Before the trip: All three of my brothers had been to Alaska when they were young. Bill made the trip with our grandmother (Bug) in 1956 when he was 14. Our grandfather had died in 1955 and Bug decided she wanted to go see Alaska. Her sisters, Ardis Green and youngest sister (Dutch), along with Dutch's husband and daughter (Doc & Judy) were talked into going along. Bill went along too. As he put it, "They asked me, for what other reason I don't know, but they ask me to be their tent putter upper and wood gather/fire builder. Kinda like their squaw I guess..." They traveled in two cars and spent their nights camping – sometimes in deserted log cabins. Ted and Lloyd (a.k.a. Pinky) made the trip in 1965. Ted was 29 and Pinky was 19. Their trip was made in a Volkswagen Bug, and was also a camping affair.

I had listened to all three of them talk about and compare their adventures over the years and wished that I might also have the experience of seeing Alaska with its wealth of scenery, animals, and being a bird watcher – birds.

I had expressed the desire to take an Alaskan trip to Mary on many occasions, but she wasn’t as warm to the idea as I was. I think the key word there is "warm". With limited vacation time, I thought a great way to make the trip would be to find a like-minded couple, rent an RV, and buy two round-trip airline tickets from San Francisco to Fairbanks. My thought process was that one couple would drive the RV from home to Fairbanks over a two-week time frame. The other couple would fly up to meet them, exchange the plane tickets for the RV key and each complete the round trip in half the time it would take to drive up and make the same drive back. Essentially, you see the same scenery… just from different directions. It would also fit a vacation schedule easier.

I thought about that trip using that method for about 25 years… From time to time I would mention it to friends and they would just look at me as though I was a little "touched". Then I retired and I realized my vacation time had expanded considerably. However, Mary’s thinking about how cold and miserable a camping trip in Alaska could be, never wavered. In 2002 I announced that if she didn’t want to go I was going to go alone. I mentioned it to Lloyd, and his response was that if I would wait until the following year he would go with me as he planned to retire by then. So I put it off until 2003. When Lloyd and I talked to Bill he came back with the answer that he was going to wait for a few years until his wife retired. She wanted to go, but had that vacation problem.

During the winter of 2002 Lloyd and I emailed back and forth about the route, how long, what direction, where to camp, new ideas, and anything that would pop into our heads. As you might know, sometimes the plans for a trip can be almost as much fun as the trip. Just as the memories afterward can be fun. Each time we emailed back and forth we sent a "Cc:" to Bill. In 2002 all three of us had purchased new pickups. Lloyd bought a bright red Toyota Tacoma 4WD and a nice camper shell. I bought a forest green Toyota Tundra 2WD. Bill bought a Ford-150 4WD – also with a nice camper shell. As Lloyd and I sent our plans back and forth we also did some subtle maneuvering to try and get the other guy to commit the use of his new truck. My subtlety was mentioning how a 4WD might be better for the roads and terrain. I also pointed out the fact that the camper would allow us to store our gear more safely, and the better gas mileage in the smaller version of the Tundra. Lloyd would respond with comments such as the roominess of the cab and the fact that there was a back seat. In reality, neither of us wanted to put 10,000 miles on our new trucks in a 3 or 4 week time frame.

As the time drew near, Bill finally decided to join the journey. All of the courtesy copies of the emails had finally done him in. He immediately solved the transportation problem when he said he would work on some things to make his 4WD Chevy Blazer ready for the trip. There were some minor problems that he had to look into. I don’t remember exactly, but getting the brakes fixed and the fact that it had a starter problem seem to ring a bell. He was also going to work on some storage racks to help haul our gear. Anyway, we laid the final plans to rest, decided to wait until the Fourth of July holiday was over, and leave on July 7th from Lloyd's house. Bill left his house in Santee (near San Diego) and arrived in Vallejo to complete some work on his Chevy Blazer. After stopping in Vacaville to pick me up we continued north on I-5 to Merlin, OR.

July 7, 2003. After spending the night we left Lloyd’s house at 6:45 a.m. and traveled north on I-5 to just short of the BC border where we took a "short-cut" to Lynden, WA. My thinking was that at a less-traveled location it might be quicker to get through rather than the I-5 border station. (Wrong!) The Canada Customs & Immigration experience was a little strange. A lady customs officer asked us if we had any firearms (No). Did we have any alcohol or tobacco products? (No) Did we have any pistols? (No) Did we have any beer? (No) Did we have any ammunition? (No) Did we have any weapons? (No) Did we have any liquor? (No) Did we have any rifles? (No) Did we have any cigarettes? (No). Did we have any pepper spray or mace? (Yes. I guess that one caught us off guard.) Bill had some pepper spray that Denise had sent with him to ward off bears. Because it was small enough to be concealable, we later had to turn it in after the interrogation. Then she proceeded to ask the same basic questions again about alcohol, tobacco, firearms, ammunition, pepper spray (still a yes on that one) and mace. I thought that maybe her recording was stuck. When she was satisfied that she had put us through the inquisition long enough she then asked us what we would use for protection? This was a great straight line but I resisted, because I wanted to get across the border and really begin the Great Adventure. Then she sent us to a parking area where they searched all of our possessions while we went in the office to turn in the pepper spray. Eventually we got onto Trans-Canada 1, and continued north – our adventure officially beginning.

