May 23: Alaska at Last–Adventures 2013

Eureka!  We found it!  It is so good to be back in the USA!  Now I have my own Wi-Fi back.  I was getting pretty tired of McDonald’s smoothies.  Also, my phone works now, so I don’t feel so isolated.

After 150 miles of BAD road, we got to Alaska.  The freezing temperatures cause upheavals in the pavement, making the ride feel like the world’s longest roller coaster.  Or an airplane in bad turbulence.  Anyway, we are now in Tok, Alaska, the northern most part of Alaska that we will visit.  Tomorrow we head toward Anchorage, but will probably not make it in one day.

We have seen lots of road art along the way.  The moose antler tree was in someone’s front yard. The two totem-like carvings were fascinating.  The carver used the burls (sp.?) in the wood to make his art.  We were told at a visitor’s center that the burls are found on sugar maple trees and that they are places where the tree stores extra nutrients.  They are not galls, which we are used to seeing in Texas.  If this is not correct, I hope someone will set the record straight.

As far as wildlife goes, I  only took this picture of an eagle.   They are not particularly happy about being photographed, so I have to remain at quite a distance to get them at all.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and find an eagle that wants to pose for me.

The wolves are actually “stuffed” or the work of an excellent taxidermist.  I was surprised most of all by their size.  I would estimate that they were 3′ tall at the shoulder and must have weighed 150 pounds at least.  I mean, these were HUGE animals.  I had always thought of them as just large German Shepherds, but shepherds would looks like beagles next to these guys.

We are in yet another time zone, Alaska Time.  We are 3 hours earlier than the folks at home in Central Time.  Since it apparently stays light for almost 24 hours, I guess time is becoming less meaningful.

One thing that I forgot to add about the Yukon is that it is home to 9 First Nations (indigenous peoples) each with its own government.

Until tomorrow……

May 22: Whitehorse to Watson Lake to Haines Junction to Kulane Lake

Well, we spent Tuesday night in Whitehorse, Yukon.  It is the capital of Yukon (I don’t know if it is still a territory or if it is now a province.)  There are only 30,000 people in all of Yukon and 20,000 live in Whitehorse.  The steamship Klondike offers tours, but we left about 6 AM.  The ship was used to take supplies and miners upriver.

At Watson Lake we stopped to go through the Sign Post Forest.  It was started back in 1942 by one of the men who worked on the original Al-Can Highway.  There were 12 signs when he left, and now there are thousands from all over the world.  There were many from Texas, even one from Kerrville.

We ran out of gas about 8 miles out of Burwash Landing!!  Thank goodness Jerry had this one-gallon can he put in for the generator!  It’s always an adventure with us.  We made it into town to purchase some of their $7 per gallon gasoline and $5 cinnamon rolls.  Whew!  The scenery became spectacular after we left town.  I took several mountain pictures, but I am trying not to inundate people with my mountain pics.  This cop car was the only one we saw in Canada, but there’s no telling how many saw us.  (BTW:  The car is made of wood.)

 

After all the excitement, we decided to spend the night boondocking on the shore of Lake Kulane, the largest lake in the Yukon.  Most of it was still frozen, but there were inlets here and there that had thawed.  The Trumpeter Swans are making their nests in these areas.  The Canada geese were by the side of the road entering the lake area, and they looked like they couldn’t decide what they wanted to do.  Jerry broke through the ice with his hatchet and drew up some lake water which we heated in our solar bottles and used to take our baths. After that he made friends with “Jonathan Livingston”, a Bonaparte seagull.  You cannot really tell, but he’s quite large–about 14″ long with a wingspan of 33″.

 

Finally, Jerry pitted some cherries we bought along the way.  They are keeping him pretty close to camp, if you know what I mean.  The days are very long.  I woke up last night at 11:20 and it was still light outside!  I guess it looked more like 7PM to me. The long days keep the solar panels charging and we have not yet had to use our generator.  Living off the grid is not so bad after all.

May 21: Another time zone – Whitehorse, Yukon

Our nightly Scrabble game was very interesting last night.  We both used all 7 letters on our first turns.  Then J used all 7 again later in the game to score a whopping 384!

We saw our first grizzlies this morning.  It was a mother bear and 2 cubs (so c ute!)  You cannot tell a grizzly bear by its color.  Some black bears are brown.  But all grizzlies have a hump between their shoulder blades at the base of their neck, which you can see better in the top photo.

The  fox had found a tasty treat and was eager to get away with it.

We saw a sign warning us of moose in the area, but the best we could come up with was this life-sized statue.

Talk about charming!  Jerry had these two gray jays eating out of his hand.  When we got out at this rest area, they just walked right up as if to say, “Where’s the food?”

My apologies for the mixed-up order of these photos.  I’ll try to do better tomorrow when, hopefully, we’ll be in Tok, Alaska!

