Sitting here in Eagle Plains, Yukon tonight. We drove down from Inuvik today – a day that started bright and sunny quickly turned harrowing. Weather up here changes in a heartbeat and the bright blue transitioned in minutes to glowering grey with heavy rain melting the dirt roads into slick greasy mud. The van was slipping and sliding all over the place. I was hanging on for dear life – then the fog closed in and we couldn’t see further than a few feet ahead of us – but far enough to see a fellow crawling out of the mud at the side of the road.
His motorcycle had tossed him then tipped end over end, landing 30 feet down the cliff. He was very beat up but keeping his priorities straight. His baby was at the bottom of the cliff and could we help him drag her back up? So we got out our towing equipment and got to work. I would have given up after five minutes but it was a guy thing I guess. He and Steve worked at it for an hour and finally dragged that sucker – a HUGE BMW up the cliff and onto its feet.
So we are now calf deep in mud and the mosquitoes are drilling holes through our jeans and I am so miserable I am using the f word in relation to how much I want to be off this damn road – Dempster Hwy to be specific.
How exactly do they classify these dirt tracks as “highways?” Don’t highways have to sport centre lines or dividers or streetlights or asphalt? Does a load of muddy gravel on top of a swamp make a highway?
Oh well. The fellow started up the motorcycle and damn if the thing didn’t rev to life. In the meantime another fellow with a truck had stopped by and he loaded the guys gear. The “guy” got on his bike and we all drove the 70 km to Eagle Plain, the closest thing to civilization in this part of the world.
So here we are at the roadhouse – hot food, hot showers and the sun is once again blazing bright and blue. The mossies are back in full strength – but I’ve got a screen between me and then. I am sitting in the lounge of the roadhouse – yes, they have WIFI. It seems to be the one thing you can absolutely count on in the middle of nowhere. Cell phone service, virtually never. But WIFI absolutely.
So, last night, sitting at the end of the world in Inuvik in Canada’s Northwest Territories I put together a catch-up report. As always, full reports with photos will appear on the website in due course, but for now, here’s a sketch of where we’ve been in the past couple of weeks.
The first stop is Denali National Park – but I must tell you that enroute, we met Santa Claus at a truck stop on the Park Highway.
I asked, him, “Is this what you do all summer, Santa?”
“Yup. And when I’m not trucking up the Haul Road I live at the North Pole.”
“He really does,” his buddies chimed in. And so he does. There is a town up here called, North Pole. Later we actually stopped by for a look.
On to Denali National Park – the superlatives are simply not big enough to describe this six million acre wilderness park of massive mountains and glaciated valleys. Mount McKinley, the continent’s highest peak is the headliner for sure, but it’s no big deal if she hides her face 20,000+ feet up in the clouds. The Alaskan Range with its plethora of 15,000 foot peaks many with polychromatic facial structuring, ancient glaciers pouring into sweeping valleys of braided waterways ...well, it’s all more than enough to keep your face glued to the window, mouth agape.
The “Green Bus,” as they call it, is how you actually see the park. A road has been pushed 95 miles in, scattering campgrounds and interpretive centres through the early miles. You pay for how far along the road you want to travel. We went to Mile 85, Wonder Lake, and it cost $40. If you are content to go only as far as the campgrounds before Mile 15 the shuttles are free.
The other option is to pay for the deluxe tour on the tan bus - $139. Apparently this pays for cushier seats, an onboard toilet, and a “themed” narration. We liked our green bus just fine. School bus seats they may have been but I was so enthralled with the view that over the 11-hour trip in and out of the park my butt never complained. Our driver was Gloria, a retired lady who has been driving this bus for 14 summer seasons now. I asked what her “retired-from” job was. She was support staff at the US Antarctica base every winter until last year. Cool, eh?
Her narration may not have been “themed,” but it was colourful. She’s lived in the area all her life and is a bit of a park addict. She has been trying to cut back the number of bus tours she does each week but says that she can’t go more than a few days without a wander through her backyard to see what is new.
We did see wildlife, eight grizzly bears – some with cubs, caribou, Dall sheep, and moose. But in most cases the wildlife were so far away from the road you needed binoculars.
Actually, we’ve had several other travelers over the past month mention that the lack of observable wildlife in Alaska is disappointing. We are wondering if it is because there are so many big guns about – seems like every ATV you see at the roadhouses have big rifles strapped to them. We even saw floatplanes with big rifle cases welded to the wing struts. Wherever there is a sign on the road, no matter how remote, there are large gauge bullet holes to prove someone was there.
So while I don’t doubt there is a lot of wildlife in Alaska, it does keep its distance from the road.
The exception was a recent night – which also involves guns. Out here everyone just pulls over to rest areas and dry camps. In fact, the visitor centres encourage you to do it. So there we were, pulled over at a rest area, top popped up. About 11 pm we turn in. As we do I hear three rifle reports. Not too close, but we are a considerable distance from anywhere and we had not seen anyone so it is a bit discomfitting.
Nearly asleep, we are jerked awake by another rifle report, this time VERY close. Steve looks at me, “Are you going to be able to go to sleep?”
“No.”
We hop out of bed and into our socks. Drop the top and put her in gear. We are so out-of-there. Yahoos with rifles give Canadians the willies.
So we are driving down the road at midnight – it’s not dark, more twilight like. We have to go about 100 miles to a proper campground. It’s a beautiful drive. In the first hour we see eight moose. One of them, a great huge hulking bull charges out of the bushes, directly into our path. Fortunately we miss him.
