TooBusyForWork

Last night in Fairbanks and on to Denali

We went as a group to “The Alaska Salmon Bake” at Pioneer Park on Friday evening. We had been warned the salmon would be over cooked, so almost all of our group chose prime rib. Excellent choice! It was tender and juicy, and the roasted potatoes I had with it were fabulous. Kevin had prime rib with macaroni and cheese. The mac was definitely so-so. The cheesecake afterwards was more than I could eat, so I took mine in a to go container and had it for dinner the next night! After dinner we went to the Palace Theater on the grounds. It was a vaudeville-style show starting off with a great piano player who did a sing along of early 1900s music. I knew most of the songs, and I had so much fun singing. I miss group singing so so much when we travel! After the singing, various vignettes were done regarding early Fairbanks history. Old fashioned fun.

All vaudeville must have a drag performance

Cast of 4 including the standard tropes of “good girl” and the “bad girl”

We saw a sun dog on the way back to the motorhome.

Sun dog seen on the way to the RV park after the show

On Saturday we headed the short distance to Denali and the Denali RV Park and Motel. We stopped at an old Alaska traditional place, the Monderosa. We definitely recommend this place! Great burgers and fish and chips plus nice folks running the place. The RV place doesn’t have much of a motel, but the RV sites are level with solid hookups. The fact that they are pretty short and narrow is just part of the experience, or so we keep being told.

We went to bed at 9:00 on Saturday because we had to meet the bus for our naturalist trip into Denali. Regular vehicles can drive 15 miles into the park, but to go beyond that requires riding an approved bus. There are two types of buses. One is for hikers and sightseers who want an inexpensive method of seeing the park. No narration, just a hop on, hop off kind of thing. The second type of bus is a dedicated one with the driver adding naturalist commentary. It is a physically nicer bus, provides a snack box, water, and a souvenir booklet (quite nice BTW). The goal is to see wildlife, and the bus stops whenever someone spots something along the road. This is the type we had, and since we the caravan made a special type of group reservation, the bus even picked us up at the campground. The fact that it was to leave at 4:50 am was not mentioned until the day before!

We climbed on, almost awake, and took off for the park. We couldn’t leave the bus when we saw wildlife, but the windows are big enough for lots of picture taking. We saw pretty much everything we wanted to see. Be kind about the pictures; I have a simple Canon point and shoot.

A grizzly bear close to the road.

A young moose a long way from the road.

Dall sheep, a first for me. These were a loooonnnnngggg way away, but my binoculars confirmed I am correct in the identification. You’ll have to trust me.

And caribou! Another first for me. The males have the super long antlers while the female antlers are smaller. Males lose their antlers after the rut, but females keep theirs until late winter meaning all Santa’s reindeer (domesticated caribou) are girls!

Of course the scenery was interesting too. We won’t be seeing the Denali mountain from here because of the rain and clouds, but nice views without that. It started off rainy, then we had some partial clearing.

After a nice nap when we got back to the campground, Kevin and I decided to take a short road trip south on the road we will take to Anchorage in a few days, just to see the sites and pull-ins we can’t do in the motorhome. When the clouds came down and it started to rain, the mountains became ethereal and fascinating. They basically disappeared into the mists.

We did see something a bit different – the tourist train headed into Denali from points south (Anchorage and others). That would be a fun ride!

We ended up at the 49th State Brewery just north of town for an early dinner at 4:30. Beer was ok, and the food was good. Very busy though!

Tomorrow we are on our own until the evening when we attend a show. More on that later.

Two more (almost) days in Fairbanks

After the first two super busy days, we relaxed a bit. On Wednesday we drove part of the Steese Highway. It is just one of those “things” that Alaskans doesn’t use highway numbers; they refer to most highways by a name instead. The roads so have numbers, for example, the Steese Highway is legally Alaska 6, but no one uses the numbers. You just have to get used to it. The Steese goes north a bit then northeast of Fairbanks. We drove it strictly as a scenic drive, using our copy of the Milepost to identify interesting sites. We drove past the Dredge #8 we visited before, and it reminded me to post the picture of our $20 in gold! As I said before, we had it mounted in a magnet that will stay on the refrigerator in the motorhome.

