british columbia – PalmTreeMusings

Upon leaving Alaska, we drove some of the same stretch south along the Alaska Highway through Yukon. We stayed at a couple of provincial campgrounds near beautiful lakes and hiked a few hikes. Yukon is a pretty wild province, and there is a ruggedness to it… as well as a propensity towards mosquitos.

Once we got as far south as British Columbia, we decided to take the Stewart – Cassier highway, which is a little less traveled and equally beautiful as the Alaska Highway. In one small village, Kitwanga, we stayed in a free municipal campground. At the end of the Stewart Cassier highway, in Stewart, we found that the road dead ends at a small ghost town called Hyder which is actually in America. We crossed over a nonexistent border between Canada and the United States and spent one night in Hyder. Some locals told us about a gravel road that we could take for about 25 miles up into the hills and at the top we discovered the Salmon Glacier- about 60 miles long and is the worlds largest glacier that is accessible by car. What a really beautiful site!

Heading further south in BC, we stopped for two nights at Whistler, the site of the 2010 winter Olympics. It was BC Day and there was a yoga festival going on in Whistler so it was very crowded and had a fun festival atmosphere. We met two of Chris’s friends from Burning Man for some beers and had a nice chat with them. It was a hot day, so we hiked around a small lake and took a dip in the alpine water. We do a lot of driving, so we try to work in short hikes each day that we’re on the road so we can get our steps in!

Our next stop was the city of Vancouver, where we enjoyed visiting the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, Stanley Park, and the UBC Museum of Anthropology. We did a free walking tour of the city and explored downtown and Gastown, visiting several bars along the way home.

The Museum of Anthropology has over 10,000 artifacts from First Nations around the world, not just Canada

We took a ferry over to Vancouver Island, where we spent the next three days camping with some old friends of ours, Tom and Sue, who I taught with in Haiti. We swam, explored the island, and watched the Pleiades meteor shower. It was a lot of fun catching up with my former housemates.

We drove to Victoria and got in line for the ferry and were able to spend a few hours exploring the capital city of BC. We watched Dragonboat racing and caught the tail end of an Indian Mela festival, and did a short self-guided walking tour to see their government buildings and the Empress Hotel.

Even on an island, the Canadian National Railroad built their railroad hotels in a recognizable neo-Chateau style

Arriving back in the United States by ferry at Port Angeles, we explored the Olympic National Park in the state of Washington for the next couple of days. It feels like a lost Jurassic world in there! We saw towering redwoods and old growth cedar trees, as well as dense rain forests, misty coastlines and imposing mountains.

Further south into Washington state we visited Mount Saint Helens and its very informative visitors center. Unfortunately, due to smoke from fires further south and east, visibility was quite low. We had an impromptu lunch with our friend Rob, who used to work with us when we lived in Chad, and then continued south.

Imagine the force of the blast that snapped this tree like a twig

Arriving in Vancouver Washington, we spent several days with fellow travel enthusiasts Shyla and Dan. They own a travel business (Wild Spirit Travel) and we had met them last year while we were all visiting El Salvador. What a fun few days we spent with them! For Dan’s birthday we hiked around the Columbia Gorge, seeing the waterfalls and Beacon Rock. They took us to several McMenamin’s pubs and breweries- so wild! We explored some of downtown Portland, sampled food trucks and went to Powell’s Bookstore, and visited drafthouses on Main Street in Vancouver. I discovered I’m a big fan of sour beers (its like a margarita mixed with a beer kind of taste). We all spent the night at historic Fort Vancouver for a stargazing event- we could see four planets and the moon through a dozen high-powered telescopes. On our last day, they took us to visit some friends who live on the Washougal River for a day of floating down the river and travel talk that evening- their friends are outfitting a bus to drive from Alaska to Argentina. What an adventure!

After a night sleeping outside next to the river at Andi and Kevin’s AirBnB, we left Washington and headed south. We stopped for coffee with a friend of mine from junior high, and we visited Bend and Crater Lake. We couldn’t see across the lake because of the smoke from several nearby fires, but we could see down to the crystal clear waters in some parts. Five trillion gallons of water! It’s hard to imagine.

We’ve just passed 10,000 miles on our road trip, and we are heading into Reno, where we will shop and pack for our Burning Man experience. We’ll be back online after September 4th so look for an update then!

Why drive the 1500 mile Alaska Highway, which officially goes from Dawson Creek, Alberta, to Delta Junction, Alaska? Mainly because you won’t see a single Panera Bread, Best Buy, Bed Bath and Beyond, or Burger King at any exit. Each stretch of the road is unique, with lots of sights, activities, scenery, and wildlife.

Here’s some of our highlights, heading north from Montana into Alberta, then from Calgary up to eastern BC and into Yukon, then into Alaska and ending at Fairbanks.

Craft beer at Medicine Hat Brewing Company: it was a little out of our way, but when else do you get a chance to visit Medicine Hat?

Banff and Jasper National Parks: driving through these two national parks is just sublime. Beautiful forests, glacial lakes, and the Canadian Rockies are a hard-to-beat combination.

Wildlife spotting: on this leg of the journey we caught mule deer, bald eagle, elk, moose, bison, porcupine, fox, coyote, wild swans and about six black bears on camera. We spotted but didn’t get a picture of a wolf and wolf pup, a marten, and a few predator birds, as well as a ptarmigan.

Picnics in parks, riversides, and lakesides: we favor easy to make foods like tortilla wraps, nachos, or bacon and eggs, with supplements from produce stands. With such lovely views to look at, it always tastes delicious.

Visiting local attractions: stopping in at Liard River Hot Springs felt amazing after a long day of driving, and the Kluane Museum in Yukon features over 70 taxidermied arctic animals. The Sign Post Forest was fun to hunt for local signs, and the Klondike paddleboat in Whitehorse was a slice of history.

Hot Springs

Klondike

Sign Post Forest

Going 100 miles out of the way to tag a new province: we left the AlCan Highway and traveled up to Fort Liard in Northwest Territories (population 534) just so that Chris could tag his second-to-last Canadian province (I refused to drive to Nunavut).

We drove along wildlife refuges, the largest non-polar ice field in the world, and along the Alaska pipeline. We saw the world’s largest Santa Claus, sent some mail from the North Pole, and finally made it to Fairbanks, where after more than 5000 total driving miles from home, we’re sitting still for a couple of days and enjoying a lovely B&B on the edge of the University of Fairbanks campus, before we tackle Denali and then the Marine Highway.

Giant Santa Claus

Alaska Pipeline

Beaded Mukluks

We’ll be in Alaska for the next few weeks, so it will be a while before we post again, as we head south towards the Lower 48. Be sure to give us any recommendations for things to do and see while we’re here!