But back to Denali. They are very well organized there with the campgrounds and the shuttles taking you into the park and also to their big new interpretive centre, the science and research centre, the mercantile centre, the dog kennels, and the Wilderness Access Centre. The “WAC” as it’s called is where you book your bus trips into the park, sign up for escorted walks/hike, pick up maps and book backcountry trips. They tightly control how many people are tripping through each sector of the park as the whole focus of the organization is to protect the wildlife and keep it wild.
We really enjoyed it. Staying at Riley Creek Camp near the entrance of the park we could either walk anywhere or take a free shuttle. No need to drive.
I must mention the dog kennels. Denali is closed to the public from mid-September till sometime in May. Exact dates are dependant on the snow. Once that starts flying the rangers patrol the park and ferry supplies to remote outposts with dogs and sleds. Apparently it is absolutely the most efficient and reliable way to travel in the winter. So the kennels with their breeding and training programs are an important part of managing the park. The public is welcome to meet the dogs and watch a demonstration.
Denali was also very cold – probably the coldest we have been on this trip.
That includes the next highlight of our trip, the drive from Fairbanks to Deadhorse on the Arctic Ocean. That was another 750 km trip up and over the Arctic Circle to the high Arctic. The road is called the Dalton Highway or more familiarly the “Haul Road”. The road shadows the Alaska pipeline was built to service the pipeline and haul everything needed up to the oilfields at Prudhoe Bay.
The Dalton is a challenging road to drive – more gravel than not and lots of mud in the rain. Which it did. Inexplicably, they were also watering some sections of the road, exacerbating the greasy conditions. We could only reason that some guy has a contract to water the road to keep the dust down and no matter how much rain was washing down the pipe that fella was going to fulfill his contract and pick up his paycheque.
We’d been told two things:
1. the dust is gonna choke ya
2. the bugs are gonna kill ya
So we duct-taped the back of the truck shut. With nothing but rain and muck all this did was frustrate us every time we needed something from the back of the van.
And the bugs? I’ve attached a photo called “White Man Dancing” that shows Steve at work with his electric tennis racquet. Enough said.
At the end of the road is a town called “Deadhorse”. No explanations for this but none really required either.
It is a town unlike any other – strictly a service centre to the oilfields which you can see in the distance - behind high security.
I needed a few things so asked if there was not a store of some kind.
“Ah ...yeah, sort of. When you leave here take two rights, one left, another right and you’ll see it.”
“What is it called?”
“Not called anything.”
“How will I know it’s the store?”
“Well, everyone knows where the store is. Well, I guess YOU don’t. It’s a big two-story blue building. The hardware is in the bottom, other stuff upstairs. The post office is there too. Come to think of it, might be a post office sign on it.”
So off we went and after a few false turns found a two-story blue building with a post office sign on it.
Not much of a store I can tell you and a thin roll of paper towels cost me $2.39.
Probably because all the people who work at this end of the world do so on a two-week rotation and while they are here everything they need is supplied for them. They eat in mess halls, sleep in company-provided housing, most have clothing and outdoor gear and vehicles supplied.
The only thing you’d need a store for is if you forgot your shampoo at home.
The big companies have their own housing and mess hall facilities but for those that don’t there are two hotels.
We parked our van at one and with some other travelers we’d met enroute enjoyed the mess hall buffet. It was prime rib night and it was more than excellent. As well: poached salmon, fresh asparagus, turnips, baked potatoes, rice pilaf, spicy home made tomato soup, a full-on salad and bread bar and a lot of other stuff that I’ve forgotten. The dessert cooler was stacked with pies and puddings and cakes. The beverage “room” had everything you could think of – except alcohol. The area is 100% alcohol free and bringing anything up is a firing offence.
Our cost for dining “in” was $20 each.
The next morning we headed out on the “Arctic Ocean Tour.” This is run by the hotel and is the ONLY way you can actually dip your toes in the Arctic Ocean. This is because the ocean is at the end of Prudhoe Bay, which is behind the security lines of the oilfields. We had to supply our passport information 24 hours in advance so we could be cleared, then show our ID every time challenged – which was several times.
The tour was $38 and consisted of our tour guide – a fellow who had been working security up there for 30 years giving us a talk about what it is like to work and winter over at Prudhoe Bay. Then he showed us a propaganda film produced by BP and Phillips Petroleum that explained how ecologically responsible they are. Eventually we all boarded a bus for a drive around a few of the oil fields – no getting out, but it was interesting to see what these things actually look like. The oil being pumped out here goes directly into the big pipeline we’ve been shadowing since Valdez and from there down to the US. Takes the oil eight days to make the trip to Valdez.
Eventually we get to the Beaufort Sea, also known as the Arctic Ocean. About a dozen of our fellow tourists strip down to their BVDs and jump in. Didn’t seem all that cold but we restrained ourselves nonetheless and confined our immersions to hands and feet.
So there you go – the top of the continent.
Now, turn around and drive 750 km back. Fortunately the landscapes are magnificent. Everything I thought Alaska would be.
Our next venture into the great wild wilderness across the “Top of the World” Highway and back into Canada, then up the Dempster Highway to Inuvik. This is one bumpy road with so many potholes there is NO way to avoid them. And drivers are rude, back here in Canada.
On our way up the Dalton Hwy everyone, particularly the truckers observes a road etiquette that requires you to slow down when another vehicle approaches and ease on past each other very slowly. As a result, we manage 1500 km on the Dalton with no windshield or body damage.
One day on the Canadian Dempster Hwy with its pedal-to-the-medal drivers and we have two big cracks running up and across our windshield. Before we started this trip we were warned and I told Steve to just figure windshield replacement into the cost of the trip but I can tell you, between the cracks and the chips and the mud and the shaking apart, this van is no longer new.
But we are ABSOLUTELY having a blast.
