Whitehorse was a whiteout. We woke to gentle precipitation, which became snow. So much for the bike path that goes over the river dam and next to the fish ladder. Perhaps on the way back. Miles Canyon was also a whiteout. Inside activities are the gameplan for today. We visited the Beringia museum, which shows how the land mass was connected to Asia during the ice age, and creatures such as the wooly mammoth and tigers and muskox and wild horses walked over from Asia and lived on the steppes. There are some bones in the museum, and lots of faux skeletons. Miners who contributed their finds did much to aid the archiological study of the area. The mammoth was one huge creature.
We moved on 100 miles to Haines Junction, where we settled in to a wet Sunday afternoon. Poor Daisy. She really needed her walk. Finally the precip stopped, and we took a nice hike into the forest with her bear bell on and a towel pinned around her middle to minimize the mud underneath her belly. We are in the Kluane Wilderness now and will be for a long time. Our hike last night was along the Dezadeash River trail.
Soon after Daisy and I returned to the RV, the snow became earnest in its efforts. By morning we had several inches on Teregram.
I checked weather to the north, and Tok was 50 degrees, so we left the 31 degree wet fluffy stuff and drove north through snow. We crossed the two highest passes on the Alaska Hiway today. The mountains peaked above snow clouds, and the scene was mystical.
At Sheep Mountain, we stopped to look through their spotting scope for Dahl Sheep. Try finding off-white sheep on snow on a ledge a mile away. The ranger finally got me to look in the right place, and there they were, lined up on a ridge, sitting out the storm, looking out on Kluane Lake, which stretches for miles.
There are three villages between Haines Junction and the border, each populated between 30 and 110 people. As we drove, I felt how isolated the Yukon Territory is. 32,000 people in 186,000 square miles, vs. Texas with 20,000,000 people in 266,000 sq miles. Coming up on Alaska, there are 630,000 people in 591,000 sq miles. See what I mean about sparse?
We only stopped at one of the villages. Burwash Landing has an interesting natural history museum. I took pictures of most of the animals in their faux natural habitat. One thing about a stuffed bear....it stands still to have its photo taken, and it's not likely to eat your dog for lunch.
When we stopped for lunch, we met a family moving from South Dakota to Soldatna, a village south of Anchorage, near Homer. They have four children under the age of six and a big white dog. He's going to pastor a church there. Now that's what I call a calling.
North of Burwash, frost heaves and slumps on the the road got serious. When the road is constructed, the permafrost beneath is disturbed and melted. The road slumps. Then comes winter, and up comes the road as the water freezes again. Makes the road like a roller coaster, without much notice. The maintenance crews flag most of them, but sometimes there's a bit of a surprise! Then there are long sections of road work, where maintainers are shoving gravel right down the middle. You pick a side to drive on and hope you don't meet someone. Finally, there are the flagman sections. Those can take a while. It's all part of the process. They only have a few months to get the road back into shape so it can heave again next winter.
At any rate, you can kiss your carwash goodbye. The water truck is ever present, keeping the dust down, and creating a nice coat of milk chocolate on Teregram. The dirtiest things I see are the tow cars, affectionately known as toads. They are milk chocolate with a surprise car center. You will never know what color the center is until you wash it. I am amazed that so many people line up at the car/RV wash. Eternally optimistic, I suppose.
We entered Alaska today, 5,000 miles and 4 weeks from home. YAYYYYY! I felt comforted and more at ease after the border crossing, another non-event. The border crossing guard asked if each of us, including Daisy, was going across of their own free will.
Tok is our home for tonight. Population 1,435, 206 miles from Fairbanks, with only the town of North Pole between us and Fairbanks. Cheena Hot Springs is calling my name!
Mama turned up on my trip yesterday. I was thinking about her the day before, wondering if she had yearned to come to Alaska, since Daddy had been stationed here in the war.
For those of you who don't know, my mother loved dimes. In her later years, I would give her a roll for her birthday, and it was better to her than any bouquet of flowers. Carl found a story about the time she died that reminded us of her and her dimes. A man had always gone on walks with his dad and his dad picked up change as they walked. Now every time the son finds change on the ground, he feels like his dad is there. So it is with me and dimes.
So yesterday, miles from home, Carl reached in his pocket and gave me a dime. He had dropped his razor in the trash in the showers, had to dig down to retrieve it, and there at the bottom of the trash was a dime. An American dime in the Yukon. So, hello Frances! Hope the weather is great where you are. Oh, and please ask Daddy about his time in Alaska. Did he meet many bears, I wonder?
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