 story is here. I tried to recreate many of the 1964 photos that I have found. Here is the Mile 0 photo from 1964 (I am the short one).