We crossed into Alaska for the third time today. This is the main part of Alaska, or some call it the Alaskan interior; as the first town’s in Alaska we visited, Hyder and Skagway, are both in that Southern arm of Alaska, but they’re still Alaska. We haven’t had phone access since June 6th or E-mail access since the 9th. We are now in Tok, Alaska for four nights and will rendezvous with our son Kane and future Daughter-in-law Dani, who flew up from Indiana and are visiting her father who lives here in Tok.
After leaving Whitehorse, the next morning we saw our first Grizzly bear. He was just off the highway in a wide area and scampered into the trees as we drove near. Grizzly Bears are brown and have a distinct look that is different from the black bear family. Their nose is different and they have a distinct hump on their back below the neck. There are some brown colored black bears which we have seen, as well as grays, but this was definitely a Grizzly. He had different moves as he ran into the trees and was a beautiful site. Too bad we didn’t have time to get the camera and turn it on for a picture.
Another first was our seeing the Dahl Sheep. They live high up on the mountains and graze on the steep mountain slopes. We stopped at a visitors center next to what they call “Sheep Mountain” and high up next to a patch of snow, June sited through our binoculars the sheep. It could not be seen without the binoculars, but there it was grazing at the top of the mountain next to the snow patch. Not a great view, but it counts as our first Dahl Sheep siteing.
The last 100 miles of our drive through the Yukon Territory of Canada was beautiful, as have most of the other areas been – The primary difference is the road condition. This area was also one of the most challenging for the builders of the Alaska Highway due to the permafrost. The ground below is permanently frozen and does not provide the base needed for a reliable road. Locals say it was actually kept better before they tried to pave the road a number of years back. They could simply run a road grader and smooth it out when needed. Whether that’s as simple as it sounds I can’t say, but I do know it was bad. A lady at the Beaver Creek welcome center said the road here is the worst its’ been in years due to the extra cold temperatures last winter (global warming? – I don’t believe it - and from what we've seen on the geological history, Earth has been through cooling and warming cycles for millions of years)..... Off and on for miles we moved along at 10 MPH so we wouldn’t get shaken too bad. The bad spots are marked with orange flags so you can prepare – none-the-less, with all the shaking and stones, my windshield was cracked and as I drove I watched it stretch from a three inch crack to now about a 20 inch jagged crack form the base of the windshield moving upward. I have arranged for a replacement when we get to Anchorage next week.
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| Window Crack w/ shadow (still growing) |
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| A good spot in the road |
We crossed into Alaska at the border crossing at 1:45 P.M. Alaska time (5:45 Eastern Time – 4 hrs. difference). A while later we stopped at the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuse Visitor Center and decided to stay the night at their Deadman Lake Campground, 1 ½ miles off the highway. This was a free campground and at 7:00 P.M. a Park Service employee, Cora, conducted for the campers a nice presentation of her life and provided us with materials to make post cards using poster paper and wildflowers. Cora, who is retiring next year, told us she was a native to this land and was raised by her mother along with 5 siblings. Her father died when she was three. They lived in a frame dwelling with canvas tops and sides, insulated with pine boughs and other natural materials. Remember, it gets up to 80 degrees below zero in the winter months. She said she never recalls ever being cold or being hungry. They dressed in animal skins and clothing her mother made and heated with wood they cut and dragged to the dwelling with the help of their sled dogs. They lived in a very small place with one other family down the road that was about 9 miles from what is now the Alaskan Highway. Her mother traded animal skins for some of the necessary staples and supplies to sustain their needs. She did not know English until her mother made her go to an Indian school when she was six. She said she remembers that learning English was very hard, but did learn and went on to school and is now a National Park Service Naturalist. She still speaks her native language often, and her children understand the language but don’t use it themselves as all of the people around them today speak English.
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| Cora |
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| June w/ mosquito net and wildflower cards we made |
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| Rainbow |
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| "Good" Road |
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