Alaska Highway

Ok so I’m behind a bit. Hard to remember all the great things about driving the Alcan Highway when I’m really sitting on the lenai watching the night go down in Hawaii…. But it was pretty amazing and here are some pictures.

When I last was in Watson Lake folks had put up little signposts saying how far it was to Peoria or Marion or Waco. Now that’s grown to a full blown tour bus stop

We drove down without stopping as much as we’d planned on account of the fires devastating parts of British Columbia. We had to bypass Banff and Jasper altogether. Still, crossing the northern Rockies and driving through a wilderness for five days does make you appreciate the vastness of the Yukon and BC. It’s changed a little since I last saw this country in ‘76 or ‘77, but it mostly remains just as empty and lonesome as I remember, and even more beautiful.

Liard Hot Springs was partly inaccessible because of the recent presence of an aggressive grizzly, but I kept a watch out while Jennifer took a quick dip.

I will say that the most striking thing About this trip, and indeed all of Alaska, was that those hardy individuals who make their home in Fairbanks or Homer or Beaver Creek in the Yukon Territory, or Whitehorse, or Toad River or Watson Lake or Fort St John or Dawson Creek – the folks who enjoy these gorgeous but relatively short summers and then endure the long and unbelievably cold winters so far away from everything I have always considered essential,  are indistinguishable in every respect from the  people who inhabit Ohio or Florida or Valdese or Myrtle Beach.  I guess it takes a special kind of person to thrive here, wherever here happens to be.