North to Alaska - The Ultimate Road Trip

Driving by car to Alaska had been a personal dream since my childhood. In the summer of 1986, circumstances permitted me to take this trip. Living mostly out of the back of a pickup truck with occasional nights at motels, we spent an incredible 56 days on the road, a tour de force of the American - and Canadian - West.

This series will present my journal of that trip in one week increments as shown on the map at left. Many of the places visited will have their own pages with more information and photos. For example, visit our pages on the Gates of the Arctic and Denali National Park.

Week 3: On the Alaska Highway!

July 15, 1986. We awaken to another rainy day so we sleep in, then catch up on shopping, and finally head north. Our destination is Dawson Creek, the starting point - or mile 0 - of the Alaska Highway. Unfortunately, there is major road construction north of Prince George and a long detour on a nasty dirt road. It is pouring now, and a real mess on this road. We end up stopping at Chetwynd, 60 miles short of Dawson Creek.

July 16, 1986. We reach mile 0 of the Alaska Highway early next morning, again in the driving rain (hence no photos). Just north of Dawson Creek we finally hit clear skies! The next town, Fort St. John, is 40 miles. The next town after that, Fort Nelson, today's destination, is an unbelievable 250 miles! In between there are roadhouses about every 50 miles. A roadhouse is a combination motel, grocery, and gas station. Otherwise, nothing but unspoiled wilderness (no logging up here), on and on and on.

There are frequent rough stretches on this two-lane road. It's more of a country lane than a "highway". In 1986 there were numerous dirt stretches and plenty of potholes. And always lots of dust!

July 17, 1986. We gas up in Fort Nelson and push on. The next town, Watson Lake, is 330 miles! (One interesting aspect of the far north: there is no radio reception outside of the towns. Each town has a local radio station but the signal reaches out only about five miles!)

Again, we pass endless miles of unspoiled scenery - mountains, valleys, rivers, creeks - all untouched by humanity except for the road. We pass several herds of big-horn sheep grazing contentedly by the road (photo above). In the lower forty-eight these animals are highly elusive. Here you can approach and take their picture! It is a sensation of an altogether different world. Left, note the aqua color of beautiful Muncho Lake. The color is due to glacial runoff.

We make camp tonight at Liard River Hot Springs, a popular stopover in the middle of nowhere. If features a modern campground and a fully developed hot spring in the middle of the woods (photo, right). Including a boardwalk trail to the spring and dressing rooms! The spring is terrific but the northern mosquito lives up to its reputation: any exposed body part is immediately swarmed.

Sunset is now about 11:00pm and gas is about $1.95/gallon(US).

July 18, 1986. Today, we push on to Watson Lake. But first, we get a nice closeup of the moose grazing the swamp near the hot spring.

The last stretch of road in British Columbia is very rough, mostly dirt and potholes. But the beautiful, unspoiled scenery continues until we reach "civilization" at the hamlet of Watson Lake, the first town in the Yukon Territory. It is famous for its collection of home town signposts. The tradition was started in 1942 by a homesick G.I. and continues today. There are many hundreds of signs hanging here.

July 19, 1986. The Alaska Highway is first-rate in the Yukon, a modern two-lane highway all the way. Progress is much faster. We reach Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon. It is home to 17,000 of the 25,000 people who live in the Yukon, a territory larger than California. My recollections are quaint houses and outlandish prices at the grocery store.

We turn off the highway after Whitehorse and take the scenic route on the Klondike Highway. This is the route of the famous Klondike Gold Rush to the gold fields near Dawson City. This route is all dirt for hundreds of miles so it is somewhat less travelled.

We camp at Twin Lakes with its beautiful forest and mountain setting. It was a glorious day which never ended, warm, sunny, and almost a midnight sun. My recollection was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the Klondike Highway at 11:45pm watching the beautiful sunset.

July 20, 1986. Today, we get a late start - it's hard to get to sleep when there is no darkness. We push on to Moose Creek (there are lots of Moose Creeks up north) and stop early to do some fishing. We catch the limit of nice, fat Arctic Grayling (like trout) and have our first fish cookout of the trip. After dinner the rains return.

July 21, 1986. Dawson City is a town with dirt streets and boardwalk sidewalks so it's a muddy mess from the latest rainstorm. The center of the Klondike Gold Rush at the turn of the 20th century, Dawson was a roaring boomtown inhabited by tens of thousands of prospectors most of them very tough and rowdy. Today, it maintains many of its original buildings and is somewhat of a tourist trap. Shown right is a photo from Bonanza Creek, the site of the actual prospecting. The hills in the background are actually the piles of tailings from the miners' dredging the creek!

This concluded the Canadian segment of the trip. In the afternoon we took the auto ferry across the mighty Yukon River and entered Alaska for the first time.