Not long after the turnoff to the Dredge, we stopped at the state historical marker for Pedro Felix, the discoverer of the gold that made Fairbanks famous. While the name sounds Hispanic, he was actually Italian, and his real name was Felice Pedron, but he seems happy to have gone by the name Felix Pedro. His discovery was made just across the road from the marker, and the site is now owned by the Pioneers of Alaska historical/social group. You can even pan for gold there! He discovered a number of other claims in the area and ended up a very wealthy man.

The Milepost is the indispensable guide to Alaska, and it noted there were two osprey nests along the side of the road. There was a big one, empty when we came by, that supposedly had originally been an eagle’s nest, but the smaller one was active. Obviously the bird thought some home improvement was in order.

The scenery was lovely. The hills were gently rolling, even with the debris of placer mining all along every stream. There had been enough time that much of the debris was being reclaimed by forest. Lots of blueberries.

One thing about placer mining was that it took enormous amounts of water not for the hydraulic shoves and to operate the steam engines of the mills. The Davidson Ditch was one solution to this. For about half of the 90 mile journey it was a traditional canal/ditch, but it needed to transit elevations higher than its source. It used pipes as a siphon for the other half, also using them to transit hills. This is a remaining part of the ditch showing both an above ground pipe and where one end of the pipe goes into a hill. Interesting efforts for the first big pipeline construction in Alaska! Built in the 1920s, it operated until 1952. Parts were used in a hydroelectric plant from 1958-1967 when a flood closed the plant.

The scenery was lovely. The rain foreshadowed what we would get today.

As always in the wilder parts of the north, there are other engineers hard at work. I wish I had kept some sense of scale for this beaver dam. It was at least 5’ high! There are beaver ponds all over the areas we have driven both in Canada and Alaska.

The “ditch” disappearing into a hillside

We had a late breakfast at an old lodge along the road. The place was called the Chatanika Lodge, and I recommend it. Talkative folks, and family run. The roofs and some walls are covered with $1 bills. It is a “thing” to staple one to commemorate your visit.

The next day we visited Pioneer Park, an historic theme park run by the city of Fairbanks. Interesting place. It had lots of historic mining artifacts including one repurposed into a fountain.

Remember how I said it took a lot of water to mine? Without diesel engines, even the shovels were operated on steam. Lots of wood and lots of water.

After the mining history area, we went to the art museum. I fell in love with this wall quilt! The sign says it was Ree Nancanow and is a gift from the National Park Service. What artistry!

There is another part of Pioneer Park called “Frontier Town”. It is devoted to old structures originally in Fairbanks that have been moved to the park. A few are reconstructions, but most seemed to be the original buildings. Some have small museum displays inside, some are now offices or food establishments, while others are not open to the public. Here are a tiny fraction.

The Palace Hotel was an imposing structure with rooms. A bath could be had for 50 cents!

Kitty Hensley was a major player. She owned both a paddle wheeler and a mine. Look at that fancy two story place. I think the one next to it was a brothel. To put it mildly, they weren’t situated next to each other in their original locations!

There was also a transportation display. The Nanana is not in the best of shape, but you can still see how big these boats were. They were filled with cargo plus pushed barges with mining supplies up and down the river for years.

The Nanana plied the rivers for many years

And of course there has to be something about the railroads!

More transportation examples were found in the parking lot. Pioneer Park allows RVs to spend a night (or few) in their parking lot, and there was quite a collection. Big fifth wheels, nice Class A and Class C rigs, a few trailers and vans. And then there were these folks who look like they are staying a while. There are grills out, chairs, tables, and at least one of the vehicles has a flat tire. At least they have a safe place to stay.

We went to Santa’s Workshop in the afternoon. Since our campground is in North Pole, Alaska, that is required! Can’t show anything there because there were, perhaps, some presents bought! Next door is the “Reindeer Flying Academy” with a nice herd of reindeer. Expensive to go in the pens, but the picture outside is free!