We stopped at a Subway Sandwich shop in Hope to buy foot-long sandwiches and soft drinks. This came to $21 and change (Canadian). We each ate half of our sandwiches and then continued traveling. We stopped near Thompson-Nicole, BC, and finally, after 653 miles the first day went to bed on the side of the road about 10:15 p.m.

July 8. We got up about 6 o’clock, packed our stuff, and had breakfast. Breakfast consisted of cold cereal and milk. This would be our typical breakfast throughout the trip. About the only thing that would be different would be the name of the cereal, as we would finish a box and open a different kind the next day. We were on the road by 6:45 and headed toward Prince George, BC

I was driving, and I passed a house on the right that really looked neat. I continued to drive for a couple of miles as I mulled the thought over in my mind. Then I did a U-turn and went back to look at the house. (I only mention this here because I have included a picture in the photo album. The house was accented with pine logs that have been diseased causing knobs and burl-like material on the trunks and branches. The railing, posts, planter boxes, mail box, and other items were accented with the wood. It really looked great and we all took several pictures.)

It started raining about noon as we neared Williams Lake. We stopped to put a tarp over the roof rack to keep things up there dry. At Pr. George we looked for a small pot to use on our stove for heating water, as we couldn’t find a suitable sized one in our camping gear at home. We also bought some ice cube trays. It might seem strange to take ice cube trays to Alaska, especially since we had decided to do no drinking on the trip and didn’t need ice in our cocktails. The reason we wanted them (or anything with small compartments) was for sorting coins in. All of us had planned to update our Canadian penny, nickel, dime, and quarter collections. Throughout our travel in Canada we would stop at a bank or a store and swap rolls of coins that we had sorted through.

Leaving Pr. George, we changed to Provincial Hwy. 97 toward Dawson Creek and continued heading north. We stopped several places along the way, and at one location a fisherman from Saskatchewan (eh?), who I naturally struck up a conversation with, told us that if we were interested in seeing wildlife we should bypass Dawson Creek and take Hwy. 29… At Chetwynd, we took the detour that led us past some lakes and pastureland. The guy was right. We saw 16 bucks, 25 does, 3 moose, 1 bald eagle, and an osprey over a distance of about 75 miles. At a viewpoint with a picnic table, we stopped and ate the other half of our Subways and took in the view while there was no rain. Back again on Hwy. 97, just north of Ft. St. John, we stopped at 11 p.m. on a side road that had a large turnout behind some bushes that hid us from the main highway a little. We rigged the tarp, as it had been raining on and off since about noon, and went to sleep beside the Blazer. We had covered about 648 miles. It rained on and off throughout the night.

July 9. We packed, had breakfast and were on the road by 7:30. We saw brown bears, beaver, deer, stone sheep, and at Muncho Lake experienced our first $1 per liter gasoline. (About $2.75 U.S. per gallon.) Up until this time the gas prices in Canada had been about 72 – 84 cents per liter.

It had rained most of the day, but not hard or heavy. It would have been a different trip had the road been dirt and gravel as it was in 1956 when Bill made the trip with Grandma Bug, Dutch, Doc, and Judy (Bug’s youngest sister, brother-in-law, and niece) or Ted and Lloyd on their trip in 1965. As it was, it was nice to be on a wider, straighter, paved version of the Al-Can highway. We stopped about 60 miles short of the Yukon border at a side road that went a couple of miles through a tree-lined dirt road to the Smith River Falls on the Smith River. The road was a dead-end that ended near the falls. There was room to camp and an outhouse, so we figured that with an improvement like that we better call it a day as it was about 9 p.m. anyway. We ate another "half" Subway sandwich that we had bought in Fort Nelson, set up the tarp, and went to bed.

July 10. Up at 4:30, we packed, had breakfast (such as it was), and were on the road by 5:30. It was a little foggy as we left the falls area and for a short while after getting back onto Hwy-97. As we got away from the river area the fog thinned, we saw a red fox in the grass by the side of the road. Shortly the fog lifted and weather was great. Then we saw a baby porcupine on a side road and turned around to get a few pictures of him.

At Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, we wandered through the Signpost Forest and found familiar names such as Napa, Santee, Vacaville, Vallejo, etc. Signpost Forest was started in 1942 when a bulldozer damaged a simple signpost pointing out the distances to various points along the tote road being built. Private Carl K. Lindley, serving with the 341st Engineers, was ordered to repair the sign, and decided to personalize the job by adding a sign pointing to his hometown, Danville, Illinois. Little by little other guys added signs pointing toward their home states or sometimes hometowns. Eventually, after WWII ended and people started braving the ALCAN to visit Alaska, they would add signs. Eventually, it escalated to people bringing stolen city limits signs or removing one of their car license plates and hanging it on a post. The "forest" is now listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest collection of stolen property in the world. We looked into a little gift shop that also sold small pieces of 1x6 about 8" long and had paint for people to put up a sign if they wished to do so. We didn’t, and I told the guys that I was going to walk down to the visitor’s center to charge my camera. After I left, the lady in the gift shop jokingly told Bill and Lloyd that she should have asked me to bring her back a cup of coffee – two sugars.

