The main road south from the Wrangell-St Elias National Park turn-off to Valdez is one of the most spectacular roads we have travelled in North America. If you enjoy glaciers, this is the road you’ve been waiting to drive. The road provides views of huge valleys, snow capped mountains, big waterfalls and glaciers along most... Continue Reading →
A pleasant drive the next morning with the hope of seeing moose –(no luck) saw us pass the turnoff to Anchorage and head south towards Valdez. Along this road is the opportunity to take the 100km detour into the Wrangell-St Elias National Park. Given that this is the largest unit in the National Parks system... Continue Reading →
Having ‘done Dawson’ we drove away from the mighty Yukon River under still grey and heavy skies across the ‘Top of the World Highway'. Heavily promoted for its magnificent views, this road follows the route of what was an old pack trail out of Dawson City after the gold rush. Once also known as the... Continue Reading →
Dawson City is situated at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. TheTr’ondëk Hwëch’in (People of the River) were the First Nation people of the area known to have used this place as their summer fishing camp for thousands of years. It is possible that the name Klondike is derived from the word Tr’ondëk.... Continue Reading →
Forty kilometres before getting to Dawson City, the Klondike Highway intersects with a gravel road, heading off to the north-east. This is the Dempster Highway to the town of Inuvik, 734 kms north. Construction of the road began in 1959 and was completed in 1978 – needless to say they had a few challenges along... Continue Reading →
The Cassiar highway intersects with the Alaskan Highway not far west of Watson Lake which is a major intersection and service centre. It also has the greatest collection of sign posts from all over the world, but we will tell you more about that when we pass back through here on our way south in... Continue Reading →
Taking the Cassiar Highway is an alternative to part of the Alaska Highway(AH) north. It heads north to the west of the AH, from the community of Kitwanga on the Yellowhead Highway, to a point just west of Watson Lake on the Alaska Highway. The smooth bitumen road meanders alongside rivers and lakes and through... Continue Reading →
The Yellowhead Highway runs from Edmonton, Alberta to Prince Rupert, BC in Canada. Climbing up to Jasper in the Canadian Rockies then down past the beautiful and elusive Mt Robson(often shrouded in cloud), along the Fraser River to Prince George and eventually Prince Rupert on the Pacific Coast. We drove from Banff to Jasper along... Continue Reading →
In one of our recent posts about the National Parks, we wrote about how different the parks were in what they offered the visitor. There is however, one thing all the parks along the length of the Rocky Mountains have in common and that’s bears! One could be excused for thinking that the Rocky Mountain... Continue Reading →
In our last blog we mentioned crossing into Canada and entering Waterton Lakes National Park. The border crossing was uneventful, with the amusing Canadian border agent asking when we are going back to ‘Straya’. After having a drive around the accessible parts of the park but failing to find a car park near any of... Continue Reading →
Notes from somewhere else... 