We are in Fairbanks through tonight, then we head to Denali. We are attending “The Famous Salmon Bake” tonight with the caravan. However previous attendees had said we should order the prime rib, so we will be doing that! We are also going to a show. Both are in the grounds of Pioneer Park. I will post about that next time.

First two days in Fairbanks

One thing about an RV caravan is that they will keep you busy! We arrived on Sunday after a pretty nice drive north west from Tok. On Monday we started the day heading to the Riverboat Discovery for a fabulous cruise. The boat itself was interesting.

It was a BIG boat! I missed the rear paddle wheel in the picture

They had a full production at the shore too

A previous incantation of the “Discovery.”

We had been warned the best view was on top and the left side, so that is where we sat. Kevin and I chose the covered top seating while some of our group chose the open seating. We got a fun demonstration of a seaplane take off and landing.

We cruised by an abandoned shipyard. Shipping is why Fairbanks was founded. It was as far as the riverboat supplying miners could make it. There was lots and lots of river travel since the area is so forested and remote. Rivers were the highways of the times.

We paddled past Susan Butcher’s famous dog sled training camp. She won the Iditarod four times in five years, only the second woman ever to win the race. She is a legendary figure in the dog sled world. Though she died in 2006, her husband and daughter continued her work. Her daughter Tekna and some of the other folks gave us a fabulous demonstration of how the dogs train and play.

Into the river for a cooldown after racing

I know videos are a pain to watch here, but take the trouble to click on this link to see (and hear) the dogs in action. They are having fun!

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After the dogs, we visited a recreated Chena native village. The docents were all natives from the area, and they talked about life before and after Europeans arrived. We saw a group of reindeer they let out each day, conveniently just as the riverboat comes by.

A convenient t group of reindeer, the domesticated version of caribou

The fish wheel is still used to catch salmon and other fish. We were shown how they were filleted, dried, (tall tent roof structure), and smoked (large wooden structure). A cache to store food is to the right of the smoke house.

Note the fish wheel and post-European contact tents

We got off the boat to have more direct presentations by the docents. The trapper cabin was recreated in a very traditional style.

We were shown examples of the numerous fur-bearing animals the natives used in their daily lives by a young woman sitting at the entry to a cache cabin. Cabins were a post-European concept when the natives stopped being nomadic.

Indigenous woman sitting at entry to a cache for storing items over winter next to an indigenous cabin

There were examples of more traditional shelters too. Sorry I didn’t get a good picture of the fur-covered structure. It was done like, made with steamed north limbs. It was used as longer-term housing for families. The spruce limb shelters were for hunting camps.

Traditional hunting party shelters with a birch bark canoe

This ride was a true class act, and I would highly recommend anyone in the area to attend!

After the boat ride, we had dinner at the dining area associated. Not bad – beef stew, roasted veggies, (slightly stale) rolls, brownies. The managed the crowds of a few hundred very efficiently.

After a lunch in the motorhome, we regrouped to go to the Ice Museum in downtown Fairbanks. It is one of those oddities that are locally interesting. It is run by an ice carver, and our tour started with seeing how the ice is harvested and cut by renowned carvers every year. Then lights were turned on to show a bunch of carvings that had been done. People were invited inside to take pictures and even slide down the ice slide! Sorry I didn’t get a better picture, but here is Kevin sliding. Really, it is, trust me!

The second day here was also fairly full. We took a bus trip today to the Gold Dredge #8, a National Historic Landmark. Another fabulous trip. The first thing you see on the grounds is part of the Alaska Pipeline. The exterior you see is an insulation jacket around the pipeline itself to protect the permafrost.

Isolators to protect against an 8.5 earthquake

A “pig” used to scrape gunk off the interior of the pipeline

Much of the pipeline is underground, but just under half is above ground.

When we got past the pipeline, we boarded a cute historic train that would take us to the dredge. I can’t believe I didn’t get any pictures of it! The ride was interesting in and of itself. We had a musician who joined us as we were boarding.

He’s been playing on the train for almost 30 years

The train took us through some left over areas.