I found the visitor’s center at the far end of Signpost Forest and talked a lady named Joyce into charging my camera. I looked around inside and discovered some really interesting information about the building of the highway. Bill and Lloyd soon wandered in and we all continued looking around.

We talked with Joyce and another nice lady named Rhea. Joyce convinced us to participate in a promotion involving taking a "passport" to various towns and getting them stamped. All of the locations were museums or native cultural type of exhibits, and some of them were considerably out of the way from our loosely defined route. We decided that if we stopped at the locations along our intended path, we could at least collect stamps from any 6 of the sites and receive a souvenir poster. However, collecting four specific sites would result in entering the "Silver Challenge", and all twelve sites would enter us in the "Gold Challenge" as well. The "Silver Challenge" was a set of seven silver medallions worth $500. (About $375 U.S.) The "Gold Challenge" was three monthly prizes consisting of one troy ounce of gold worth $900. (About $675 U.S.) The grand prize was five troy ounces of gold worth $4500. (About $3350 U.S.)

Well, it didn’t take long before we collectively decided to explore the Yukon. As a result of Joyce’s sales pitch we set off to discover obscure places such as Teslin, Keno, Burwash Landing, Mayo, and Faro, as well as the places we had planned on our junket such as Whitehorse, Dawson City, and Watson Lake where we had started this particular adventure. Along the way, and as a result, we met a lot of nice people, learned a lot about the regions, the history, and the people of the land. Joyce also tipped us off about a different promotion involving visiting about 25 different locations for some other unobtainable prize. We half listened and then decided "what the heck" we were headed to some of those towns where the locations were anyway. The guys took a coffee and some sugar cubes with us and dropped it off for the lady in the gift shop and we again headed down the road.

From Watson Lake, and again at Joyce’s urging, we went to Skagway, Alaska on Hwy 2. Skagway is an interesting gold rush era town that has managed to preserve much of the flavor of the time. We wandered the streets, ate our Subway’s in the small park, and then drove up to the old cemetery to see where some of the infamous as well as some of the stalwarts of the early town were buried. Lloyd being a member of Odd Fellows, (IOOF) was always taking pictures of Odd Fellow Halls and old cemeteries fit into the theme for him. Besides, you can learn some things about the townspeople at historical cemeteries when they have plaques posted.

We pointed ourselves back to the U.S./Yukon border, and this time a young fellow greeted us and gave us a short, formal questioning about where we were coming from. I thought it was odd because there is only one place you can come from on that road: Skagway. When I told him that we had stopped there on the way through the first time just to make sure that they wouldn’t strip search us, he said that the shift had changed and he wasn’t on duty then. He checked our driver’s licenses for identification and then he explained that sometimes people take a ferry to Skagway and then drive from there into the Yukon. We then talked about how long he had worked at that location, where he was from, and if he had been sent to that outpost as a result of being new on the job. He said that he had requested it because it wasn’t a high volume spot and that he liked to be able to fish and canoe with his girlfriend on the nearby lakes and streams.

In short time we were headed back toward Carcross to a location we had spotted on the way in, figuring to spend the night. When we got to the gravel storage we didn’t notice the sign that said "No Entry." This was a fortunate ‘oversight’ as it was an excellent location and after 500 miles and 19 hours from when we hit the road at Smith R. Falls, I was a tired chauffeur. I don’t know why I stuck it out driving for the whole day, other then the fact that I like driving. The weather was great, the trip was leisurely, the scenery spectacular, and after some point around the 475-mile mark I just decided to become a martyr instead of a Marty.

It was also a little windy at this location, which was good, as the mosquitoes were dispersed by the breeze. We found a location sheltered from the wind after searching around in the almost darkness. Shortly after getting into our sleeping bags we were treated with a sight of the Northern Lights directly overhead. Lying on our backs, as we were, afforded a wonderful view. It started out looking like white "horse-tail" clouds, but quickly changed positions as they moved about. As they moved you could detect a faint greenish cast to them. It was quite a sight and lasted about 10 minutes. The perfect end to a perfect day, or maybe the perfect start of another perfect day as it was about 1 a.m.

July 11. Considering how late we were up looking at the Aurora Borealis, getting on the road by 9:00 a.m. didn’t seem too bad. As a result of my driving marathon the previous day, we decided to rotate every 2 hours or thereabouts. The driver moving to the passenger seat and the guy in the back seat taking the wheel. We also had a rotation going from youngest to oldest, but that sometimes fell by the wayside depending on how the coin search and sort was going. We almost always changed drivers on a regular schedule though. The weather continued to be nice and surprisingly warm. If it were not for a light breeze you could even say it was hot.

At Carcross, we stopped again at a visitor’s center. Some time ago the town changed the name from Caribou Crossing because the number of towns in Canada with that name caused the Canadian Postal Service some problems, resulting in delivery of mail to the wrong towns. There's also a Caribou Crossing in Alaska. (Popular name.) Next door to a small cultural center and, in addition to getting a location number for the second promotion, we saw some interesting relics of the past and learned a little history. We were also told that we might see a caribou herd if we drove up a mountain and looked around on the flats above. So… we decided to go look for caribou on Montana Mountain.