May 20: Back to the Rockies and more snow!

We spent the night at Fort Nelson, B.C.  The provincial parks have increased their prices from $12 to $16-$20 for overnight camping from last year.  We are paying about $6 per gallon for gas, but glad to get it.  Gas stations are few and far between.

Even though the museum was still closed for the season, the curator let us look around on the outside grounds.

We have seen    lots of black bears since leaving town.

What a contrast in the weather.  It has snowed heavily on us since we left Fort Nelson and started climbing into the Rockies again.  Jerry found the boat launch sign at the frozen Summit Lake rather ironic. 

As we were laughing about the sign, we noticed some bighorn sheep watching us.  They seemed very comfortable with the weather.  Their fur is such a good insulator that they don’t loose enough body heat to melt the snow on their backs. 

Dropped back into the Toad River valley to Muncho Lake.  What a beautiful color!  Would you call that color “turquoise”?  It is due to the glacial silt that is suspended in the water.  Herds of bison now roam the roadsides and the drive was slow.  Our plans are to spend the night at Whirlpool Canyon Park–no wifi.

May 19: Gold in them thar hills! At the supermarkets, that is.

We spent all our gold at the local Fort Nelson IGA on these cherries, tomatoes, and lettuce.  Scared Jerry so bad that he started growing his bean sprouts today.  May stop and set up roadside stand selling fresh sprouts to offset cost of trip!

 

BTW, had trouble getting the pictures to load in the correct order today.

 

This moose was absorbed in his breakfast and never knew we were there.

 

 

 

The Caribou was one among many, but he was closest to the road and we finally got a good picture of these elusive critters.

This eagle nesting tower was close to a pond near the highway.  The eagle flew off just as we drove up and didn’t particularly want to be photographed.  Sasquatch ran across the road, stopped and looked at us, stuck out his tongue, and crawled into a culvert beneath the road.  We waited for him to reappear, but after several hours we abandoned hope and continued on our journey……   Another delight for today was to catch this close up of another black bear very close to the road.

Not much traffic on the road today, so we had good wildlife viewing.

 

 

May 18: Dawson Creek – Milepost 0 on the Alcan (Alaska/Canada) Highway!

We are still enjoying Canada.  Today we crossed into British Columbia and are now at Dawson Creek.  This begins the Alcan Highway with Milepost 0.

It was a beautiful, warm day.  The forests gave way to more farmland and pastures that added serenity to the landscape.  I have seen many, many horses, but no wildlife except for ducks and geese in the ponds along the road side.  I guess the beaver below will have to count for today’s wildlife picture.  The road signs keep telling me to be on the lookout for moose, and I would dearly love to see one, but so far no luck.  J says I’ll get to see some before the trip is over.

There are lots of people in town today because this begins a 3-day weekend celebrating the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.

We are fueled up to once again take flight in the morning.  We will head north to Ft. Nelson from here to spend the night.

We are still overwhelmed by the price of gas and food. Gas is about $1.24 per LITER!  At least that sounds better that $5.00 + per gallon.

May 17: Grand Prairie – Terrie joins the animals

The Canadian Mounties have taken T into custody for loitering!

 

 

The Columbia Ice Field is a glacier that is magnificent to look at, but difficult to photograph because all perspective is lost.  Also, it looks like a picture of a white rabbit in a show drift, if you know what I mean. 

 

We have seen sound cannons along the highways.  The use these to dislodge avalanches before they get too large.

 

 T is standing next to an ice truck that takes tourists on tours of the glacier.

 

 

The snow was a delight!  It made everything look so clean and pretty.  The Canadian Rockies appear to be so much more jagged and rugged than the Colorado Rockies.  The rock faces tower over the tree line for what looks like several thousand feet.  It is truly awe inspiring.

 

We saw several caribou, but they were moving too fast or were inside the tree line so I never go to take a picture.  Maybe sometime in the future  we  will stumble across a slow one.

 

We went through coal-mining country this morning, and there were several large strip mines adjacent to the highway.  We tried to take pictures, but there was no pull off that would let us get a good picture.

 

The scenery today was beautiful, but in truth, could not match the absolute grandeur of yesterday.  Today the highway was a strip of pavement in the middle of the densest forest I have ever seen.  It was like Colorado except there were no rocky bald patches or dead trees.  It was just different shades of green as far as the eye could see.  There were different kinds of evergreens and the aspen were just starting to leaf out.  The mountains were not as majestic as what we saw yesterday, and every square inch was covered with vegetation.  In some places the forest was so thick I don’t know how an elk or caribou could make it through with those wide antlers.  I enjoyed today, but I would go back to the Banff-Jasper area in a heartbeat.  It would take 100 professional photographers 100 years to  capture the grandeur (that word again)  I saw from the road. Words just have no power to express it.