There was a steam engine they operated to show how the carts of ore from drift mining were moved from the mine to the processing facilities.

Steam was blowing as the car moved through its paces

While hard rock drift mining was done in some places, the bigger claims used placer mining from the streams. The dredge dug the shore with its big shovel, grabbing the rock into the buckets on the right. Then the buckets dumped the rock into a big grinding facility that eventually moved the rock through filters that captured the heavy gold while moving the waste rock to the chute on the back to the thrown out. It was very effective and an absolute environmental nightmare. There are piles of placer waste rock thrown into huge rows all through the area.

After being shown the outside of the dredge (no one can go inside), we went to a spot to pan gold for ourselves! We had a demonstration, then everyone was given a small sack of “pay dirt”, a pan, and a big wash pan full of water. The gold we found we could keep, and I made a whopping $8! Kevin made $12, and we paid them to put it in a small locket attached to a magnet. It is a total racket because almost everyone paid way more than we made in gold, and it was great fun.

Afterwards the bus took us back to the campground for a bit so people with pets could deal with them. We then went to the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska. Nice museum, but smaller than I expected. They showed two interesting films though. One was about the methods faculty, staff, and students use to find and recover fossils in Alaska. There are huge fossil beds that have disgorged hundreds of finds. Many are dinosaur fossils, but they also discussed the plant fossils and how those are discovered. The second move was about Auroras, and I finally understand what makes the light and colors! Well done.

Our next two days were free of planned group activities. I will cover what we did later.

The road from hell (or Yukon Territory to Alaska)

We left Whitehorse on 30 July to head to Destruction Bay. The scenery was as lovely as anything we have seen. The place was a construction depot during the build of the Alaskan Highway. One night a massive chinook wind of 60+ mph came through and basically destroyed all the tents near the lake where the crew stayed, therefore the name! The campground was Destruction Bay Lodge and RV Park, but there wasn’t any lodge any more. The RV park was a gravel parking lot on a sloped hillside, but they had solid 30 amp power and the best views we have had from any campground plus NO BUGS.

There are 16,000’ mountains trying to hide in the smoke haze

Gorgeous mountains with the Kluane River below them

Trumpeter swans are making a come back in Tetsin National Wildlife Refuge

Our campground in Destruction Bay looking towards Kluane Lake

Destruction Bay campground looking to the mountains

We left early the next day to get to Tok, AK. We had been told by many people including our wagon master that this would be the worst stretch of road we would be on. Everyone was right! It started out deceivingly mild, and I rolled along at the 90 kph speed limit for a while, but then the frost heaves, pot holes, and unbelievably rough road began. I have drive roads as bad as this, but never for as long. The bad part was perhaps 100 miles, and it was truly awful. Most of it I drove at 50 kph (35 mph), but I routinely dropped down to 20 kph. It was a long, long day. We took very few pictures since we were just concentrating on the road surface, trying to anticipate the next nastiness. As we got to the US border the road temporarily got better, but it didn’t last!

The US border patrol confiscated my eggs, but I wasn’t surprised. It was a brief stop. We took a picture at the “Welcome to Alaska” sign, but I can’t find it! Just as well because the welcome was the worst road yet! The US, in their infinite wisdom, used asphalt for the road after the border station, and it was the wrong choice for permafrost. The tar and rock used in Canada was much easier to repair, but the asphalt was pot holed the worst I have ever seen, and I have driven on I-40 west of Flagstaff, my precious bad example. The permafrost made massive ripples that went on for hundreds of feet, and the frost heaves were huge!I ended up traveling a lot of it at 15 mph! Ugh. When we got to Tok, I basically collapsed. It took a total of 7 hours to drive the 225 miles from Destruction Bay to Tok. Hardest driving I have ever done.

After Tok, we enjoyed continuing to drive , now mostly along the Tanana River. This river is HUGE, and it flows through a very large valley in numerous braids. The river is a major resting spot for migratory birds, and much of the area is protected in the Tetlin National Wildlife Preserve.

There is an awful lot of water heading to the Bearing Sea.

