Mile 0: Alcan Highway

Dawson Creek, British Columbia

We've been driving three days down the Alcan Highway and we are about 1,000 miles south from our campground in Carmacks.

The Alcan didn't exist before Pearl Harbor, but on December 7, 1941, construction priorities were changed. Within 60 days the construction of a highway to Alaska was approved and heavy construction equipment was moved by priority train to Dawson Creek.

Watson Lake was an important stop on the Alcan. Here is a picture I took on my walk this morning of the signpost forest that has become a tradition for travellers.

The long highway was completed by September, 1942. The route was dictated by the airfields along the Northwest Delivery Route, which were used to deliver 8,000 lend-lease aircraft to the Soviet Union. The road became impassible again in the summer of 1943. The removal of protective vegetation turned 100 miles of the road to muck after the permafrost melted.


The primary aircraft delivered to the Soviet Union was the P-39 Airacobra. Russian pilots took delivery in Fairbanks and flew on to Nome and Siberia. The mid-engine design was very unusual. The P-39 tended toward flat spins unless the nose was properly loaded with ammunition. It also lacked a turbocharger limiting its effective altitude to about 17,000 feet. The engine drive shaft ran between the pilots feet to the propeller. A 37 MM synchronized nose cannon made this a very effective ground support aircraft.

Aleksandr Pokryshkin flew the P-39 from late 1942 until the end of the war. His unofficial score in the Airacobra stands at nearly 60 Luftwaffe aircraft. His wingman, Grigori Rechkalov, scored 57 victories with the P-39. These are the highest score ever claimed by any pilot with a US-made aircraft. The Russian nickname for the Airacobra was Kobrusha, "dear little cobra".


“Frost heaves” are still common on the highway where sections are uplifted in winter. Axles break and windshields and headlights are shattered by flying gravel. We got a three windshield holes from flying gravel over the last weeks...also our awning frame warped and won't extend.

We stop at Watson Lake, sleep in a wild place on the side of the road at Kilometer 683 and end up today at mile zero in Dawson creek....it's still a long way to the Montana border...I want to stop in the Edmonton mall and buy new designer jeans that fit my body which is now 43 pounds lighter than it was in February...

We see some bear...they are more exciting when we meet them on foot in the woods...parts of the Alcan are very beautiful...mountains, lakes. rivers, mists, rainbows...we also see lots of bison and caribou....

Cooking hash and eggs on the side of the road...

Time for a Change

McBride, British Columbia

The Yellowhead Highway runs east from Prince Rupert on the Pacific Coast to Jasper National Park in Alberta. The last two days have been travel days. We cover the 666 miles between Hyder, Alaska and Jasper on the Yellowhead.

We see a few bears on the road and listen to the wolves talk to each other this morning at 4 AM. One of the videos finally loads up as we log onto an unsecured satellite wireless network in a nearby motor home. It’s the video of the bears in the salmon creek.

We’ve been traveling for two years now. We’re starting to think about doing something different: buying a home, joining the Peace Corps, working on our PhDs, getting jobs, working on a political campaign, consulting or scuba diving in Truk, Micronesia. An existential crisis is brewing.

Salmon Glacier and Bear Creek

Stewart, British Columbia

In the morning, we drive two miles over to Alaska and cross the border. Bear Creek is a place where the salmon are spawning and the bears come out to feed.

The Pink and Chum salmon like this little creek. It’s shallow, the water is clear and the gravel is just the right size. The female salmon flutter and clean the dirt and algae from their nest area. They dig a hole in the gravel and deposit their eggs. The males swim over and fertilize the eggs and then they cover the nest with gravel. Both parents guard the nest until the fry hatch out. They have grown teeth and changed color and shape. Then they die. Only one bear is hungry this morning, but the dozens of salmon fluttering and fighting for turf in the shallow water are very interesting to watch.

