| Saturday, August 21 -– Vancouver to Cobble Hill No matter how nice it is to go away on a holiday, it’s always nice to come home. If we could only get there! More... | Friday, August 20 -– Hope to Vancouver Throughout the trip we’ve been amazed how little traffic there’s been. We’d heard stories of every 2nd vehicle on the Alaska Highway being an RV. More... |
Thursday, August 19 -– Barkerville to Hope Before we left today, we couldn’t resist another visit to the Wake Up Jake Restaurant. And after that, the boys wanted to pan for gold. More... |
Wednesday, August 18 -– Barkerville When we left Barkerville three years ago, one of our regrets was that we hadn’t had breakfast at Wake Up Jake’s, an historical restaurant that also figured in the story, Moses, Me and Murder!, that we had read before that trip. So you’ll never guess where we went for breakfast this morning. More... |
| Tuesday, August 17 -– Chetwynd to Barkerville Today was our Big Drive – 525 kilometres from Chetwynd to Barkerville. The air conditioning in the car has been acting up - sometimes on, sometimes off. Today, it chose not to go on at all. More... | Monday, August 16 -– Dawson Creek to Chetwynd We took a detour today. Our original plan was to drive to Prince George, but at the Visitor Centre in Dawson Creek, we decided instead to go to Tumbler Ridge. More... |
| Sunday, August 15 -– Fort St John to Dawson CreekMost of the day was taken up in a side trip to Hudson’s Hope, location of the WAC Bennett Dam on the Peace River. I had seen the dam being built on a holiday with my parents in 1963. It was amazing to see the finished product. More... | Saturday, August 14 -– Fort Nelson to Fort St John We got lost today! On the way from Fort Nelson to Fort St John is a side trip to Sikhanni Chief Falls. We dropped the trailer at a turnout on the highway and started up the gravel road. More... |
| Friday, August 13 -– Fort Liard, NWT We made a side trip today to the Northwest Territories. Looking back over the last five weeks, it’s hard to imagine that we’ve covered 9,000 kilometres in B.C., Yukon, Alaska, and now the Northwest Territories. More... | Thursday, August 12 -– Muncho Lake to Fort Nelson A few years ago, the BC government set aside the Muskwa-Kechika, a 4.4 million hectare wilderness area. Known as the “Serengeti of the North”, it’s the largest intact, unroaded wildnerness area south of the 60th parallel. More... |
| Wednesday, August 11 -– Watson Lake to Muncho Lake We gave our trailer a bath this morning, its first since we started the trip. Nice and clean, we left Watson Lake only to hit a gravel section. Fortunately, it wasn’t too dusty and the trailer still looks respectable. More... | Tuesday, August 10 -– Whitehorse to Watson Lake Today would have been Anne’s and my 30th wedding anniversary. Before leaving Whitehorse, we went to Miles Canyon, just a few minutes’ drive from Sue and Larry’s place. More... |
| Monday, August 9 -– Summit Creek Hike Our friends Sue and Larry were made for the Yukon. They are outdoors people in every sense. Whether it’s hiking or biking, running or cross-country skiing, canoeing or kayaking, they spend most of their spare time enjoying the incredible beauty of the outdoor activities here in the Yukon. More... | Sunday, August 8 -– Whitehorse This morning, we walked on the marge of Lake Leberge, made famous by poet Robert Service: “The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, was that night on the marge of Lake Leberge I cremated Sam McGee.” More... |
| Saturday, August 7 -– Stewart Crossing to Whitehorse By staying at Stewart Crossing and just doing the Silver Trail as a day trip (our original itinerary had us staying the night in Keno City), we made up the extra day we spent at Denali National Park. More... | Friday, August 6 -– Silver Trail I’ve hinted a couple of times about my previous gold panning experience. In 1969, when I was 19 years old, I took a summer job between 1st and 2nd year University with United Keno Hill Mines. More... |
| Thursday, August 5 -– Dawson City Each time we go to another display providing more details about the Gold Rush, or the geology that creates the circumstances for a gold rush, more pieces of the puzzle in understanding it seem to fall into place. More... | Wednesday, August 4 -– Dawson CityLast night was cold, the first night we’ve needed blankets, and I turned the heat on in the morning. But by mid-morning it was shorts and t-shirts again. More... |
| Tuesday, August 3 -– Tok to Dawson City Although the distance from Tok to Dawson City is only 300km, this grueling drive took 6 hours plus stops. The first half is along the Taylor Highway, a misnomer in our minds. More... | Monday, August 2 – Fairbanks to Tok The University of Alaska at Fairbanks has a fantastic Museum that we visited this morning. Relatively small, it can be thoroughly covered in about two hours. More... |
| Sunday, August 1 -– Fairbanks Following Mass this morning, took a day trip, first visiting a viewing station for the Alaska Pipeline, one of the largest pipeline systems in the world, and from an engineering perspective, one of the most complex. More... | Saturday, July 31 -– Denali National Park to Fairbanks Today’s trip was nothing short of spectacular. Denali National Park is a 6-million acre wildlife and wilderness preserve. More... |