Delta Junction is the official end of the Alaska Highway, so we got the mandatory picture.

We continue following the Tanana until we got to the Fairbanks suburb we are staying in – North Pole, AK. The ride was much easier, though there were still occasional frost heaves especially along the musket areas. I also finally got a good picture of the skinny trees that were so common. I am pretty sure they are a variety of hemlock., but feel free to correct me! They get quite tall, but the limbs are very short.

The land of skinny trees. Blow up the picture to see many more across the pond.

We are now in a really nice campground in North Pole, AK, Riverview RV Park. It is north of town in a quiet area. There are all kinds of things on the schedule here, so expect a lot of pictures coming up.

Whitehorse

We stayed at another tight campground in Whitehorse – Pioneer RV park. Not only were the sites narrow enough that we couldn’t open one of our slides, but the power was flaky. Thank goodness we didn’t need much AC! If I stayed again, I would just use one of their dry camping spots which were more spacious. Whitehorse itself is a nice town though. It is the majority of the entire Yukon Territory population, so it has lots of restaurants and shopping.

Our first group activity on arrival on Tuesday, 26 July, was a dinner out on by the caravan staff. The RV park had a nice meeting room for such activities. It was a break from cooking. The next day we started early with an entire set of museums beginning with the S. S. Klondike National Historic Site. I have mentioned how a group does have some advantages, and this was one of them. The ship is undergoing renovations, and most people can only see it from shore. We got a ranger-led tour of at least the outside of the boat in an otherwise restricted area. Fabulous old boat, the last of the really big Yukon River boats that opened up the territory.

We then continued to the MacBride Museum with some really nicely done exhibits about the local history including mining and fur trapping. There was a nice Robert Service area too, the famous Yukon poet. They even had Sam Magee’s cabin, though we discovered the real Sam Magee wasn’t from Tennessee and wasn’t cremated “on the marge of the Lake Labarge”. Instead he was a local figure active in mining and early Yukon/Whitehorse history. If you don’t get the quote, go read Service’s poem “The Cremation of Sam Magee.” We then went to the Yukon Transportation Museum and the Beringia Museum. Beer Gia is the name for the non-glaciated area that included parts of the Yukon during the last Ice Age. It included the land bridge from Asia, and was a refuge for the mega fauna of the age.

“The little engine that did.” Cute little narrow gauge mining engine.

For dinner, we ate at the famous Klondike Rib and Salmon restaurant. It deserves it’s reputation. I had the salmon and Kevin had ribs, and both were fabulous. The roasted vegetables were particularly tasty!

After dinner we were beat, so it was early to bed. The next day was a free day – unplanned by the caravan. That meant we were able to take a very lazy start to the day. I went to Bear Paw Quilts – “Compassionate Care for the Quilting Addicted.” They had a large number of north country fabrics including some fabulous batiks; I bought 3 one meter lengths!

After having lunch and a nap, both important tasks, we decided to do some last minute sightseeing. Miles Canyon is one of the places that complicated river travel in the Yukon. The river is squeezed into a volcanic canyon with shear rock walls. It generally required an overland by-pass. While my picture lacks scale, the walls are 10-15’ above the water now, and in historic times before the dam was built in Whitehorse the river was 20+ foot below the top of the walls. It was a beautiful place.

The dam in Whitehorse was a serious obstacle to the very important salmon fishery, so a fish ladder was built. These aren’t that unusual these days, but it was the first one I had seen in person. Sadly the salmon weren’t running. I bet it was be fascinating to see the climbing the ladder!

There is also a boat lock next to the dam on the short opposite the fish ladder. It is under reconstruction though and not in use.

The river itself is sometimes wide and braided, and sometimes fast and wild. The volume of water is huge, and it moves quickly. It is easy to see how challenging it was for the early riverboats to traverse it.

We spent 3 nights in Whitehorse, and there was definitely more to see. It would be a nice place to come back to. We had to do a lot of housekeeping tasks like laundry and shopping which cut down our time in the community.

