Day 13: Whitehorse, Yukon Territory to Tok, Alaska

Sprinkles!

Tommy, Mom, Trudy, Dad: clearly loving their gourmet feast.

A Canada must... right?

As we headed out of Whitehorse, Dad and I decided we needed to hit up Tim Horton’s for breakfast once before we left Canada (even though my parents have one a few miles from their house). We “took the scenic route” around town before ending up back downtown to hit up the Tim Horton’s near the visitor center, which we’d seen the day before. My goal was to use up as much Canadian money as I could, so I bought breakfast for everyone. Desi and Tommy got donuts (D only ate the sprinkles off and gave the rest to Tommy; good thing he’d already eaten breakfast), Mom and I got bagels (I loved my pretzel bagel!), and Dad got a breakfast sandwich and a donut. I also grabbed a box of donut holes to go and a shot of espresso for a bit of energy. I’m not much of a coffee drinker, so the caffeine in coffee really hits me. It was good.

Decent-looking roads; beware the frost heaves!

Unbeatable views! Lake Kluane

Unbeatable views! Lake Kluane

The drive out of Canada was long and arduous. Yukon’s road’s towards Alaska are the worst we experienced. The pavement is damaged as a result of thawing permafrost and results in something called frost heaves, bumps and waves in the roadway that can be minor or quite large. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me anxious to be riding an RV over the frost heaves. In my Outback, they wouldn’t have been so bad, but RVs don’t provide the smoothest ride, plus there’s the nagging fear in the back of your mind that they could flip, so it made for a long drive. In addition, the road was gravel for a long portion, which made the drive that much more unpleasant.

Vent experiment to reduce thawing that creates frost heaves

Workers wetting the road to cut down on dust

That's not scary at all

And then the roads took a turn for the worst...

A highlight of the drive through the Yukon was the spot where we stopped for a picnic lunch out of the camper. We stopped at Horseshoe Bay along Kluane Lake and it offered an amazingly gorgeous mountain view. The sky was clear, the air was crisp, and a simple sandwich never tasted so good. Desmond wanted to explore a bit, so we hiked away from the camper and viewed the lake from a few other points while he climbed on rocks and dug through the gravel.

Lunch at Lake Kluane

Another feature of note along the Alaska Highway, which started in Canada and continued on into Alaska were rock messages. Apparently, they were started by a swim team in the 1990s and people continue to put messages into the sides of the highway with rocks. Usually, they are someone’s name or a location. My favorite was the one that said, “ROCKS.” Haha.

Rock writing

Our last stop out of Canada was a place called Buckshot Betty’s. Dad wanted to try to run through some of his Canadian dollars, so we all bought some ice cream bars and ate them on the deck of the little log diner. 

We jumped back into the RV and headed to border crossing, which went smoothly and then we were in Alaska! Immediately, the roads improved (although later we would experience some construction and frost heaves; though none were as bad as the Yukon roads) and I noticed some old telephone poles, which even had the old glass insulators on them. I’ve never seen those in use; I was fascinated with their appearance and couldn’t keep my eyes off of them.

Old insulators on telephone poles. Alaska... leading the future!

We arrived at our destination for the evening, Tok, Alaska, which is apparently the dog sledding capital of Alaska because so many people in town are involved in the activity. We saw no dogs and no sleds in Tok ourselves. We stopped at a liquor store to pick up some wine and beer and as I complained to Dad about the mosquito bites on my knees from Liard, a local commented that I’d been attacked by their state bird. Hahaha.

The RV park we stayed at had many other RVs from Great Alaskan Holidays who were part of our caravan from Iowa. We couldn’t help talking to them when we ran into them. In Whitehorse, we caught up with the couple from Ohio who we’d had dinner with the first night. They had some trouble with the slide out of their RV popping all the way out and had to duct tape it in place. We had the same problem, only, thankfully, ours only came out about an inch; still more than I’m comfortable with. Thanks, Obama. (Actually, thanks Winnebago). 

At the campground I chatted with a couple from Maryland. Desmond wanted to check out the gift shop in the RV park’s office (they had some clocks) and I picked up some fur-trimmed fingerless gloves that I’m going to enjoy wearing next winter. 

Noon? Nope, dinner time.

Taken at midnight inside the RV with no lights and no flash... all natural Alaskan light from the air vent.

We finally got a taste of the long Alaskan summer days; the sun didn’t set until almost midnight (and it really never sets; it’s always light out, it just becomes more like dusk). This can really throw you off because it’s hard to judge what time it is. As much as we rely on modern technologies, it makes you realize how much we also still utilize our innate tendency to judge time by the location of the sun. In Alaska, at 11 pm in May, to an Ohioan, it feels more like 4 pm. And then you’re confused about the fact that you are tired.