We’re back in…Canada

After a good night’s rest we woke up at 6:30 and got going by 7:00. We’re crossing back into Canada today and will lose an hour so we wanted to get an early start. It’s more than 600km to Whitehorse so we’re well set. It was partly cloudy and partly sunny when we left Tok. It looks like it’s going to be a nice day. We brewed a nice mug of coffee before leaving the hotel and then set off. There was a 5 mile stretch of construction on the American side of the Alaska Highway which slowed us down a bit. We’re again driving on stretches of well wetted down gravel road and thus the Honda looks like pig again that walloped in the mud.

We crossed the border and saw the American customs checkpoint on the other side of the road but no corresponding Canadian checkpoint. Apparently the Canadian checkpoint is at Beaver Creek which is 20 or so km further into Canada. Oh well, since there are no roads anywhere except the Alaska Highway (AH), you can’t escape the checkpoint (unless you get off the road on foot and then, good luck!!). We cleared customs real quick like and then experienced the true north quality of the roads again. From the border until Burwash Landing, about 200km, we endured a potholed, rolling and pounding road surface. It’s a good thing we’re in a SUV that has a heavy duty suspension. Coming from the opposite direction we saw a steady stream of motor homes and campers bouncing up and down passing us slowly. Lucky for us 99% of this traffic was going to Alaska and we didn’t have to worry about passing these behemoths. Sometimes there were 6 or 7 of them in a convoy, each of them pulling a passenger car to boot. Can you imagine trying to pass these guys on this road? After enduring a couple of hours driving like this the road smoothed out considerably and we could make time again.

We saw a mother moose with calf today. They were grazing beside the road but on our approach they quickly bounded into the bush. We also saw quite a few trumpeter swans nesting in the numerous wetlands, ponds and small lakes. This area is mostly muskeg with lots of marsh, beaver ponds, creeks and lakes. The vegetation is low brushes, grass and the usual stunted black spruce and jack pine. I think this terrain is the cause of the bad road surface. The waves and potholes in the road surface are undoubtedly caused by frost heaving.

The mountains on either side of the AH are spectacular. We drove past Kluane National Park which is a wilderness preserve. The mountains are again snow capped and quite high. The interesting thing was that the moist Pacific air tries to climb this mountain chain and you can see heavy rain clouds and downpours in these mountains. Some of it crossed the mountain range to our (inland) side and we drove through some good showers.


About an hour before we reached Whitehorse, we saw a whole bunch of horses along the road. From the droppings, we could infer they had wandered across the road a few times. There must have been about 15 or so of them all spread out over a kilometer or so. They must have been free running horses because there was no sign of a farm or fenced off pastures anywhere. I just hope that none of these horses will get hit by a car or truck tonight. One of the reasons that a lot of herbivores like the shoulders of the highway is that here grows a lot of grass and succulent weeds. So, horses, deer, moose and elk can often be seen beside the road.

We again saw a lot of wildflowers along the road. Sometimes in such abundance it was hard to image how and why these flowers grow so well here. The most abundant purple flowers seem to thrive especially in the gravel where nothing else seems to want to grow.

We arrived in Whitehorse in good time around 4:20 and settled in our hotel pretty well. The temperature right now is 20 deg C. None of the hotels in the north here have air-conditioning. I guess you normally don’t need that here. However, it must be 30 deg C in our room right now. We’re hoping the temperature drops a goodly amount tonight.