Today, Friday 29 July we took off for Destruction Bay and Destruction Bay RV Park. We had been told the road was bad, but it wasn’t bad at all! A few frost heaves and a fairly long gravel area with a pilot car, but it wasn’t a challenge. Tomorrow we go to Tok, AK, and supposedly that road is awful! We will report our experiences on that in a day or two. We change time zones again, but I am hoping my AT&T and Verizon hotspots start working again! Being with very limited service is tough for putting pictures up which is why there are so few.

From Dawson Creek to Ft. Nelson to Liard River to Watson Lake

I finally have decent cell service so I can post. It has been quite a while. I finished the last post with us in Dawson Creek at the Northern Lights RV Park. One thing I didn’t do was post the mandatory photo of us at the Mile 0 sign. This isn’t the tourist version which is much more grand and located a few feet away. The folks who took our picture thereput it on a photo sharing site and I haven’t had enough service to download it! This will have to do.

After we left Dawson Creek, our wagon master started warning us of seriously deteriorating road conditions. Let’s just say that he has a much different view of bad roads than we do! A few frost heaves, some pot holes, but I have been on much worse roads. We ended up in Ft. Nelson at the Triple G Hideaway. We just spent the night there after a fairly long trip, and it was nicely unremarkable. The road to Ft. Nelson was the most productive for animals of our trip so far though!

I like this because of the water drops, not because it was the best picture I took of her

Thought it was a grizzly, but a naturalist friend this is another black bear

We found two small nursery herds of woods bison. It is a subspecies of American bison – larger and native to the high forests instead of the plains.

The babies were already losing their red coloring

Part of a herd we passed while they were grazing

One of the not so pretty parts of the drive was the man camps we still came to. These were used for the petroleum and mining industries. Interesting.

There have been lots of these throughout Alberta and BC

The next morning we headed to Liard River and the hot spring there. The scenery was the most spectacular we had seen, full of rocky crags and big rivers.

We went through the Stone Mountain area, hoping to see some Stone sheep, a subspecies of dall sheep, but we didn’t see any. We did see even more gorgeous scenery though.

I wonder why they call it Stone Mountain?

I saw the most spectacular debris field of stones too, either an avalanche path or an alluvial fan.

Well over a mile long with rocks the size of baseballs

Liard Hot Springs was sadly a wash out. The mosquitos were thick enough to carry off small children, and we stayed happily back in the motorhome, looking at the hundreds of mosquitos trying to get in. They drove the cats crazy trying to chase them. The campground was a private one right across the road from the hot springs, and they had a boil order for their water! Glad we always keep at least a 1/2 tank, just in case.

After Liard we headed to Watson Lake and the Northern Lake RV Park. It was right across the road from the famous signpost forest. There are thousands and thousands of signs.

We also attended a decent planetarium like show at the Northern Lights Center. There was an old film (2020) about how the Big Bang created the universe plus descriptions of various components of the universe. Dated, but decent. Then there was a much better show about the Northern Lights. I have seen the northern lights as both general green color in the sky (in Iowa, far south of most of the shows) and as green moving blobs outside Ely in northern Minnesota. I hope to see the ribbon style before we head home, but between my early to bed style and the daylight that lasts forever, it isn’t a sure thing at all.

Today we drove to Whitehorse, YT. The roads are gradually getting slightly worse, but still not too bad. I generally drove about 80-90 mph, or 50-55 mph (the speed limit was 100 mph or 62 mph). It was slow enough I could react to the occasional bad spot in the road and do sightseeing without spending forever. I admit, I do have a bit of a lead foot! We saw some lovely places.

And yet more fireweed because I love fireweed!

We just relaxed when we got to Pioneer RV Park. Very crowded sites and poor electrical infrastructure. We can’t open one of our four slides due to a small tree, and the power fluctuates enough to make operating AC and any other power hungry appliance problematic. Luckily we are quite capable of dry camping without much trouble. The people with the big all-electric coaches can’t even operate their stove without electricity. Thank goodness for propane!

I thought I would post a picture of how Minnie travels, just for grins. Luna generally sleeps on Kevin’s lap.

