Today we awoke to cloudy skies and our little cabin was definitely cooler, it was less than 10 degrees outside and it had rained overnight. So I set about the things one would do if living in a cabin in the woods, I set the coffee percolator up on the gas range to start brewing and cut some wood kindling to light a fire in the wood stove to warm up the place before Linda got up.
With the cooler / wet air the mosquitos were swarming outside, far worse than the previous days. I knew we wouldn’t be walking in the forest trail today, not a chance.
Linda cooked us up a nice breakfast while we packed up for our day, we knew the Yukon as just a few hours away. We were on the road by 9:00
Heading north on the CASSIAR out of Dease Lake is a really pretty drive, the highway follows the east side of the lake and with mountains forming the western edge of this lake, it reminded us a lot of the mountains / lakes of the Okanagan.
The highway then settled into “Spanish mode” (it’s a good time to do Spanish lessons) so we did that for wee bit. Shortly thereafter we saw a car pulled over on the other side of the highway with a couple and a huge camera looking down into the river below. We stopped and were rewarded with our first look at a moose
📷
She was in the river and kept immersing her head in the waters, entertaining to watch and when we got the binoculars on her it was amazing to really see the stature of the creature and the muscle definition in her. they have the hugest heads on an animal that I have ever seen, no wonder she had to keep cooling that thing off.
A little further down the road we came into Jade City.
So who knew that this area in Northern BC is home to 92% of the worlds Nephrite Jade. They have built a whole “town” out of this fact with a jade store offering jewelry, jade carvings and other giftware as well as free coffee, RV hook-ups, trails for walking, cabins for rent etc.
Perhaps the most unexpected thing about the visit, besides all of this jade, was meeting a film crew on site filming the sixth season of Jade Fever, a TV show on Discovery Channel. Really? That must be pretty deep in the cable offerings, I’ve never heard of this show on the Emmies.
We, after a nice visit, got back on the road, north, barrelling towards our exit of BC and towards the Alaska Highway and our entry into Yukon. As the signs approached we had to pull over and stop,
And even Jebo wanted to peek out the window and say his goodbyes to BC
We got onto the World famous Alaskan Highway at the Cassiar Junction headed west towards Whitehorse, a 420 km trip.
The Alaskan highway starts in Dawson Creek, BC and finishes at Fairbanks, Alaska covering a total distance of 2,232 km. The highway was deemed a military necessity in 1941 after the bombing of Pearly Harbour; President Hoover felt it necessary that there be a supply road to defend north America against the Japanese. Construction officially began in March of 1942, at the peak there were 11,000 American troops and 16,000 Canadian workers on the project, and amazingly the highway was completed in eight months; Nov 20 was the official ribbon cutting. Interestingly, Canada granted the US the right of way to build this project and the USA agreed to pay for all costs, with the promise to turn the highway back over to Canada after the war. It is certainly a different world we live in today.
This section of highway we drove today can only be described as “underwhelming”. Although well paved and with great visibility, this section is relatively flat and well treed. There are long, long stretches of road between towns / or even rest stops; It is relatively monotonous, or perhaps it only appears so because of the incredibly scenic driving we have done in the last few days.
Things started to get a bit more interesting about 50 km outside of Whitehorse, lakes and waterways started to wrap around rising mountains, we looked forward to our night in the capital of the Yukon.
We made it into town, it was surrounded by ruggedness yet the city was much more new and modern, and somehow it felt friendly even before we had gotten out of the car,
After checking into our hotel, and a relatively long afternoon in the car, it was time to get Jebo out for a stroll along the Riverwalk, We immediately felt so comfortable in this town, it seemed so relaxed and dog friendly
The Riverwalk is a great pathway following the banks of the mighty Yukon river.
The speed of the river flow was incredible and its power as it flows through this part of the city was very apparent. The Yukon is the largest river in both the Yukon and Alaska, it actually originates in BC and flows into the Bering Sea over a path of almost 3,200 km. The flow rate of the water through town is estimated at 8 mph.
On the way back we met some new friends; there are two little foxes that apparently live under one of the city buildings along the Riverwalk; although initially shy one came out to pose for pictures with us.
After taking a stroll through the downtown, we picked up some take-out and went back to our hotel to eat and settle in. Before we could eat I had to grab Jebo’s bed / food, upon getting back into our room I heard the TV on and Linda laughing; she had turned on the tv to see (I am not kidding) an episode of Jade Fever was on the local CTV channel. Totally bizarre and totally perfect, we had to watch this while eating our take-out.
We settled in and got to sleep early for our next day and a trip to Skagway Alaska
Our trip so far looks like this, 39:27 hrs, 3319 km
Comments