A few miles up the dirt road we came to a place where there was a rockslide, but we had been told to backup, (down actually), to the next road turning left up the hill. This would take us up and around the trouble spot and eventually reconnect to our road. Near the place where the road reconnected above the landslide we found the stone foundation of the gold company’s office and store. We continued up the road and were treated to spectacular views and eventually came to a place where a stream had been damned up for an old mining operation. There was a tiny wooden shack and some old narrow gauge tracks for mining carts. We drove a little farther, forded the stream, and drove along the side of the ridge just looking at the views. When we turned back we stopped at the shack and explored around a little, each of us voicing thoughts and questions about what it might have been like in the gold rush days.

We never found the elusive caribou heard, but we did see some small squirrels and some rock ptarmigan. When we got back to Carcross we stopped to give a report to the folks in the visitor’s center just to update them on things.

Still on Hwy 2, we continued until we got back on the Alaska Hwy, just short of Whitehorse, the capitol of the Yukon Territory. Whitehorse is not only the largest town in the Yukon, but about two-thirds of the population of the whole territory lives there. We visited the fish ladder but there were no salmon that far upstream yet. We also stopped at the MacBride Museum where you can see, among other things, Sam McGee’s cabin, and we stopped at the Old Log Church Museum. Both of these places were "stops" on the Passport Quest. A third location, the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery, was closed as it was past 6 p.m. so we turned north onto Hwy. 2 and headed towards Dawson Creek. Just a few miles up the river we stopped for the night near Fox Lake at yet another maintenance gravel storage location, ate our sandwich and went to bed.

These gravel storage locations are really great for this type of "camping." Most of them are fairly flat, and being cleared of brush, if you stay away from the edges there are fewer mosquitoes. Also, you aren’t in the dirt, so you can take off your shoes and climb into bed without tracking dirt in. We were careful to make sure that we went to sleep on the side of the Blazer facing the sun so that in the morning it wouldn’t wake us up too early by shining in our eyes.

July 12. In the morning we were surprised to learn that the sun not only doesn’t stay set for very long, but it comes up on the same side of the horizon. This caused us to laugh a little about what a strange experience it was learning about the simple things like sunsets and sunrises, as you get closer to the top of the world. Anyway, we had breakfast, packed, and were on the road by 8:00.

We stopped about 5 minutes later at a boat launch site on Little Fox Lake and took a swim (bath time). It seemed a little chilly at first, but I don’t think it was much cooler than Lake Pillsbury in the early summer where our family summer cabin is located. Suddenly, we heard a splash as though somebody had tossed a big flat rock in the water. A few seconds later we discovered a beaver checking us out. I think because we were neck-deep in the water it was curious to see what we were. Most of the people it sees are probably on the shore or in boats and he probably doesn’t linger long. This one hung around for about 10 minutes swimming in an arc around us about 50 feet away. Then he just sort of drifted off toward an island several hundred yards out; content to let us share his watery home.

At Stewart Crossing we turned onto Provincial 11, a dirt road that led us to Mayo, Elsa, and Keno. The population of The Yukon T. is only about 32,000 people, which is about one-third of Vacaville. (The size of the Territory is about 188,660 sq. miles, which would replace California as the third largest U.S. State by about 20,000 sq. miles.) And as I mentioned, about two-thirds of the population is in the capitol city of Whitehorse. I point out the small population to land mass because at the Visitor Office in Mayo, the information lady was a young girl named Tiffany that gave us a real surprise. She was just out of high school and we talked about the town, the area, her college plans, and the fact that her graduating class was about 6 kids. When we mentioned that the person responsible for sending us on a Yukon exploration detour from our Alaska adventure was Joyce, back in Watson Lake, she responded that Joyce was her aunt. Joyce had tried to convince us to go to Mayo because it was where she grew up, but we really didn’t expect to find members of her family. It was just one of those "you had to be there" experiences that make you understand that sometimes it really is a small world after all.

We didn’t stop at Elsa because it really was a bump in the road even by Yukon standards. The purpose of going on to Keno City was two-fold. One was the fact that the Keno City Mining Museum was a "Silver Challenge" passport stamp and the other reason was that just past Keno City is a working gold mine operation where you can try your luck at panning for gold if you want to. It is an actual working operation in a large creek with a huge sluice box. They dig the gravel upstream of the sluice with a front-loader, dump it into the shaker/sluice contraption and, over time, and work their way down the creek. The environmental requirements are such that they have to let the water drain into a pond and filter through a gravel dam to prevent sediment from entering the stream. The owners set out a few scoops of gravel from time to time and let visitors try their hand at panning. Our guide was a nice young fellow by the name of Todd Taylor. His grandfather had originally owned the claim and now he, his dad, and his brother work it. Todd pointed out that he mostly did the cooking, tours, and other chores around the place. About the only time he did any mining work was if the other two needed a hand. He invited us to do a little panning and showed us his technique. We all found tiny flakes of gold about the size of a pinpoint. There were only one or two flakes per pan, but it made us decide that we wouldn’t bother with any panning of our own for the rest of the trip. If that’s the best we could do at an actual working gold claim, what could we expect to find at just any old spot on our travels?