We had dinner at Klondike Ribs and Salmon. Fabulous! I had salmon, and Kevin had the ribs. I will post what we do during our stay here later.

Dawson City and the Alaska Highway Mile 0

I hadn’t planned on posting again so soon, but our wagon master says we may have a few days of extremely limited or no cell service.

We arrived in Dawson City late yesterday. We are in the Northern Lights RV park. Pretty nice with level sites, but it is what I euphemistically call “satellite friendly” – very few trees. It is fine because the weather has been mild with highs around 80 and lows in the 50s. I was going to paste our obligatory Mile 0 photo, but the guy who took them hasn’t sent it to us yet! Hard to believe the army built >1500 miles of road in the wilderness in only 8 months!

We started the day with a nice buffet breakfast and a presentation by the local visitor bureau chief. We got our certificates saying we just started the Alaska Highway, a pin, and a few other tourist goodies. This type of thing is one of the good things about traveling in a caravan; this isn’t available for regular travelers. Next to the visitor center is the only remaining old wooden grain elevator. There used to be a string of them from Alberta into British Columbia along the train tracks, but the others were torn down when better storage methods were invented. Still an impressive building, and it now has a nice art museum in it.

They also had lots of flower gardens, and you may have figured out I enjoy taking pictures of flowers.

After the breakfast, visitor center, and art museum, we visited a fabulous historic park run by the local historical society. They had a few dozen buildings either brought to the site or recreated based on historic information. It is interesting g to think that just over 100 years ago there was nothing here.

This shows probably 1/3 of the buildings

This house was built in the 1920s and lived in until 1966

And a sign about how far north we are is that the peonies were blooming in late July!

After the fabulous pioneer village we went to another Alaska Highway historic site, the historic Kiskatinaw curved bridge. It has a wooden structure, and it was in use until 2 years ago when a landslide compromised its foundations. Some people walk across, but Kevin decided a short stroll was plenty far! The construction of this single bridge took as long as the entire rest of the highway – 8 months.

We also saw our first moose of the trip. Sadly he or she had met a vehicle and lost. It must have just happened before we drove by because the carcass was very fresh without any birds at it at all. This is an unusual sight. Most of the time a car hits a moose they both lose.

We take off tomorrow up the road to Fort Nelson, BC; Liard, BC and the hot springs there; Watson Lake, YT; and then Whitehorse, YT where we will stay a few days. I will keep taking pictures, but I don’t expect to post until we get to Whitehorse.

Jasper area

After our boondock parking at the Columbia Icefields, we went to a very nice KOA outside of Hinton, AB and just north of Jasper National Park. We spent some time in the town of Jasper, and I like it much more than I did Banff. Fewer people, interesting atmosphere, and really good food!

We enjoyed the architecture of the town – very British with additions of more modern style. Here are a few.

Provincial government building with modern addition

We ate lunch at a fabulous downtown upscale restaurant called “The Raven.” I had macaroni and cheese with onions and ham, and it was the best I have ever had. Note to self: grilled onions add a wonderful sweetness to Mac and cheese! Kevin had breaded tenderloins that were gluten free. The breading was made from seeds, and it was very good also.

And then we went back to Jasper, almost to the Icefields, to see the things you just can’t see from a motorhome.

And braided rivers below the glaciers and snowpack

This one captures so many things about Jasper National Park

And this was one of my favorite waterfalls. Note the guy in red, center left.

See the braided river with the purple flowers along the shore

We took the following pictures on the way back to Hinton. Still in JNP.

All that melting ice and snow flow into rivers that widen into lakes

We left the Hinton KOA today for an almost 300 mile trip to Dawson Creek, mile 0 of the Alcan Highway. It was an easier drive than our wagon master said it would be, at least for us. We are used to smaller state highways and a bit rougher roads than those who stay primarily in resorts. We transitioned from the Rocky Mountains to foothills to the Alberta plains. The foothills are heavily forested, and logging is the major industry. As we moved to the plains, oil and gas became the largest industry, though we still saw quite a few logging trucks and huge piles of logs in various locations. We crossed into British Columbia just before we reached Dawson Creek, so I haven’t formed any impressions yet.

