The Yukon

Turns out Canada itself is large

Hey everyone,

We’re currently in Tok, Alaska, about 1000 miles from the site of the last Blag ™️ post in Meziadin Junction.

On Tuesday, we packed up camp and took a short detour into Stewart, BC and Hyder, Alaska via BC highway 37A. This route - the only route in and out - takes you right past Bear Glacier. Canada has the views.

Hyder is a weird place. It’s small - a few hundred people - and is only accessible via road through Stewart. There’s not even a US border patrol checkpoint. You just drive right into the US. We found out later the town accepts CAD and USD, runs on BC’s Pacific Time instead of Alaska Time, and is serviced by the Stewart fire department. One of those weird quirks in the geography and people make due.

In any case, we made an unsuccessful attempt to see bears then headed back out to the Cassiar and ended our day at the Red Goat Lodge near Iskut, BC.

Fun fact: this was the second time I’ve stayed at the Red Goat. The last time I was there was in September of 2018 during a crazy wildfire season. The smoke caused twilight to be unusually blue. It made for a neat photo, at least:

Back in the present day we headed on to Watson Lake. It was a mostly uneventful drive sans a couple of photo stops.

On the way into town we stopped in to ogle at the Sign Post Forest. Watson Lake lies along the Alaska Highway, which was built in WWII by the US Army. As a joke, a GI stationed in the area put up a distance marker to his hometown in Illinois and it caught on…now there are thousands of signs from all over the world. Many acres of signs.

(“Signs” is misleading…we saw shoes, toasters, hats, stickers. Really anything you could attach to a pole and write on was present.)

The next day - Thursday - we bombed up to Whitehorse. Whitehorse is the capitol of Yukon and is a mid-sized city. We did a few errands, saw some animals at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, and had a nice dinner at The Dirty Northern. It was neat.

After dinner we checked in to our campsite…which is directly adjacent to a Nordic hot spring. A five minute walk from our roughin-it roof top tent campsite to piping hot mineral water pools, hydrotherapy, saunas, and steam rooms. It was amazing. We closed the place down and slept very well.

Sadly, our state of extreme rest and relaxation was temporary.

The next day’s drive - from Whitehorse to Tok - was rough. About 90 miles out from the Alaska border the highway goes from serviceable to actively dangerous. Lots of surprise whoops, hidden potholes, unmarked transitions to gravel, and long waits for pilot cars. It was a mess all the way through to Tok. I did get a few photos but spent most of the day dodging hazards in the rainy weather.

So that’s the whole past week. We’ve been here in Tok for a few days just generally taking a minute now that we’re actually in Alaska. Tomorrow we’re heading south for some 4th of July festivities then on to Valdez for the rest of the week. Onward! See y’all then.

ps. I constantly forget to add this link before sending the email: here’s an album with many more photos.