There are little communities along the road—random
establishments of only a few buildings and a gas station/grocery store/post
office and usually a lumber mill.
To me these places seem out in the middle of nowhere. But they are only out in the middle of nowhere
to me; not to the people that live here.
In a way it is not much different than living in Libby or Alzada,
Montana. To everyone living here
it is not the middle of nowhere.
It is someplace.
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| Find the Beaver |
When I travel to South America I expect things to be very
different. After a while that
different becomes the normal. Here
in Canada I haven’t really expected things to be that much different. But everything is, just slightly. Just different enough to make things
stand out as abnormal [to me].
We took a little detour to Alaska the other day. We drove off the main Cassiar Highway
to Stewart, BC, which is a little port town at the end of the Portland Canal
right on the Alaska/Canada border.
You drive a few miles passed Stewart and suddenly end up in Alaska. Then the road simply stops. Everyone in town is on Pacific Time
like the rest of BC. But the since
the post office is a federal building it goes by Alaska Time. We were only out
of Canada for a few minutes, but still had to show our passports and get
incessantly questioned for about 10 minutes when we crossed the border
again.
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| Hey we made it to Alaska! |
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| Open Daily? |
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| The people of Hyder, AK are very religious..... |
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| How are you supposed to read that sign? |
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| Bridge to where? Too bad it was closed. |
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| Steward, BC |
The wildlife sightings have been more prevalent the last few
days. A couple more black bears, a
grizzly, a coyote, foxes, caribou, beavers, moose, loons and eagles.
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| Griz...just sittin in the snow. |
A part of me feels like we’re missing out on some of the
grandeur of this drive because it has been pretty cloudy. It is still super scenic
nonetheless. One of the benefits
of traveling in the off-season is being able to camp wherever we want. In this case a place that is relatively
dry, has a good view, wood for a campfire and is free. Sure plenty of these places we’re not
“supposed” to camp at, but there is no one for hundreds of miles to enforce
such rules. For hours on end we
won’t even see another car.
Caribou have certainly outnumbered people lately.
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| Camping along the Cassiar Highway |
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| I was so excited to see a Caribou that I couldn't get my camera out in time. |
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| Cassiar Highway |
We made it to the Yukon yesterday. We’ll cross the boarder back into Alaska later today or
tomorrow and head toward Fairbanks.
On a sad note we ran out of IPA last night. Canadians know nothing about making real beer so we need to
get to Alaska soon! There is a
brewery here in Whitehorse that we will check out this afternoon.
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| Yukon! |
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| Yukon |
Miles Driven: 1,919
It was certainly one of the best road trips I've ever been on and definitely the most scenic. I'm sad it is coming to an end. I'm excited to get into the Alaska Range and start work, but I can't help but already miss the days on the road. Things are simple; just keeping an eye on the frost heaves and the gas gauge. It is not as simple as backpacking, but a distant second.
