The Alaska highway

We said goodbye to Whitehorse and started to head Southeast along the Alaska highway; we had learnt a lot about this famous highway during our museum visit in Whitehorse. It was constructed during World War II to connect the contiguous United States to Alaska across Canada to act as a supply route. It begins in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and runs to Delta Junction, Alaska, via Whitehorse, Yukon. When it was completed in 1942, it was about 2,700 kilometres (1,700 mi) long but it is now shorter by several hundred kilometres due to rerouting of the highway to straighten many sections. The highway was opened to the public in 1948 and once legendary for being a rough, challenging drive, the highway is now paved over its entire length, apparently, but not always well and sometimes really not at all, as we discovered on our 1,400km (870 mi) drive from Whitehorse to the Alaska highways official starting point in Dawson Creek.

We had 4 campsites booked along the Alaska highway, our first stop was at the Watson Lake Provincial Park. It was just a one night stop over and campfire grilled burgers were on the menu. The next morning we stopped off at the famous Signpost forest….thousands of signposts! We carried on and soon encountered a herd of Bison just casually grazing and resting right beside the highway, they are huge and imposing animals and totally fascinating to watch. A little further along brought us to the Laird Hot Springs, these springs are naturally occurring and we had to have a dip, we both came out refreshed but smelling of eggs! The first day on the highway had been clear and sunny but day 2 the views began to disappear behind the wildfire smoke and as we reached the Northern Rockies we lost the views altogether.

Our next stopover was at the Northern Rockies Mountain Lodge set on the shores of Muncho Lake and owned by a Swiss family. Just as we had settled into our pitch a thunderstorm broke and we had a huge hailstorm, slightly disconcerting in our motorhome! Even though the weather and the smoke kept the views from us we enjoyed watching the float planes and a great meal in the lodge to celebrate Swiss Day!

Our third stop was at a campsite in Fort Nelson, where the burgers and beers in the lodge were tasty and much needed after several unpaved sections of the highway resulting in us and Delta being shaken to the core as well as a huge stone chip in the centre of Delta’s windscreen after a huge stone was flipped up on one of the unpaved sections. The next day we carried on and we made it through the worst of the smoke to be rewarded with some stunning views and we spent the night at Charlie’s Lake Provincial Park before we carried on and finally passed through Dawson’s Creek and the end of our Alaskan Highway drive.