Dawson Creek to Fairbanks

We started the day with a visit to milepost '0" and the beginning of the Alaska Highway.

There was a museum with a lot of interesting data on the beginning of the highway and the people involved with the making of the highway.

Alaska Highway
Here are a few pictures taken along the way.

Dawson Creek area

One of the travel days we made a stop at the Signpost Forest.

It was interesting to see where all the signs were from.
The group also added one of their own.

Here are a few more pictures of the Sign Post forest.

Watson Lake YT

The next stop was Whitehorse for a couple of days, one of the days was a free day so we had some time to shovel out the coach and get some laundry done.  We have been seeing lots of animals along the way but don't get pictures as most of them are along the road and we can't stop.

One of the things we did in Whitehorse was to tour the SS Klondike.

There was lots of beautiful flowers as we drove along the road.

Here are a few more pictures of the area.

Whitehorse

Our next stop was Dawson City where we take the ferry across the river and start the Top of the World Highway, more about that later.  Dawson City is like stepping back in time.  The streets are still all dirt and all the sidewalks are really boardwalks.

Here is our tour guide explaining the Sourtoe Cocktail and the history and no we did not try it.

Here is a link to the history of the SourToe Cocktail.

SourToe Cocktail

We also took a tour of a Dredge.  Dredge#4

History of Dredge 4

Here are a couple of pictures of the ferry crossing.

Bud was in charge and making sure everything went smooth

More pictures of the area.

Dawson City

The ferry crossing started the 100 mile Top of the World gravel road.  They use the term gravel loosely as any gravel on the road is either on the side or all washboard.
Most of the time I was driving only 10 or 15 miles per hour.

The views from the highway were pretty amazing but I would never take it again.

We also crossed the border into Alaska while on this road.

We spent the night in Chicken Ak. Interesting town the total population is 3.  They have a campground and a gift shop, of course, and a little café.

Chicken AK.

Our next stop was Tok, Ak. where everyone got together and helped each other wash the RV's.  They were pretty disgusting.

More pictures of the area.

Top of the World


Here are pictures that were taken as we drove along the Alaska Highway.

Alaska Highway

And that brings us to Fairbanks, where we are now.  I will let Robin do this part of the blog as I was playing hooky through some of it.

We had two full days of touring. The 1st day started with a trip to the University of Alaska Museum. Like most museums, art and history of the area were the topics.

This first picture is of a outhouse, pretty fancy.

Lunch was provided at the Chena's Alaskan Grill. Linda joined the group for the second half of the day which was the Discovery Steamboat cruise on the Chena River. This cruise took us to where the Chena River and the Tanana River join. Notice the change in the water color, the clearer, Chena River, is fresh water, the cloudy water, Tanana River,  is moving Glacier flour, very fine silt.

The cruise provided awesome scenery, we also stopped at the Trail Breaker Kennels, Trail Breaker Kennel, which was established by Susan Butcher, 4 time Iditarod Champion. Also stopped and got off the boat at the Chena Indian Village. For more info about this cruise Riverboat Discovery Tour.

The cruise ended with a visit from an unexpected local resident

Second day began with a visit to the Visitors' Center, off to the Ice Museum, unlike most museums.

Lunch was on our own, afterward we boogied to Gold Dredge #8.

The Alaska Pipeline is also visible at the parking lot of the Gold Dredge.

 

The long day ended with a Salmon Bake Dinner and Stage Show at Pioneer Park. Great dinner included Prime Rib as well as Salmon and Cod and a very nice salad bar. The show was pithy but entertaining with song and laughter.

Two LONG, enjoyable days followed by two days of R&R. Fairbanks, Alaska

Great Falls to Dawson Creek

I hope I didn't wait to long to update the blog and can remember what we did so far.....

We started out in Great Falls Montana, where everyone in the caravan gathered to get ready to leave for Alaska.  Start date was June 7 with the caravan leaving the campground June 8.  June 7 we met our Wagon Master and our Tail Gunner.   The Wagon Master is responsible for going over the Trip log for the next and day and making sure all the reservations are in order including all the tour buses and meals along the way.   The Tail Gunner is responsible for bringing up the rear of the caravan and helping out with any mechanical issues that might arise.  Since I am writing this after the fact, I can tell you he has already helped me out by fixing a rock chip in the windshield with a kit I bought at Canadian Tire. (Canadian Tire has just about everything from dishes to camping equipment to automotive section.)

We had a welcome dinner at a nearby restaurant before we started on our journey.  We seem to be traveling with a great bunch of people.  We are starting out with 17 rigs and add adding 6 more in Dawson Creek.

Our first stop was the Great Canadian Barn Dance campground where we had a great buffet and got entertained for a couple of hours from the family that owned the campground.  They sang songs for all different eras.   The campground was beautiful.

We stayed for two nights at this campground and a tour bus picked us up the next morning to visit the Remington Carriage Museum

 and Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump.

 This is the Wagon Master and his wife.  They are Canadians so are a great help when dealing with things unique to Canada.

The second day we headed out to Cochrane for our next overnight with a couple of stops on the way.  The first stop was at Fort McCloud Museum

 

The Second stop was at a small WWII Bomber museum, They also had a few classic cars, Packards, out front.





We enjoyed the stop and also had lunch, a hot dog they were selling at the museum.

The next day a tour bus came and picked us up to take us to the Heritage Park in Calgary.  My favorite part of the park was the Auto Museum and bakery.....

Here are a few more pictures....

Great Falls to Cochrane


The next leg of our trip took us to Banff and Lake Louise.  We stayed in the Banff National Park campground. 

The next tour bus picked us up and we headed out to Lake Louise.  The area is spectacular pictures will verify that.

The next day we were on our own and checked out the town of Banff and a little of the surrounding area.  Banff was very busy and a nice little tourist town, it was very busy being it was early in the season.

Here is the link for more pictures and they will speak for themselves.

Banff and Lake Louise

Our next stop was the Columbia Ice Fields. On the way we saw several animals, some on the way to the fields and some while we were checking out the Skywalk.

  We dry camped in the parking lot of the Columbia Ice Field Visitor Center for the night. We walked to the tour bus that took us up to the ice fields.  The road to the glacier was a narrow road only traveled by a special bus with large tires.  The decent on the glacier was a 32 per cent grade.

We also went for a walk on the Skywalk.

We also had to taste poutine, French fries covered in cheese and gravy.  It was okay.

I can't even began to describe the beauty of the area and the landscape we have seen so far.  I hope the pictures will help everyone to see the beauty.

More Pictures

Columbia Ice Fields and Skywalk

Hopefully that will get everyone up to date so far....most of you have been following along on Facebook and already know most of this.

Still....Living the dream............