| Friday, July 30 -– Denali National Park After breakfast, we left for the Climb Denali show, still basking in our own experience of Denali. The Climb Denali show was an hour long talk and narrated slide show. More... | Thursday, July 29 -– Talkeetna to Denali National Park The flightseeing companies send up planes on weather flights, to see where they can fly. It was no better than yesterday. More... |
| Wednesday, July 28 -– Talkeetna The bad weather we experienced in Anchorage has followed us to Talkeetna. This was the day we were to have taken the flightseeing tour of Mount McKinley. More... | Tuesday, July 27 -– Anchorage to Talkeetna Undaunted by yesterday’s rainout, we drove the 60 miles back to the Portage Glacier cruise terminal. Actually, we phoned first to make sure the cruises were sailing. More... |
Monday, July 26 -– AnchorageWe got rained out today! We were planning to go on a boat to see the Portage Glacier but we got there to find that a storm had blown in, making travel on the lake impossible. More... |
Sunday, July 25 -– Matanuska Glacier to Anchorage Imagine walking on a glacier! That’s just what we did today. Unlike the Columbia Icefields between Banff and Jasper, where you ride a special bus right onto the icefield, you have to approach the Matanuska Glacier on foot. More... |
| Saturday, July 24 -– Tok to Matanuska Glacier Lotsa driving today. About an eight hour drive, with six hours of actual driving interspersed with stops. More... | Friday, July 23 -– Kluane Lake to Tok Lotsa driving today. About an eight hour drive, with six hours of actual driving interspersed with stops. More... |
Thursday, July 22 -– Haines to Kluane LakeIf I don’t write this Journal, sort the photos, and get the website ready each day, it soon gets out of hand and I have to run a marathon to catch up. More... |
Wednesday, July 21 -– SkagwayAfter witnessing the desperate conditions of many men arriving in the Klondike, the NWMP superintendent set a minimum requirement of a year’s supply of food and equipment for anyone entering Canada, which translated into roughly a ton of goods. More... |
| Tuesday, July 20 -– South Klondike HighwayDavid, Patrick, and I drove into Whitehorse mid-morning to get an oil change and wash the car. The car is now clean, while the trailer is still filthy from the Cassiar Highway. Locals say they can always tell from which direction a traveler has come. Dirt from the Cassiar. More... | Monday, July 19 -– WhitehorseWhat a treat not to have to drive today! And to be able to sleep in! Sue and Larry’s place in about 10km from the city centre. We drove into the city in the early afternoon to see the McBride Museum and the S.S. Klondike. More... |
| Sunday, July 18 -– Watson Lake to Whitehorse Our day started with Mass at St Ann’s Mission in Watson Lake. It was a small church, seating 60, maybe half full. More... | Saturday, July 17 -– Iskut to Watson Lake “Gravel begins northbound. Narrow, winding road with potholes and washboard next 26 km.” You don’t look forward to these entries in The Milepost. More... |
| Friday, July 16 -– Meziadin Lake to Iskut Rain continued to fall this morning. We left the trailer at Meziadin Lake and drove the Glacier Highway to Stewart – Hyder, about a one hour drive. More... | Thursday, July 15 -– Terrace to Meziadin Lake There was a good RV service centre in Terrace, so we dropped the trailer to have the rear stabilizer replaced. In the meantime, we drove to Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Park. More... |
Wednesday, July 14 -– Prince Rupert to Terrace As we were unloading from the ferry last night, the ramp was at an unusually high angle, presumably because it was low tide. One of the stabilizer bars at the rear corner of the trailer didn’t survive the bump as it hit the ferry deck. More... |
Tuesday, July 13 -– Inside Passage As we approached the ferry terminal on a two-lane road, we were greeted by a sign advising “Ferry traffic stay in centre lane.” Never did figure that one out. More... |
| Monday, July 12 -– Courtenay to Port Hardy We spent the morning on the beach. The boys turned over rocks in search of little crabs, collecting them in a bucket until the novelty wore off. Letting them go, I watched as the boys sent dozens of them scurrying off in all directions. More... |
Sunday, July 11 -– Cobble Hill to Courtenay Late in leaving by about three hours, we finally started… and promptly stopped. More... |
40 Days on the Road!
Thanks for joining us on our trip - we're going to cover over 7,000 miles during the next 42 days. Realizing that most of our family and friends will never have the opportunity to make this trip, we wanted to offer this website to you. By following along with us, we hope that you'll be able to share in our experience of it.
On the left is a map of the route we'll follow. On the right are links that you can click to see each leg of our journey, in the order that we'll be driving them.
A day-by-day journal is below; a little snippet of each day's experience is followed by a link to the page with "the rest of the story."
Enjoy!