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YUKON AND
ALASKA
Jul. - Aug. 2008
Klunk! Klunk!
YUKON
Yukon is 80% wilderness. Like
northern BC and Alaska, the
rugged splendour consists of
mountains, ice fields, forests,
lakes, fast flowing rivers and
tundra.
The
opportunities for exploring the
wilds and kayaking for weeks are
boundless.
Next
to the desolate road, some of
the few remaining historic road
houses had fuel and served huge
sourdough pancakes with maple
syrup. We saw moose and deer.
At
an RV Park in Whitehorse
we washed all the stuff, muddied
by the accident. We enjoyed the
“Frantic Follies”, a show with
the goldrush theme when fortune
seekers had come in river boats,
on horse back and on foot
through snow over mountain
passes. Dawson City, once
called “the Paris of the north”
had a population of 30 000
opportunists in 1898. Now the
charming restored historic town
has 1800 inhabitants. There is
still placer mining and gold-
panning in the area.
ALASKA
The
legendary Alaska Highway
brought us into Alaska. In 1942
during WWII when Japan was
considered a threat, it took
just 8 months, in spite of
floods, ice and treacherous
terrain, to complete the 2450 km
gravel road.
On
Jan’s birthday we stopped at a
lake called “Jan’s Lake”!
Fairbanks
The
4th of July celebrations took
place on a hot sunny day. For
the next 6 weeks we hardly saw
the sun. It was our luck to be
in Alaska during the coldest
Alaskan summer in living memory!
The World
Eskimo-Indian Olympics
was a captivating spectacle.
Many of the elders and cute kids
were in traditional dress,
wearing “mukluks”, reindeer hide
boots. The competitions were in
unusual games like, knee jump,
ear pull, toe kick and blanket
toss, where scores of men
holding a moose hide blanket,
would fling competitors high up
into the air. Trinkets from
whale bone, moose hide and birch
bark were for sale.
The
indigenous North Americans
migrated, during the Ice age
when Beringia provided a land
bridge from Siberia. Then there
were gigantic woolly mammoths,
giant beavers and scimitar cats.
In a museum we saw the
well-preserved remains of “Blue
Babe”, a steppe bison of 30 000
years ago. Fur-seeking,
whale-hunting Europeans and
Russians arrived in the 18th
century.
The
biggest bargain ever was when
the U.S. bought Alaska from
Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million
– less than 2c an acre. The
land’s riches soon revealed
themselves: first whales and
furs, then salmon, gold and
finally oil.
The
book ‘Alaska’ by James A.
Michener gives an excellent
historical and environmental
background about Alaska, even
though the main characters are
fictitious.
Dalton
Highway.
We
followed the silvery ribbon of
the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline
over 3 mountain ranges all the
way to the furthest North one
can drive.
It
was a roller coaster ride with
frost heaves, washboard-gravel
and pavement breaks. Through
boreal forests and taiga, with
pink fireweed and fluffy cotton
grass bordering the road. We
were well-prepared for the
adventurous 800km with no
services. There was no internet
and no cell phone reception but
we found a pay phone near the
Arctic Circle, where we were
happy to hear that our daughter
had just had a baby girl.
North of the Arctic Circle,
our old GPS was confused.
When we wanted to check sunrise
and sunset times, it hung up,
because there was neither, as
the sun was up for 24 hours/day!
We were also befuddled: Is it
morning or is it evening?
After the last pass, as warned,
the weather turned dire on the
treeless tundra. We reached the
blustery dystopia of
Deadhorse, the service town
for the oil industry, which
consists of an expanse of
aluminium-clad warehouses and
machinery laden lots. Forlorn
Caribou were licking the salt on
the gravel roads. We tried to
drive to the end of the road but
fierce guards stopped us. The
next day we took the new GPS
(without Dipli) on a tour of
Prudhoe Bay oil fields and
to the Arctic Ocean –
furthest North, by road,
(N70º 22,87’ W148º31,81’) on the
North American continent. It had
taken us 58000km (18 months on
the road) to get here from Moat
(S54º 58,55’ W66º 44,67’) on
Tierra del Fuego, the furthest
South on earth, by wheels.
Workers come to the oil fields
on contract to work for high
wages. Accommodation and
clothing are provided. They toil
long shifts for two weeks and
then have to go away for two
weeks.
It
was back the same arduous way.
Patches of melting permafrost
create “drunken” leaning trees.
Because the warm oil melts the
frozen ground, more than half of
the pipeline is above ground.
Special provision is made for
wildlife to cross. To prevent
damaging the environment most
maintenance is done in winter.
We admired this but were
distressed to learn that
drilling was going to commence
on the pristine Arctic National
Preserve.
On
the Kenai Peninsula,
anglers were lined up next to
rivers and camped cheek-by-jowl
on beaches. Freshly smoked
salmon and catch-of-the-day
halibut tasted real good. We saw
seals and Puffin seabirds with
painted-clown-like faces, and
walked to some glaciers but
clouds concealed the fjords,
mountains and snow covered
Aleutian volcanoes.
On
the Kenai, Jan of course had
to drive to Anchor point,
the furthest West by road
on the American continent (N59º
46,38’ W151º 52,06’).
In
Anchorage we learned
about the 1600km Iditarod
dogsled race through snow
every winter. The dogs wear
protective booties which have to
be changed every 160km. We saw
that many Husky sled dogs have
blue eyes.
Owning a Land Rover
brought about some interesting
encounters:
We
stopped for coffee at a remote
heli-skiing resort. We were
welcomed and photographed by the
manager who is an ardent Land
Rover enthusiast.
One
cold drizzly morning we were
parked next to the road when an
invitation came for South
African tea. We followed to an
awesome location next to a blue
lake with float planes on it and
mountains as back-drop. He was a
float plane trainer and had a
Land Rover in SA where they go
for a holiday each year. We
enjoyed SA wine and a braai at
Moose Pass.
In
the mean time, we had received
an email from someone who had
seen us drive by and had
recognised the vehicle. He and
his wife had been following our
travels on the internet for a
long time. They invited us to
Eagle River and once again
we were wowed at the setting.
There were mountains on two
sides and a river below. We
walked in the adjacent state
forest and saw the most
astonishing variety of mosses
and lichens. He was refurbishing
his own Land Rover SII. (Their
buddies with a Land Rover SII
had also seen us drive by in
Vancouver).
They
were so enthusiastic about our
journey that Leone was inspired
to take up the mouse again.
Near
the Yukon border, beyond the
village of Tok we heard
Klunk! Klunk! from underneath
us. A tow truck returned us to
his yard in Tok. It was a
broken front drive shaft caused
by the front diff locking
this time. We organised for the
spare differential to come from
South Africa. (Sons in law to
fetch it and take it to our
friends with a Postnet air
freight). With a hand winch and
a stake-rope rigging system Jan
removed and replaced the 75kg
rear diff. After 20 days in Tok,
a 2wd Dipli was on the road
again.
We
took the “Top of the World
Highway” and crossed into the
Yukon Territory of Canada at
1300m. We were reminded of the
“Spell of the Yukon” by Robert
Service.
“It’s the great, big, broad land
‘way up yonder
It’s
the forests where silence has
lease
It’s
the beauty that thrills me with
wonder
It’s
the stillness that fills me with
peace…”
Next
ROCKIES’ EAST SIDE
This
journey up to August 2008:
Time
on the road (excluding home
visits): 5 years, 2 months
Kilometres driven: 220 000
Countries visited:
88 (with Dipli).
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