It was warm and pleasant throughout the day and we were glad we decided to still gamble on wearing shorts. However, there were a few sprinkles from time-to-time as we traveled. We stopped about 10 p.m. just north of Stewart Crossing and set up the tarp as it looked like it could rain during the night.

July 13. We were up early, ate, packed, and on the way to Dawson City. We stopped at the Visitors Information Center where I charged my camera battery while we talked. After we got some new coins we went to a grocery store and replenished our meager larder.

The Visitor Center for the Northwest Territories was across the street from the Dawson City office so we decided to check it out. We figured that as long as we were not going there we could at least find out about it. Half an hour later we turned around and headed north on the Dempster Highway to Inuvik, Northwest Territory.

Inuvik is about as far north as you could ever drive in North America until the road to Prudhoe Bay was built in Alaska after the discovery of oil on the North Slope. Actually, you can drive past Inuvik to a settlement called Tuktoyaktuk. (Like it looks: Tuk-toy’-ak-tuk. Once I learned how to say Tuktoyaktuk, I tried to slip it into as many conversations as I could!) You have to wait until winter when the ice bridges have formed on the rivers to get there by vehicle. The Dempster Highway is 470 miles of dirt and gravel with two river crossings by ferry. It was overcast with a heavy cloud cover and we felt certain we would be in for some heavy rain. The road mainly follows the ridges after about 50 miles or so. I think this was done for a couple of reasons, one being that the original trail was a dog sled run and it is easier for dogs to pull on flatland with fewer hills to negotiate. The other might be that the environmental concerns for the tundra region was such that they didn’t want to make a lot of cuts and fills just to straighten out the road. In any case, setting the length aside, the views of the country from the tops of the ridges are spectacular and it is a very pleasant drive.

Often we would find a reason to stop and look off into the distances, where there were views of rivers below as they wandered through the forested land. From time to time you could also see what appeared to be "stripes" in a straight line that would seem to go on forever, much like the kind of a cut they make for a power line right of way. However, there were no power lines or even reasons to have them. At one of the view locations there were some information plaques, one of which told about the lines. It turns out they are seismic lines that were used in the exploration for oil. Apparently a large machine is driven across the ground that sends out shock waves. The shock waves are then recorded and data is collected much like a sonar wave works in the water.

About 6:00 in the afternoon we reached the Arctic Circle (Latitude 66 degrees, 33 minutes). I say afternoon because until we get back to this location again the daylight will be such that it is perpetually daytime: Morning to noonish to afternoon back to morning again. About thirty minutes later we were at the Northwest Territories border. Shortly after that we came to Midway Lake. We were not certain what it was midway between, but someplace – that’s for sure. Our first opinion as we approached was that it was a lake that was used for ice fishing, as there were many small structures near the lake, some with roofs and some with tarps over them. Some looked to be large enough for several people. In fact it reminded us of the ice fishing shacks in the movie "Grumpy Old Men."

After driving off the road and down to the compound we discovered that they were actually small cabins or shacks. Most of them had doors, some of which were locked, and windows, most of which were covered with plywood. We saw a stage with a roof covering over it. The stage was about 10’ x 40’ with an uncovered area about 20" x 40" that looked like a dance floor or something. We figured we could set the cots under the roof on the stage and not have to worry about rain. It had rained in the area recently and had been overcast a lot during the trip up the Dempster. When we took a closer look at the stage we could see about a gazillion mosquitoes buzzing around.

We quickly decided that we were not meant for a life on the stage. On the three open sides of the dance floor there were bleachers. Behind the bleachers opposite the raised covered stage was a shack about 10’ x 20’ feet that looked like a snack bar concession booth. There was no door and no window covering over the "serving" window. We located the door and screwed it back onto the hinges that were still on the building. Then we found the plywood window covering, but had to prop it up on the inside because there were no hinges or screws. The improvements helped prevent mosquitoes a little because we set up the bar-b-q on the counter under the window and created a little smoke as we cooked some small boneless ribs.

We each had a rib sandwich that night and saved the others for the next nights. The smoke had driven almost all of the mosquitoes, but as we got into bed we discovered that the walls on the sides did not quite reach the roof. There was a wedge shaped opening from the front of each side that went from about 8 inches down to a point at the back. This was because there was a slight pitch to the roof, but they didn’t bother to plug the holes that resulted. Because of the 24-hours of daylight, we thought that being inside would help to make it a little darker, but the mosquitoes that decided to bunk with us caused us to pull the bags over our faces and make it not only dark, but stuffy.

