Driving southeast from the Fairbanks area we had one final goal to accomplish: complete the drive on the Alaska Highway. A few weeks prior we had driven roughly 2/3 of the highway from Dawson Creek, BC to Whitehorse, YT. The official end to the highway is at Delta Junction, AK. This means we had to drive the remaining 500 miles to complete the road. We were set and ready to go!
We had started our drive today from the town of North Pole, just outside of Fairbanks. We had visited the Santa Claus House where Julie got her fill of Christmas until December. From North Pole to the tiny town of Delta Junction it was only about an hours drive. Leaving the Fairbanks suburbs we passed Eielson Air Force base (one of the largest employers in the area) before it truly felt that we were out in the Alaska wilderness once again. Slowly the mountains reappeared and traffic dissipated. At one point as we had not seen any other vehicles in a few minutes so we decided to stop the car and take some great van shots from the middle of the road. (Don’t worry, we did this on a long straight section and one person stayed in the drivers seat so that if a car did come flying down the road we could easily pull off to the side). No cars disturbed our photo shoot and after a few great pictures we continued our way to Delta Junction.
Delta Junction, Alaska – The official end of the Alaska Highway
Arriving in Delta Junction felt like a mini triumph for us. After a few weeks of traveling around Alaska we were back to the mother road – the Alaska Highway herself. The Alaska Highway ended at this seemingly tiny spec of a town as it is home to the Allen Army Airfield. During World War II airfields were built from the lower 48 states of the USA through Canada and into Alaska. Planes filled with supplies would hop from airfield to airfield eventually going across the Bearing Sea to the Soviet Union to supply aid to help defeat Nazi Germany. Delta Junction was the furthest east that a road had been built from Anchorage which is why Delta was the location for the end of the Alaska Highway.
We didn’t spend too long in Delta Junction as there wasn’t too much there. We did visit the small Alaska Highway museum where they had the same monument as Dawson Creek did, 1365 miles down the road. They also had a sign letting you know how cold that it can get in Delta Junction with the record being -62. Now that is cold. Leaving the small museum we spotted a small coffee shack. Being from the east coast we don’t see these very often but if you are from the Pacific Northwest or up in Alaska you see these all the time. These are small coffee businesses about the size of a shed that has 1 or 2 drive through windows. We had seen these all over Alaska but never stopped so we thought we finally should. This one was called Higher Grounds Espresso & Coffee and it was pretty darn good. It made us think that we should stop at a few others along the way.
Sourdough Campground in Tok, Alaska
After getting our coffee it was time to hit the road again and travel southeast along the Alaska Highway. Our destination tonight was the Sourdough Campground in the town of Tok. We had stayed here our 1st night in Alaska and we liked it so much we thought we should stay again. After checking into the campground we thought that we should relive a little bit of our first day in Alaska and decided to order out from Jen’s Thai restaurant which we had ordered from our 1st night in the state. After dinner it was time for the pancake toss. If you remember from our blog a few weeks ago the Sourdough Campground has its own game, the sourdough pancake toss. You have two chances to throw a pancake into a bucket. If you get one in you win a free breakfast at the campground’s small café the next morning. This might seem like an easy thing to win but if you have ever tried to throw a pancake then you know they are not the easiest thing to hit a target with. This night however was the complete opposite of our 1st stay. Instead of Julie winning, I won! Needless to say we went to bed happy that night.
The next morning after packing up we ventured over to the campground café for breakfast. One of the nice things about this campground is that it is family owned. This means at the café, the owner is cooking you breakfast. We had a nice conversation with Tim on the way into Alaska a few weeks prior and it was nice to see him again and talk on our way out. He and his family have owned the campground for 10+years and told us that while it is hard work, its one of the most fun jobs in the world. It’s always nice to stay at a campground where the owner takes such pride in not only the campground appearance but in the camper experience as well.
