The Dempster was a washout - literally!

11:07 update - Top of the world photo's

Well, turns out the Dempster highway was closed - again, we couldn't get up to Inuvik last year either. Soooooo, we changed plans and we are at Fast Eddy's in Tok Alaska having breakfast this morning.  Back to the Dempster, high winds closed both Ferries on the highway and we also got word that there was at least one washout of the road.  Oh well, we might try again in a couple of weeks.

Today we are headed to Fairbanks, we will be spending three nights at the River's Edge RV park.  The weather is supposed to be great this weekend so hopefully I'll get to play some golf.  The North Star golf course which advertises itself as the northern most golf course in America.

Here's the corrected map for our journey over the top of the world highway yesterday.

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Well almost corrected, turns out google maps doesn't know about the Top of the World highway in Canada!???  We actually drove from point A, to point B (which is the legendary Chicken, Ak) and then down to C.  It was only about 200 miles not the roughly 800 or so this map shows.

Internet is usually good at the Campground in Fairbanks but they limit up/downloads.  We will try to get some pictures posted.

Bear 4 on this trip

Greetings from Dawson City;

We saw our 4th bear of the trip yesterday.  He (or she) was just hanging on the side of the road.  We stayed next to it for a while but couldn't get a really good photo.  This was the best one of the bunch;

The Cassiar highway was a bit of disappointment wildlife wise.  We only saw 3 bears, none of which we even managed to get one photo of.  We also did not see any moose or other big game.  Scenery, of course, was spectacular as you can see if you view our flickr photo's.

The big news is we managed to secure a reservation for the flight to Tuktoyaktuk on Saturday!  There is an arts festival in Inuvik so we thought perhaps all the trips would be booked however that was not the case.  Now we just have to get up the 400 miles of dirt road to Inuvik and hope the weather stays good.

Here's the map for our trip from Whitehorse to Dawson City.

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Since we may not have internet over the weekend I'm going to post a couple more maps here.   First, this is the Dempster highway, the road we will be taking to Inuvik.

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Finally, here's a map that will show you where Tuktoyaktuk is located.  Among the activities that our trip includes is a polar bear plung into the Artic Ocean.  We should have some photo's of that and perhaps a video sometime next week.

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Youtube videos

Well, it was kind of grey and cold here in Whitehorse so I didn't go play golf.  We did go into Whitehorse where we had a nice lunch at Tim Horton's, laid in some supplies at Wal-Mart got gas and then Kim and her mom got a little shopping in. Tonight, we are hanging out in the campground and the internet here in the office was fast enough that I managed to get some videos posted.  Due to band width limitations that campground actually blocks youtube from loading so I can't provide that direct link to each video.  This link should take you to my page where you can locate the new videos.

One of the videos I managed to load was 6 plus minutes of the Hyder July 4th parade.  It was certainly eclectic and well worth the time to give it a view.  I also have videos of downtown Hyder and Salmon Glacier up as of 9:50 pm here in the Yukon Territory.

The current plan is to head to Dawson City tomorrow morning and then up to Inuvik for the weekend. However, we recently became aware that there is an arts festival going on in Inuvik this weekend.  If we cannot get a campsite reserved or if we can't get the sightseeing flight to Tuk we may end up heading for Haines Alaska instead.  We plan to get on the phone tomorrow to determine which way we will be headed.

Cool, we have electricity tonight!

We have made it up to Whitehorse in the Yukon territory of Canada!  We are camped at the High Country RV park on the east end of town.  It is a real treat to be here!  Last night we spent our first evening on this trip without electricity.  We stayed at the Waters Edge RV Park near Deese Lake on the Cassiar highway.  It was a nice little park but NO hookups, which means that in addition to no electricity there was no hot shower this morning - bummer!

We had a nice drive up today. We stopped at Jade City, a souvenir shop on the Cassiar.  As you can probably guess they have all kinds of Jade products.  What you probably did not know was the something like 92% of the Jade in the entire world comes from that particular area!  Pictures from our tip up the cassiar are here.

I also added some additional photo's from our trip to Salmon Glacies from Hyder.  You can find them here.