July 14. I heard a lot of thumping and bumping on the wooden floor and woke up. Because it was light and, because Bill was packing his cot into the storage case, I deduced that it must be time to get up. When I voiced my epiphany, Bill said that it was only about midnight. It had started raining and there was a leak above his bed. He said to go back to sleep as he was going to sleep on the back seat of the Blazer. This left all of the mosquitoes divided between the two remaining sleeping bags. About half an hour later I again heard the thumping and bumping. I peeked out and saw Lloyd packing up his things. He said that it was now dripping on his cot, but I didn’t have to worry because there was no seam between the plywood sheets above me. However, that left me to feed 100% of the mosquitoes. About 15 minutes later I was storing my things in the back of the Blazer and grabbed the last empty seat - the driver’s seat. Because it was so light out and because of moving around and getting the blood flowing, I wasn’t sleepy. I told them that I was going to proceed toward the Peel River ferry landing near Fort McPherson. The ferry ran from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. I figured that if I just cruised along at 25 mph they could sleep or not as they saw fit. It was light enough to see things as the sun was above the horizon.

It would have been lighter except for the cloud cover that blocked out the sun. About 1:30 we saw two sandhill cranes on the side of the road in a marsh-like setting. I stopped and took a couple of pictures. We arrived at the ferry landing about 3 a.m. and proceeded to go back to sleep. At 9:20 I heard the throb of a diesel and woke up to see the ferry about one-third of the way from the near riverbank. Another ferry crossing on the MacKenzie River and we were almost to Inuvik – well, relatively speaking, as we were still 80 miles away.

I think as towns in that part of the world go, it was probably a little larger then we thought it would be, but it was still really just a small village.

We stopped at the visitor’s center, left my camera under the care of a pretty young girl to charge, and then drove to the city hall. Lloyd was at the wheel and he managed to run the only stoplight in town! We went to the city hall and picked up a free hatpin, and then to a drug store and bought some tee shirts, post cards, and other souvenirs.

After a drive around the town and a stop at an arts festival, we again returned to the visitor’s center to retrieve my camera. We found out that they had a free certificate that said we had crossed the Arctic Circle so each of us got one. We also learned a new word – inukshuk (sometimes inuchuck).

The word inukshuk means "something which acts for or performs the function of a person". The inukshuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for hunting grounds, or to mark a food cache. Essentially, an Inukshuk is constructed out of flat rocks. Although some might roughly resemble a man, it is not always the case. They might appear to have legs, topped with a rock that spans them and maybe a couple of more for good measure. They might have a small rock for a neck and then a larger one for a head. Although I don’t think they are supposed to be men, that’s what they resemble… sort of. Most of them are small, maybe 12 to 18 inches high. Some of them appear to have arms, but none of them are the same. After all, their building materials are not uniform. We never figured out exactly how the signposts worked, but they are interesting to look at.

It was about 4:30 p.m. and the girl at the center said it would take us two days to drive back out. We told her we would be back to Dawson City in about 8 hours. At one of the passes we stopped, cleaned out the ice chest, and packet it with new snow. Everything on the back bumper rack was covered in a layer of gray mud, including the interior of the ice chest.

Around midnight we took some pictures of the sun, which was visible through patches in the cloud cover. Lloyd took over as driver and Bill and I sort of faded out. I tried to stay awake to help Lloyd stay awake, but I just couldn’t do it. I guess we could have stopped and slept, but the unspoken consensus was to just keep going. Besides, we had boasted 8 hours. With the rain and overcast, plus the fact that we had been on the road going in the other direction just the day before it just seemed the thing to do.

July 15. Shortly after midnight, while Lloyd was driving and Bill and I were sleeping, it started to rain. This made the road a bit slippery in spots.,Because the Blazer was top heavy and overloaded from all the stuff we packed and were never to use, Lloyd slowed to about 25 or 30 mph. I woke up and decided that with the short nap under my belt, and the driving conditions as they were, I had better try and be some company for the driver. I’m not sure of the time, but at some point a ptarmigan jumped up off the center of the road and committed suicide, so we turned around and picked it up. It had flown into the grill and broken its neck. We decided that we could have road kill the next time we cooked. Because of all of that excitement we were all wide-awake, which was a good thing, as we soon saw what we felt for sure was a grizzly bear.

We arrived back at the junction of Hwy. 2 around 4 a.m. It was the next day, but only about 11 or 12 hours of driving. Of course it would have been faster had we not gone ptarmigan hunting. We decided to wash the blazer at the junction gas station, and while we did this, Lloyd cleaned the ptarmigan. We drove a few blocks back up the Dempster highway, parked, and went back to sleep in the Blazer. Shortly after 8 we woke up, took a couple of pictures of us standing by the Dempster sign and then headed back to Dawson City.

Stopping once again at the visitor’s center, we give them report’s on the highway and the things that we saw that impressed us. We didn’t mention that we had been hunting ptarmigan out of season with a Blazer. Some of the town people were dressed in period clothing including the Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman on a horse who was dressed in his formal dress-red uniform - the Mountie, not the horse. While Lloyd and Bill drove to the cemetery to look around, I walked around town taking some pictures of the old buildings and other things. Dawson City is one of the places that Jack London stayed and wrote some of his stories. Robert Service (The Cremation of Sam McGee, The Ice Worm, etc.) also lived there for a while.

From here we had to make another ferry crossing across the Yukon River and onto the "Top of the World" highway. This brought us into Alaska for the second time. We passed a little village with the quaint name of Chicken. It’s too bad we didn’t stop. It wasn’t much of a place, but several times on the rest of the trip we would hear something about Chicken. The entire road for the most part was dirt and gravel, but it was only about 160 or so miles. The scenery was still great and we were still having fun. We never seemed to run out of stuff to talk about, but if we did there were always coins to sort and animals to add to the list.

