Yukon Ho!

More animal sightings; we’ve seen dozens of caribou and buffalo/bison (not sure which; guidebook says bison and warning signs along the road say buffalo).

We’ve made excellent time and are now in the Yukon! We’re sitting at an RV park somewhere on the way to Whitehorse and “borrowing” a wireless internet connection we found that belongs to someone nearby named Rick. Thanks Rick!

Tomorrow we have a 300 km drive to Whitehorse, where we’ll likely stay for the rest of the day, and the next day we’ll reach Dawson City, our final destination!

So far the drive has been spectacular. Amazing mountains, caribou just wandering in the middle of the road in packs of 2 to 6, strikingly blue mountain rivers and lakes, and more extremely remote highways. We’re learning a lot about the construction of the Alaska Highway (which we’ve been travelling on since Fort St. John) and I can’t imagine having been a pioneer forging the way here, breaching the northern Rocky Mountains on foot or on horseback. It’s hard enough to drive this route, and we have hotels, restaurants, and RV parks to take a break in…it would have been a rough life, but I’m sure those people had amazing experiences. The pictures of the mountains here were taken from the truck as we drove at full speed. I think I'm getting good at drive-by shootings (ha ha).

We almost had a truck towing a big trailer hit us head-on earlier today. He was driving towards us normally and then jerked violently towards our lane and back again, and then seemed to have trouble regaining control of his vehicle. The road looked fine and we couldn’t figure out why he did that – maybe he was falling asleep? We both got a big adrenaline rush from seeing him coming towards us like that, and I think Mark was ready to put our truck into the ditch in order to avoid a head-on collision. Whew!

We also saw another pickup truck towing a large travel trailer catch air with the travel trailer’s wheels by hitting a large pothole at full speed. I bet that guy woke up in a hurry too. The highways up here are not to be taken lightly and we are both constantly watching our speed and the condition of the road, as well as keeping an eye out for wildlife.

That’s about it for now – we’re looking forward to Whitehorse and Dawson City!

Alaska Highway

***FURTHER UPDATE BELOW***

I'm sitting in the Visitor's Centre in Fort St. John, listening to an irate German complain to the counter staff about a "dental emergency" that they must get fixed TODAY because tomorrow is impossible for them apparently (it's 2:30 pm - have you ever gotten in to see a dentist with two hours warning?). They're yelling at the poor girl and making her call every dentist in town and in the next town over, too, in order to get them in to see a dentist, and it's NOT working - poor girl. They're also asking her medical questions and comparing Canadian dental practices to German ones, as if the girl cares.

Meanwhile, Mark is sitting next to me calling every service station in Northern BC and the Yukon, looking for a new part for the truck (again). It's not essential, but we really should get it fixed sometime. We'll keep driving with the problem but it will mean slightly worse gas mileage. Ah well.

We've had a few adventures, and I don't know where the road will lead us after today, but time is short and we must get to Fort Nelson tonight, if possible! I'll write more later - gotta get on the highway again.


***EVENING UPDATE:***

Halfway there!

As I type I’m sitting in our Boler in Fort Nelson after a long day of travelling from Hudson’s Hope, with a pit stop (literally) in Fort St. John.

To date we’ve had numerous sightings of each of the following: Big-Horn Sheep, Stellar’s Jays, foxes, black bears (eight in one afternoon!), moose, deer, and the largest darned black birds I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure what kind of birds they were, but they were black, and they were birds, so that’s what I’ll call them.

The truck and the Boler have both provided some fiascos. The truck has been to the shop three times since we left Victoria, and we’ve ordered a needed part that will be waiting for us in Prince George on the way back down, so that’s at least four times in the garage before we make it back home. Nothing that forced us off the road, mind you, but foolish worrisome things. The Boler out-did the truck by deciding to detach from the trailer hitch, at 100 km an hour, in the middle of the Rocky Mountains south of Dawson’s Creek. Like, four hours south of Dawson’s Creek, but five-ish hours north of Prince George, and not a whole lot of anything in between. We went over a strange and extremely bumpy area of pavement and poof! The Boler was emitting sparks and grinding down the road on its soft underbelly. We pulled over and had a little freak-out, but everything was actually pretty much fine thanks to our handy-dandy safety chains! I love safety chains. I watched for traffic as Mark re-attached everything and put an extra ratchet strap over the hitch to make sure there were no repeats. Then I nearly threw up. We’re pretty certain it was a fluke of our speed (too fast), the road (too bumpy in exactly the right spacing), and something to do with a fundamental frequency (Mark said to say that). Even still, the extra ratchet stays on and we’re planning on installing a larger tow ball at some point so that it’s a tighter fit. Here's a shot of Mark re-attaching the Boler in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

Passing trucks made the Boler visibly sway - not a good time to be underneath it, according to Mark!

In spite of all those fiascos, we’re actually making decent time and there have been lots of fun parts. We’ve seen some spectacular vistas and weird sights, like the gas exploration rigs, which shoot flames out the top and are in the middle of the wilderness. This part of the country is so remote – there is nothing on the highways between little towns except the occasional wide area on the shoulder with complementary litter barrels. You can drive for hours and see no sign of civilization off the highway at all – just trees, mountains, rivers, and an extraordinary abundance of wildlife.