We drive up a narrow gravel road 25 miles to the summit of Salmon Glacier. We meet Keith Scott. He is living in a tent on the summit until September. He tells us that the glacier forms a big lake which drains in July like emptying a giant bathtub. The result is a huge flood down river and a broken ice field at the top of the glacier. It happened last week.

We talk to Keith awhile. He suggests a hike and loans Mrs. Phred a can of pepper spray in case she attracts any grizzly bears. The hike is about a mile along a ledge with a good perspectives looking down at the huge glacier.

The view is stunning. It reminds us both the tourist town high in the Alps, with the cog railway, but without the train or the hundreds of jostling Japanese tourists with expensive cameras. We have the whole place to ourselves. I make a bunch of videos, but the Wi-fi back at the camps won’t let me post files that large.

We return to camp and play some tennis in the municipal park (I lose 2-6) then go back to Bear Creek in the evening. A big grizzly sow and her three cubs come out and put on a 30 minute show fishing and playing on the bank. A big male shows up and mama quickly runs away with her cubs. One cub gets left behind in the hasty departure and bellows for 15 minutes until his mother returns to fetch him.

Here are some pictures of the glacier, maybe some videos later?

The Cassiar Highway

Telegraph Creek, British Columbia

After Whitehorse, we follow the Alcan Highway east for a few hundred miles to Watson Lake. Mrs. Phred has been suggesting travel along the Cassiar Highway for something different. The Cassiar has been closed by a wash out for a couple of weeks, but we ask around and it is thought that they are now allowing one-way traffic at the washout 300 miles south. We drive around the “road closed” barrier at Watson Lake and head south. There is very little traffic on this road. We will follow the Cassiar about 800 miles.

We spend an evening at the Boya Lake Provincial Park and continue south to Dease Lake. This is still Gold Rush territory. Jack London casually mentions the lake in the book of short stories I’m working though again.

Mrs. Phred wants to spend the day driving 100 miles down a gravel road to Telegraph Creek, a small historic community on the Skintina River. It’s an impressive drive along an area the locals refer to as the “Grand Canyon”. The narrow road meanders along the edge of cliffs with sharp vertical drop offs and 20 degree grades. They pushed a telegraph line to Europe though here toward Russia in the 1860s before the project failed. We look at the canoes for rent there and the raging current and decide to have a sandwich instead of taking a trip down river.

Today we take another side trip, 250 miles further south, to Stewart, British Columbia. Five miles further west, we will be in Alaska briefly again in the small town of Hyder, about 200 miles South of Juneau. Hyder looks like it has good water access to the Pacific ocean as well as access by land from Brithish Columbia.

My mapping program says that it’s about 1300 miles to the US. We will reenter in Montana at Glacier National Park.

VISA fraud prevention apparently doesn’t like the geographic distribution of my ATM withdrawals. They have disabled my cash card again. My Canadian phone card doesn’t recognize 800 numbers and it’s the weekend. We're down to $50 cash and 5,000 miles from home. I love a challenge.

Here are some pictures of Boya Lake and Telegraph Creek.

What Does It Matter Where People Go?

The Alcan Highway – Mile 478.4
Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park, British Columbia – June 25, 2007


We picked up Justin again, a young hitchhiker, the second day on the highway. He is traveling up to Dawson City, Alaska and hopes to find work in a mining camp. He spent last night in his small tent by the roadside. He theorizes that people who pick up hitchhikers usually have done a lot of hitchhiking. He might have something there.

Last year in Alaska, Captain Tim, out of Homer, expressed his disgust with tourists who drive too fast at night and kill the moose. He made it sound like the moose are as slow as cows or buffalo and just amble out onto the highway. He keeps a .50 caliber “Desert Eagle” in his truck to put them away when they’ve been too badly injured. Captain Tim knew his halibut, but he liked to perseverate about tourists in general and the cost of rods, reels, line, sinkers, bait, gasoline, motor repair, docking fees and wages. By the end of the day I was ready to prepare a business plan for charter halibut fishing.