We rejoined the Alaska Highway (Hwy. 2) at Teslin Junction. We didn’t stop there then, and at the time we didn’t know it, but Teslin Junction would be the location of a story I would tell quite often that happened on the return trip. It is about a place called Mukluk Annie’s, but I’ll wait until then to get into it. From the junction we headed toward Fairbanks, stopping at Tok (Toke) to do a little souvenir buying and charge my camera. We arrived in Fairbanks pretty late, and because it was raining, did a little grocery shopping and then found a quiet location on the edge of town and slept in the Blazer again.

July 16. In the morning we shook ourselves out and headed back to the grocery store because there was a Jiffy Lube in the same shopping center. They wanted an arm and a leg for an oil change, so we went to Sam’s Club and bought some oil. Bill had brought an oil filter so we figured we could do the change for about one-third the price.

A stop at the visitor’s center to gather information and charge my camera made us decide to take a tour of the Fairbanks Pioneer Heritage Park. We spent a little time taking pictures around the Center, namely a "mile post" that signifies the end of the Al-Can Highway. Then after a quick orientation trip around the area we picked up my camera and headed to the Pioneer Park. It reminded me a little of the concept that Knott’s Berry Farm had in Southern California when they first put it together. Heritage Park consisted of old log cabins and other structures that had been resurrected from various locations - some of them after they had been damaged in a flood. I guess the various owners had decided it was best to donate them in lieu of going to the expense of trying to restore them themselves. There is probably not much that one owner can do with one cabin anyway. The Park has a small train on narrow gage tracks that give you an overview ride around the park. We were the only people on the train and we got two trips. I don’t know if that is the norm, but it allowed us to get any pictures that we might have missed the first time. Besides, the guide was cute and we could flirt with her longer. We then set out to look around by foot. Most of the buildings had a plaque that told about the original location, use, and owner, as well as the date it was built if known. In this setting most of them were gift shops, craft shops, art shops, food shops, and almost anything you can think of that could be found in any other theme park. I assume that the rent goes to helping the park survive.

In addition to the souvenir shops, there were museums and displays of gold rush era and mining equipment. There was a museum with gold rush era stuff and as I signed in I noticed that the previous couple was from Vacaville. I looked around but I never did locate them. I figured it would be a hoot to find them as I was wearing my KUIC jacket and was prepared to tell them that I had tracked them down to inform them that they had won a prize or something. Another of the museums had a lot of Indian/Eskimo items and Lloyd sort of made a beeline toward that while I headed toward one with airplane and bush pilot items. I had wandered around for about half an hour when Corky, the curator, called my name over the loudspeaker and wanted to know if I was still there. Bill and Lloyd had decided to come in and either they wanted to make sure I was there or they wanted to take advantage of the family rate. Corky had told them that it was $1 per person or $2 per family. He was going to give us the family rate, but I think I was carrying all the money.

That particular museum was really interesting to me, as it really told the story about how the airplane played a major part in the opening of the territory and how people in "the bush" still depend on planes today. Of course there were the stories about Will Rogers & Wiley Post and lesser-known people that lost their lives in plane accidents, as well as stories about the Army Air Force and the military roll in Alaska. All in all, I found it extremely interesting and Corky was a very knowledgeable fellow.

While under cover in the various museums and shops we had managed to dodge a light rain. The weather had cleared a little so we headed back to the Blazer, drove around town so that Lloyd could take pictures of the IOOF Hall and finally, headed south out of town on Hwy 3 towards Denali National Park (Mt. McKinley). We found a non-traditional camping spot (not a gravel pit) just off of the road at a creek we could not pronounce (Panguingue Creek) and made camp. It was very cold and there was a light but steady rain. This time we figured we had spent too many days in a row sleeping in the rig, so we pulled out the framework and set up camp.

At this point we had managed to get a little wet and Lloyd decided to build a campfire. In spite of the shallow creek and the cold, I decided that it was time for another bath. However, my best intentions aside, as soon as I was anklebone deep in the water I stopped, wet my washcloth, and tried to warm it somehow before touching it to my bare skin. I was unsuccessful. By the time I thought I had washed only the absolutely essential areas, I was stone cold. I managed to get dressed while standing next to the fire, but my feet were still cold long into the night as I slept in my sleeping bag. Even so, I’d do it again, as it was just part of the total experience. Besides, it caused Bill and Lloyd to experience the same madness as one by one, they decided they didn’t want to be the stinky guy. Somewhere around 10 we went to bed.

July 17. We slept in until about 8 – in spite of cold feet, packed things away, ate our normal breakfast and headed for Denali National Park. We stopped at the Visitor Center and looked at the displays. We decided not to take the time for a tour as they all went for many hours and we just didn’t think we needed to spend the time seeing things that were almost the same as many of our sights. We did decide to drive as far as private vehicles are allowed to go.

