Back in th US, Back in the USSAAAAAA!

We figured that we would have a pretty long day driving from Whitehorse to Tok, AK. Once again the distance was not going to be that great, but with slow driving speeds, frequent stops to view the scenery and take pictures, and crossing the border back into the U.S., it would likely be a full day. On our side was our last time zone change to Alaska Daylight Time which would gain us an hour at the border and put us 3 hours behind our home time.

Heading back into the mouintains

Speaking of time, it is really easy to get your biological time clocks screwed up when you up here. Not so much from the time zone changes, but from the amount of daylight you experience this time of year. We are about 10 days from the summer solstice and at a little over 62° N latitude. Here we are experiencing about 20 hours of daylight and one cannot say that the darkness is really dark. It is more like twilight. One wakes up at 3 a.m. and you’d swear that the alarm didn’t go off and it was mid-morning. And it is really weird to realize that with that much light, most people are still in bed as there is virtually no traffic or any other sign of human activity. It is really something to experience and should be even more pronounced when we are closer to the solstice and above the Arctic Circle. We have been reading about all of the activities associated with the solstice, like midnight marathons, bike rides, and golf tournaments.

We weren’t very far out of Whitehorse when we got our first wildlife treat for the day. We came upon a small group (known as a gang) of 5 elk grazing by the road.

A "gang" of elk

We approached slowly and started snapping pictures, but they were a little jittery and started to scatter back into cover.

Getting a little nervous

About one-half mile further up the road we saw a lone female. She was interesting as she had an ear tag and a radio tracking collar around her neck. We are early in the season and all of the antlered male specie that we have seen (deer, caribou, moose, etc.)  are growing the velvet-covered antlers which are not yet fully formed.

Ho hum, more griz!

Further on we stopped to photograph two grizzly bears by the road. We watched them for a few minutes while one of them lay down, crossed its front paws, and stared at us like a cat. We saw 3 more grizzlies later in the morning, but didn’t even stop to take pictures. It was becoming old hat!

We came to very picturesque Lake Kluane and the Canadian Kluane National Park.

Kluane Lake

The lake is interesting in that it drained to the south up until 400-500 years ago when a glacier cut off the Sims River which was the drainage outlet for the lake.

The white specks at the top are sheep

This caused the water level to rise about 30 feet and the drainage to shift in a northerly direction and into the Yukon River drainage basin which was about 2,000 miles longer. We stopped at the park’s visitor’s center which is next to a very steep mountain.

Pair of trumpeter swans

Dall sheep could be spotted at the very peak of the mountain and spotting scopes were set up for visitors to view the sheep. Capt. Larry tried to take some telephoto shots, but needed a bigger lens to bring them in close. A little further along the way we stopped at the very beautiful Pickhandle Lake and decided to rest and have some lunch. As we were eating we heard some swans trumpeting across the lake and tried to get a photo of them, but our lens was too short again. As our daughter Millette says, “size matters!”

It is hard to describe how remote this part of Canada is and difficult to imagine that there are places even more remote. We saw two signs that drove the point home. One was at a gas station announcing that this was the last gas available for the next 108 miles. While that’s not necessarily unmatched by isolated stretches in other places, we were surprised when we saw a sign announcing that we were entering an area that was not covered by 911 service. We don’t necessarily think that this referred to cell phone service, as our phones had not found any service for the better part of the day. We did come to small communities (populations 50-400) that had fire, police, and ambulance services, but figured the nearest hospital was over 200 miles away in Whitehorse. Jane commented that she would not want to be pregnant out here! Another indication that we were in the middle of nowhere was when the satellite radio started to cut out. Part of this was due to blockage of the signal by large mountains that we passed, but some of it was due to our antenna mounted on the rear of the car not seeing the satellite when we were going in a southerly direction. The satellites are in geosynchronous orbits and we were so far north and the incidence angle was so low that the signal would not reach the back of the car when heading south.

We continued winding our way through the Yukon until we came to the larger town of Beaver Creek, the most western town in Canada, sitting almost on the Canadian/American border. Another 6-7 miles and we were at the international boundary.

Back in the U.S.

We had our pictures taken and were impressed by the 50-60 yard clearing that was maintained along the entire length of the border. This clearing was originally established by a survey group, but has been maintained over the years.

Boundary- note cut

We passed through U.S. customs without any problems, but were taken aback by the m.o.’s they all seem to employ. The start out all friendly and joking with you and then, bam, a switch is flipped and they start grilling you about alcohol, tobacco, animals products, produce and seeds, and if you are transporting firewood! Finally, they ask, not once, but twice, if you have any firearms.

And customs is worried about us!

We find the firearms question laughable, because American citizens cannot bring firearms, except permitted hunting firearms, into the Canada and American customs is worrying if we are bringing any across. Then you get into the U.S. and find that every Alaskan and his brother or sister is packing some kind of weapon and the best they can do is try and control where they shoot them from. Anyway, we made it back into the U.S. without any hassle, and it was immediately good to be home. The roads were better (we’re not sure how the American roads are so much better than their Canadian counterparts. It seems the construction methods would be comparable), there were more road signs, and we didn’t have to convert our speed or distances from those damn metric measurements! It kind of takes the edge off driving.

We drove about 100 miles from the border through the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. We needed a nature break and, naturally, collected the stamp for our passport book.

View of Tetlin Wildlife Refuge

While Capt. Larry was waiting for Jane to return from the visitor’s center, he struck up a conversation with a fellow from Missouri pulling a big Avion trailer. We were talking about Alaska, when Capt. Larry asked him where in Missouri he was from and commented that we came past his state in 2011 on the Mississippi River while doing the loop.

Tok Visitor's Center

He then stunned Capt. Larry when he said that he also has done a good portion of the loop. Turns out he has a 40’ trawler (a Nordic Tug he might have mentioned) and has spent a lot of winters in Florida waters. This was his eighth trip to Alaska and he obviously doesn’t spend much time in his land home. It’s a small world. We followed the road to Tok (rhymes with coke) and checked into a motel for the night. Tok or Tok Junction started as an Alaskan Highway construction camp and is a major stopping point on the highway. Tok sits on the crossroads of three major highways and is a day’s drive from Whitehorse to the east, Anchorage to the south, and Dawson City, YT to the northeast. For this reason it boasts the most motel rooms per capita (pop. 1436) than any other town or city in Alaska. It is also the only town that everyone traveling by land must go through twice- once coming, and once leaving. Tok is also known as the “Sled Dog Capital of Alaska” and hosts and annual race that is part of Alaska’s “triple crown” of sled dog racing. It also records some of the coldest temperatures in Alaska and holds the record at -71° F. We settled in and headed out to the visitor’s center, visited gift shops so Jane could do her thing, and then ate at one of Tok's finer restaurant- Fast Eddy’s. It was a big day and we were weary.

Budding mountain willow- we think