So then, I was just driving along today, minding my own business, when I caught a big brown blur in my peripheral vision, charging hard from the right. With lightning reflexes, and a characteristic cool presence of mind, I buried the brake pedal in the floorboard of the RV. The “Brake Buddy”, back in the tow vehicle, sensed my anxiety and locked up the Toyota, reducing my total stopping distance by an estimated 30% (according to the manufacturer). As we skidded to a shuddering halt on the wet asphalt, the 3,000 pound, ten-foot tall, Bull Moose crossed inches in front of our motionless front bumper, moving perpendicular to our line of travel at an estimated 30 miles per hour. The whole thing lasted five seconds, tops. He had really long legs, an ungainly gait and a great rack.

A few miles on, we saw what we believe to be “stone sheep” crossing the road. There were also big herds of buffalo along the road but my marginal utility for more bison pictures is approaching zero.

We stop for two nights in the Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park. The Alpha Spring is 53 C. (about 130 F). The Beta Spring is 42 C. The hottest water floats on top. We think of boiling frogs in slowly heated water. We’re up at 60 degrees north latitude. The nights are very short this time of year. We smell sulfur as we soak alone at dawn in the steaming pool and then hike in the woods to a waterfall. No one else stops to see it. They’re all in a hurry to arrive at a destination. We stop for buffalo burgers for lunch. We consider electricity on the way out and hear the pounding generator powering the only eating place for 100 miles.

Sometimes when you meet someone for the first time you may find that you both share the same favorite poem. You may only remember the poem part of the meeting at long intervals of years when you happen to stumble upon patches of bluebells in the woods.

Spring Morning

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
Down to the stream where the king-cups grow -
Up on the hill where the pine-trees blow -
Anywhere, anywhere, I don't know

Where am I going? The clouds sail by,
Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.
Where am I going? The shadows pass,
Little ones, baby ones, over the grass

If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You'd sail on water as blue as air,
And you'd see me here in the fields and say:
"Doesn't the sky look green today?"

Where am I going? The high rooks call:
"It's awful fun to be born at all."
Where am I going? The ring-doves coo:
"We do have beautiful things to do."

If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go today!"

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow -
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.

- A.A. Milne

The salmon start running in Alaska in June. I hear them calling.

Mile Zero – The Alcan Highway

Dawson Creek, British Columbia

On December 7, 1941, construction priorities were changed. Within 60 days the construction of a highway to Alaska was approved and heavy construction equipment was moved by priority train to Dawson Creek.

The long highway was completed by September, 1942. The route was dictated by the airfields along the Northwest Delivery Route, which were used to deliver 8,000 lend-lease aircraft to the Soviet Union. The road became impassible again in the summer of 1943. The removal of protective vegetation turned 100 miles of the road to muck after the permafrost melted.

The primary aircraft delivered to the Soviet Union was the P-39 Airacobra. Russian pilots took delivery in Fairbanks and flew on to Nome and Siberia. The mid-engine design was very unusual. The P-39 tended toward flat spins unless the nose was properly loaded with ammunition. It also lacked a turbocharger limiting its effective altitude to about 17,000 feet. The engine drive shaft ran between the pilots feet to the propeller. A 37 MM synchronized nose cannon made this a very effective ground support aircraft.

Aleksandr Pokryshkin flew the P-39 from late 1942 until the end of the war. His unofficial score in the Airacobra stands at nearly 60 Luftwaffe aircraft. His wingman, Grigori Rechkalov, scored 57 victories with the P-39. These are the highest score ever claimed by any pilot with a US-made aircraft. The Russian nickname for the Airacobra was Kobrusha, "dear little cobra".

“Frost heaves” are still common on the highway where sections are uplifted in winter. Axles break and windshields and headlights are shattered by flying gravel. We got a windshield crack today from flying gravel.

We ended the day at Fort Nelson, one of the airfield locations. It's about 1,000 miles to Skagway, launch point for the Klondike Gold Rush.