A YEAR ON THE ROAD IN OUR MOTORHOME
BOOK 1/PAGE 5
We are on our way up the Alaskan Highway toward Dawson Creek. The first several hundred miles are uninteresting as fairly flat and no mountains. By the way, gas in Canada was the equivalent of $4.76/gallon and our motor home gets about 8 miles to the gallon! On the way we stop at PetroCanada RV park for $5 Canadian and they even have free hot showers! The photo on the right is Lake Louise.
June, 1991 to June, 1992
Just north of Jasper we find the Mistaya Canyon, absolutely a wonder place to stop and view the canyon, rapids, and wilderness.
Along the road north we occasionally pass by mountain sheep, they seem to thrive in this climate. We finally reach Dawson Creek, the start of the Alaskan Highway. Note the sign the gives the mileage: Fairbanks is 1,523 miles!!! During our year on the road we put over 30,000 miles on our motor home and loved every last miles we traveled.... well, all except the 100 miles on the way back down from Alaskan over the Casier Highway, a road that had 300 miles of dirt with pot holes where the maximum motor home speed was about 35MPH.
When we arrived at Whitehorse we found the famous Signpost Forrest, a place that was started by the constructions crews during the 1940s when the road was built. Worker "planted" poles in the ground and nailed up signs, wrote the name of city on them, and nailed them up pointing toward the city. Now, some 50 years later the forrest is huge with thousands of sign, including some license plates. We even found one that was from where we would be living when we got back in 1992, Anderson, SC.
We couldn't help but put up a sign for us. Unfortunately, we only had small pieces of wood and the places to post the sign was rather high. We solved the height problem by rolling an empty barrel over to the post and Jeanne held on to it while I nailed it up (we did take along a hammer and nails plus several other tools including an electric saw). Later on we find the 1st bridge that was put up across the Yukon River just south of Whitehorse.
After passing through US Customs it was all downhill to skagway - literally as we went over a pass and it seemed straight downhill to Skagway. We arrived in Skagway, Alaska on July 3 and find no space in any campgrounds so we end up staying in the parking lot a the pier. I believe this cruise ship was there after we came back from Glacier Bay National Park. On the right is the start of the annual Skagway 4th of July Parade, a parade that was short and hugely successful and fun to watch.
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