There’s a chance we’ll hit the Yukon tomorrow, but I have to double-check my maps. It’s still a long way off! Canada’s big!

More later. Time to relax and rest up for tomorrow’s drive.

Day 4: Prince George

I'm sitting in Mark's brother's house in Prince George and Mark has just left to collect our truck from the mechanic. Yes, that's right, car trouble! The best part is, our car trouble started 15 minutes into our three week road trip.

Damn!

When we left Victoria we noticed almost immediately that when the truck was idling it was making some pretty intense "vroom vroom" racing noises. I was not so happy. We pulled in to a garage on the way to the ferry and even though they were booked up until 5:30 that evening (it was about 9am) once Mark mentioned that we were on our way to Dawson City, the mechanic's eyes lit up and he started telling stories about how he used to live up in the Yukon. As a result, someone was literally peering into our engine within 2 minutes of our arrival at the garage. (Thank you thank you lovely garage employees!) Their diagnosis was that the engine wouldn't be destroyed if we kept driving, so we kept driving. About 400 km later the "service engine soon" light came on. A harrowing 400 km after that, we arrived at Prince George and finally put the poor truck into the shop. I was waiting with baited breath for the diagnosis, which turned out to be: there was a piece of plastic in our something-or-other assembly, which thus had to be taken apart, emptied out, and re-assembled, and I blame the "mechanics" who did an oil change for us less than a week ago. You know how your car is great, then you take it to the shop for some innocent reason, and then every other part of the engine breaks down after the mechanics are done with it? What's up with that?

In any case, car trouble aside, our trip's been pretty decent up until now. We haven't been covering any new territory yet, as we've been to PG before, but starting tomorrow it's all new. We'll be heading out of Prince George and the next destination will be Whitehorse. Yay!

So far the weather's been passable, with the notable exception of today's fishing trip. To get to the fishing spot we had to drive 20 minutes out of town, 10 minutes down a nasty dirt road, then hike about another 20 minutes down a VERY rough, steep, overgrown, wet path in the forest with two cliffs that we had to use ropes to transverse, and then another 15 minute hike down an uneven rocky riverbed. We finally made it, dogs and all, and the boys (Mark and his two brothers) fished for a while and cought NOTHING. Not a bite. They had fun anyway though, and we started hiking back to the truck.

Some lovely dark clouds had rolled in while they were fishing, and once we got into the forest (did I mention already that it was a very steep, very muddy, very wet path?) it started to rain. It was an absolute downpour and even under the cover of the trees we were soaked through almost immediately.

Then we lost the path.

As soon as that happened, it started to hail.



It wasn't fun any more at that point. Mark's younger brother had a run-in with some Devil's Club and ended up with some nice welts on his arm, and the rest of us really weren't doing that much better than him. We luckily found the path again before anyone started panicking and finally climbed, sopping wet, into the truck - which at that point started smelling like wet dog, sweat, and a few other things. The dirt road was pretty mucky on the way out thanks to the storm but it felt lovely to sit inside the cab and not be rained on.

As soon as we reached town, the skies were blue and the rain was gone - go figure!

Anyway, the journey continues tomorrow, with our fixed-up better-than-ever truck. I don't know whether we'll set a distance goal tomorrow or just stop when we want to - probably a combination of both. We'll have to put some serious mileage behind us each day until we reach the Yukon though, or we'll run out of time.

I'll put some pictures up when I get a chance. I'm not sure when I'll have access to the internet again but I'll try to collect some good stories to tell you.

Off we go, into the unknown!

Vacation approacheth

Our Yukon trip is exactly two weeks away.

We don't have an ironclad itinerary and we like it that way. We'll leave Victoria on Saturday and plan on arriving in Prince George on Sunday afternoon/evening to spend some time with Mark's brother Matt and his family.

Really, other than that, nothing's concrete. We're hoping to eventually make it to Dawson City and spend a few days there. I'm sure adventures will find us on the road whether we plan them or not. What do you think we can count on? Hmm...coffee shops...bears...deer...immature photographing of suggestive signs or random objects...we're hoping for some northern lights. Lots of hiking and of course camping in the Boler!

Oliver is ready for his northern trip:


And before you say anything amusing, don't. He gets so cold he shivers on cool summer nights, so extra warmth is a necessity for him. He weighs six whole pounds, has got almost no fur, almost no body fat, and therefore, he's accumulating a wardrobe. So just shuddup about it, okay? No, I'm not sensitive about it. Are we gonna have to stop talking to each other, or are you gonna change the subject already? Fine.

we bought "The Milepost", which is literally a mile-by-mile guide of northern BC, Yukon, and Alaska. (Do you say "The Yukon", or just "Yukon"? I'm not sure. And also, "Dawson City", or just "Dawson"? I'll tell you after we get back.) We've been leafing through the guide and I'm sure it'll come in handy as we travel.

Should be fun. I'm too tired to feel excited about it though - it was crazy at work today. Maybe tomorrow.