Tomorrow Kim and her Mom are heading into Whitehorse for some shopping.  I plan to head to the Meadow Lakes golf club to get a round in.  It would seem that Meadow Lakes doesn't have a web site so this review from Yelp is the most info I can provide.

Here's a couple maps for the last 2 days of driving.  Day 1 Hyder to the Waters Edge Campground.

 

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Today we drove from Waters Edge to Whitehorse..

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July 5th in Hyder and Stewart

Just got some pictures posted of our last night here in Hyder.  We started the evening at the Seafood Express bus, one of the only restaurants here.  We had a Captains choice platter which included 1 piece of Halibut, 1 large scallop, 1 deep fried oyster and 6 breaded shrimp.  The place is pretty eclectic, you can read more about it here.

After dinner Kim and I decided to bike to another country, which means we rode over to Canada.  We wander around the town of Stewart and then stopped at a tourist shop where they had a cut out mountie that we could pose behind.  While we were goofing off there a real mountie pulled up and volunteered to be in the picture's with us!  What a nice guy.

After that we rode back into Hyder and hung out at the Sealaska Inn and Bar.  The bar is open until 5am!  We only stayed until around 11:30pm.

I also got another set of pics posted.  They are from our drive from Moricetown to Hyder.

I'm trying to only post pictures that have GPS tags so you can see where they were actually taken.  Somewhere in Flickr there is a maps page that will show those locations.

The road to Whitehorse in the Yukon

We will be heading north once again later this morning.  The plan is to get to Whitehorse in two days. This may not be possible as there is a whole lot of highway between here and there.  We are also not sure what kind of road conditions we are going to find.  We hope to get about 300 miles in today, here's a map to give you a rough idea of where we will be driving.

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We will be stopping at the visitor center over in stewart on our way out so hopefully I can post some more pictures later this morning.

Two Days in Hyder, Alaska

We got to spend July 4th and 5th here in Hyder, Alaska, a town of about 100 people just across the line from Canada.  Yesterday they had what can only be described as a unique 4th of July parade.  I have the whole thing on video and tried to upload it to you tube last night but, after about 90% of it loaded the internet seemed to cut out so it didn't complete.  I will try to get it posted tomorrow as we will be stopping by the Stewart, Canada visitor centre (that's not a type, they spell center funny in Canada) tomorrow.

Today, we drove 20 miles back "into the wild" to visit the Salmon Glacier.  What an incredible site!  It was a dirt road and it has been really hot and dry up here so it was very dusty but the views from the top of the mountain were incredible.

I think I was able to get some photo's of the parade, the glacier and the town posted over on Flickr.  You should be able to see them here.

Because the weather has been so awesome we have decided to head for Inuvik at the beginning of the trip instead of the end.  We hope to get to Whitehorse and then Dawson City in the next 3-4 days.  From Dawson City it's about 200 miles of dirt on the Dempster Highway to Inuvik.

It doesn't get dark until about 11:30 around here so Kim and I are off for a bike ride.

Updating some links

It seems I messed up my links on yesterdays post.  I also got some additional photo's posted last night.  Here are some updates:

Oregon and Washington

Hot Springs Parade

Harrison Hot Springs

Photo's from July 2 and 3 in British Columbia

The youtube link was correct.  Here it is again if your interested.  Video's from the last couple of years are also available over there.

We have a short drive planned for today, we head into Alaska for the first time on this trip as we are planning to spend two days over in Hyder.

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There is supposed to be a really great place to view bears over there so we are hoping to see some in the next day or so.

As always - thanks for reading!

We quit early today

We didn't make it all the way to Kitwanga after all.  We find found a delightful little campground here in Mauricetown Moricetown, B.C.  The internet seems to be pretty quick and they have free firewood and showers - a definite plus up here where we have paid as much as $2 (Canadian) for a 3 minute shower.

On the down side, we are only about a mile and a half from this sign.

Here's the actual map for what we accomplished today.

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Tomorrow we should be back in the Good old USA - We head for Hyder, Alaska

Photos and You Tube video

Hello;

I managed to get some photo's posted to Flickr and some video posted to youtube.

You can see the videos here.

Pictures from Oregon and Washington are here.

Pictures from the Parade in Harrison Hot Springs are here.