We did see our very first grizzly bear, or at least Kevin did. We had stopped at a roadside pullout to take a break, and this big boy was grazing in the ditch next to the roadside. As we pulled up, he started moving away, but Kevin got enough of a picture of him to see it was a grizzly. I always prefer a nice long distance between me and grizzlies!

We are here in Dawson Creek two nights, then we have three travel days in a row.

More on the Icefields area

The last post was getting pretty long, so here is more of the Icefields tour.

We were brought to a staging point by regular tour buses. Then we were moved to the ice buses. Obviously they are very unique. Top speed is about 10 mph, but they have 400hp engines that generate 4,000 pounds of torque!

A 32% grade was a challenge even for these behemoths

Very little was level. In this shot, the level is the Icefields Centre in the back. The glacier extended that far in historic times!

Athabaskan glacier from where we were dropped off

Two unrelated glaciers not fed by the Icefield

Closer view of one of the orphan glaciers

Being a bunch of old farts, people were walking pretty gingerly on the slick, slushy surface. Anyone interested (which was pretty much everyone!) got a drink of the fresh, cold glacier water.

And did I say something earlier about waterfalls?

The truly adventuresome could sign up for a walking tour on the ice with a specialized guide. The guide provides coats, hats, gloves, walking sticks, and crampons. For some reason, none of our group chose to do this! The guides are important because their are deep crevasses.

After a remarkably quiet night in the parking lot, we took off to head to our next spot the other side of Jasper. More on that later.

Rocky Mountain House and Columbia Icefields

We stayed at a lovely campground called Riverview a few miles outside Rocky Mountain House. Fabulous place! It is right on the Saskatchewan River, though only a few campsites have a good view; we weren’t one of them! Big grassy sites that were quite level for grass.

After the exhaustion resulting from the Calgary part of the trip, we took it easy for a while. We did visit Tim Horton’s (great sandwiches) and Canadian Tire, both staples of Canadian life. We got to have a special activity at the Rocky Mountain House National Historic Park which I would like to spend more time. Rocky Mountain House was the westernmost big trading post for the Hudson Bay Company. There are actually four historic forts on the grounds, or at least the foundations are there. We just stayed at one end though, doing our activity (making moccasins by hand with Pendleton Wool blankets!), then spending far too short a time at another exhibit. There were docents everywhere, and we enjoyed the presentations about the Métis in the area.

Models of the Red River carts used by the Métis and others in the country, resting on a bison hide.

They also had an enjoyable presentation about the music of their community. It was a combination of Scottish/Irish jigs with overtones of indigenous dancing – similar movement to jigs, but quieter with less pronounced foot movements. The Métis were persecuted in the later 1800s, and they were not permitted their language and dancing, but like most such groups, they just hid their actions and kept going.

The historic site was filled with lovely wildflowers.

We we’re headed to the Olympia Icefields the next day, but we were advised that most of the scenic pullouts aren’t big enough for motorhomes, so we drove the road in the car up and back. It was a great idea even though it was rainy part of the day. I think the sky and clouds gave a very gothic look to the mountains. We did see one bear by the side of the road, a two year old that was pretty skinny.

The sun and rain alternated the entire day.

Glaciers were numerous, and the melt from the snowfields and glaciers fed waterfalls everywhere we looked.

“Weeping Wall” where water comes out of cracks in the rocks

Distance view of a waterfall showing the scale

Close up of the previous fall.Full drop that hits a ledge and goes airborne before falling again

And of course there were wildflowers!

We then moved our rolling caravan to the Columbia Icefields for a overnight in the RV parking lot! Obviously dry camping without any hookups, but the views were impressive. We also took a ride to the Athabaskan glacier fed by the icefield on a specialized bus with MASSIVE wheels! Here is what the tour looked like from a distance (pictures taken before our trip).

The tiny dots in the last picture are the people in the first picture.

I think the pictures from the Icefields tour deserve their own post.