There were considerable amounts of fresh snow and we realized that the rain we had the night before had dumped snow in the park. When we got as far as we were allowed to drive we got out and did a little sightseeing. High on a ridge were some tiny white dots. We could tell that they were some kind of sheep or goats, but that was about all of the identification that we could do. We also saw some young ptarmigans that were moving around us and they finally headed below the road and into some scrub brush near a creek. In spite of a Pavlovian response gained during that rainy night on the Dempster, we did not run them down. We also saw some Mew Gulls and the signs asked people to stay away from the creek because the gulls nested in the sandy gravel near the stream banks. From time to time as we drove we could see glimpses of what we thought might be Mt. McKinley, but we were never 100% positive and, of course being guys, didn’t ask anybody. On the way out we stopped at the Visitors Center, mailed some postcards, and headed on to Anchorage.

Arriving in Anchorage we drove to where the signs indicated the visitor’s center was located. Lloyd jumped out to read the sign on an old log cabin that was locked. He walked completely around it and could find no entrance that was open. The signs indicated that it should have been open, but that wasn’t the case. By the time he had explored the area Bill had found a parking space. It involved going the wrong way on a one way street and making a U-turn, but we were new in town and didn’t know any better.

Lloyd then figured out that the new visitor’s center was behind the old log building that had been erected in 1956. At the time it seemed pretty funny but that just shows how tired we were. It was getting to be like "The Keystone Cops Visit Alaska." Once there, we inquired about some kind of inexpensive lodging, as we wanted to do laundry, take a shower with hot water, and go buy a real meal. We didn’t think we could do laundry and have time to drive out of town and find a camping spot anyway. One place that was recommended was a B&B at $75 +tax for all three of us. There were several rooms and one shared bathroom. The bonus was that there was a washer & dryer available. We changed into fresh clothes and started a load of laundry.

Our thinking was that we would go eat as soon as the washing machine was ready for the second load and the dryer was going with the first. We decided to find a seafood place and have salmon. I had intended to catch a salmon, but so far nobody had done any fishing. We had salmon, crab, and access to an endless salad bar. For the cost of a $20 bill each we waddled out of the restaurant headed back to the B&B where we finished cycling the laundry and then went to bed.

July 18. Breakfast at this B&B turned out to be a large muffin, a banana, three slices of melon, and coffee. We all decided to grab another quick shower and then packed up and headed down the road about 10:30. We had noticed a Salvation Army Thrift Store and decided to go see if there was anything we could use. Bill found a brand new snowshoe at a bargain price of $15 and decided that it was exactly what he wanted for a wall decoration. Because there was just one, and all of us still having two legs, that seemed to be the best use for it.

We drove toward Homer and found an alternate route through a wildlife refuge, but didn’t see animals or anything interesting - just dense thickets of trees. I wanted to find the resort that John Levitt, the owner of KUIC, owned. He had told me I could fish off of the back of his place that has river frontage on the Kenai River. I hadn’t remembered the name of it and had called the radio station that morning from the B&B and found that it was called the Castaway. We found one that was called Castaway but it was the wrong one, but being me, I stopped and talked to the owners. They told me the other one was called the Kenai Castaway. While we were talking I noticed that they had a computer hooked up and on line. I asked if I could send an e-mail to Mary and they told me to go right ahead. Bill sent one to Denise using my Yahoo address.

At 4:30 in the afternoon we passed through Soldatna. It was a pretty area and the temperature on a board read 76 degrees. We continued down the road toward Homer but shortly came across a moose that was very cooperative and we got some good pictures. We finally got to Homer, took more pictures and talked to a young couple that was fishing from the bank. Then we headed back to Soldatna and walked down to the Kenai River behind the visitor’s center. People were fishing from a metal walkway and hauling in the salmon. I think they were Silver, or "Coho" salmon. We took a few pictures of the fish and fishermen and then headed out of town back toward Anchorage. We found a short dirt road just off of the main road about 10:45 p.m., backed the Blazer into a dead end spot and set up our cots.

Here's a lesson about salmon: There are five types of Pacific salmon and it’s easy to remember the names by using your hand...

Thumb – rhymes with chum - man’s best chum is his dog. (Dog salmon, also called Chum, are known as keta when canned. The flesh ranges from pale to medium red.)

Index finger – If you're a kid, you might use your index finger to sock somebody in the eye. If so, the eye turns red. (Red Salmon, also known as Sockeye, are the mainstay of the commercial fish industry. They have a deep red-orange, firm flesh.)

Middle finger – the biggest finger is the one you rest your chin on when you rest your chin on your fist - like a chin hook. (King salmon, also called Chinook or spring salmon, often weigh in at more than 35 pounds, and is prized by gourmets. Their firm flesh can range from ivory white to deep red.)

Ring finger – You might have a silver wedding ring. If not maybe you are just cohabiting. (Silver salmon, also known as Coho, are known for their red color and versatility.)

Lastly, your Pinkie finger – When you drink tea, do you crook your little finger into a hump like a proper English tea drinker? (Pink salmon are also known as humpback or humpies. They are the smallest and most abundant of the Pacific species; the flesh is light in color and delicately flavored.)

This is the end of part 1. Each web page is limited to a certain size. As you can well imagine, there is a lot to say about Western Canada and Alaska...