By Toni Parks, Fairbanks, AK
We just moved from Reno to Fairbanks, Alaska. Our great adventure was traveling the Alaska Highway. We started our adventure off by camping in my cousin’s yard in the wilderness near Cranbrook, BC. They are currently building a home and sleeping in a fifth wheel themselves.
View from the road
The skies were clear when we pitched the tent. We chose not to place the rain fly on the tent we borrowed from my cousin. It seems we had lost the pole to ours somewhere along the way. We were awakened during the night by wind and rain drops. If you’ve ever tried to put the rain fly on a strange tent, in the dark, when the storm has already begun, it is a lesson hard learned and a true test to a marriage.
We would find out that rain was to be a theme during our trip but on the couple of nice days we did have, after reaching the Alaska highway, we saw masses of wildlife. The inventory to the best of my memory is 1 fox, 2 eagles, 2 BEARS, 6 caribou, 7 moose, 2 deer which seem to be strangely a minority, 6 mountain goats, and bunches of wild bison. There is a price to pay though. It seems that road maintenance is kept to a minimum in Canada and the harsh weather takes a toll on the roads. On some of the rainy nights along the way, we stayed in a cabin, and in a bunkhouse. Hotel rooms were hard to find and expensive when they were available. We stayed in a hotel in Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory and enjoyed the little town. As usual, the weather did not cooperate with my desire to fish or float the Yukon but we did have a nice halibut dinner there. I can tell you that the last stretch of road between Whitehorse and the US border, you will not see wildlife unless it runs right in front of you because you will be too busy trying to dodge the holes, dips, and peaks in the road. This is, by far, the worst stretch.
The travel was long, the weather was bad, but looking back at this great adventure my husband and I took together, I wouldn’t change a thing except I would allow even more time to see more sites, fish the rivers and lakes, and talk with the people. If you go, be sure to visit the information center in Watson Lake at mile 0 of the Alaska Highway.