After breakfast we said goodbye to the Sourdough Campground and the town of Tok and headed towards the border. It was a bit of a weird feeling as we approached the Canadian border. We had been working towards our “Alaska Trip” for a little over a year and here we were about to cross the border out of Alaska. Alaska is truly a special place. It will push you to your limits but give back as much as it takes. It’s rough and wild and it takes a lot of time to get there. It’s 100% worth going though and we both could not wait to start to plan another trip to the state.
USA/Canada Border
One of the neat things on this stretch of the road is the actual border itself. The American customs house is located almost directly on the border while the Canadian Customs house is a few miles down the road closer to the town of Beaver Creek, YT. Here on the Alaska/Yukon border you can park your vehicle and sit on a bench that was built directly on the border so that half of the bench is in either country. There is also some neat information signs on the Alaska Highway, the wildlife in the area as well as the history of the border of the USA and Canada. After getting our fill of standing in two countries at one time we headed on and crossed back into Canada.
Camping in the Yukon
Our destination for the night was tiny Destruction Bay, YT. There was a territorial/government campground on the map that looked nice. If there is one thing that the Yukon does right its building and running their campgrounds. They are always cheap (most are $12CDN per night) and beautifully maintained. There is no power or sewer at these but spots are always wooded, huge and just far enough away from your neighbors that you have a sense of privacy. The government campground at Destruction Bay on the shores of Kluane Lake was no different. It was beautiful. The only issue was that it was raining. One of the perks at staying in a Yukon government campground is that they provide free firewood. As much as we tried we could not get a fire going in the light rain. Oh well, it was still a beautiful spot.
The next morning we woke up and the rain had stopped. We took the opportunity to walk the rock beach at Kluane Lake for a bit before hopping back into Bubbles and heading back towards Whitehorse. We would be driving the last few hours on new Alaska Highway roadway for us before ending up at the same campground that we had stayed at while in Whitehorse a few weeks ago. This is one of the strange parts about driving to Alaska, for some parts of the journey there is no way around backtracking. There just aren’t very many roads so more times than not you will end up back at the same spots. Not to say that’s a bad thing. It does make you a bit more comfortable in your surroundings even though you’re literally thousands of miles from home.
Whitehorse, YT and catching up with a traveling friend
Julie and I were excited to be back in Whitehorse. Back in late May we were exploring the town of Taos, NM and decided to try out the local brewery. While there we noticed someone else was driving a camper Sprinter van. It turned out the owner; David was sitting right next to us at the bar. He was from San Francisco on his way to New Orleans for his birthday and after that he was going to drive up to Alaska. In this instance the lack of roads in the Yukon made our paths cross again. We knew where our vans would be crossing each other a few days prior so we made plans ahead of time to stay at the same campground.
It was really cool seeing someone again that even though we had only met briefly in Taos and had been more or less living the same van life as we had. Once we made it to the campground and checked in we picked David up and headed over to a brewery called Winterlong to catch up. We wanted to hear all about his travels and he about ours. One of the first topics of conversation wasn’t the most fun but we had to get it out of the way. It was the talk of the town.
About a week or so prior police in the British Columbia section of the Alaska Highway had found two younger people in their 20’s murdered on the side of the highway in their van. They had also found a professor from the Univ. of BC murdered in his truck camper in northern BC. This was extremely unusual for a few reasons. 1. Murder in the entire country of Canada is very rare and 2. For it to happen in an extremely remote area of the country is more unusual. In this part of Canada as towns are hours apart if you see someone stopped on the side of the road you stop to make sure that they are ok. The sense of community is very strong here as neighbors help neighbors to simply survive. The thought of people being killed when they thought that someone was just stopping to see if they were ok is and was a chilling thought. David, ourselves as well many of the people that we spoke to in the campgrounds were sad and on alert because of this situation.
Once we got that conversation out of the way though it was great to hear about David’s experience in New Orleans and all the way up to Whitehorse from there. After the brewery we drove downtown and had dinner at Dirty Northern Restaurant. (Don’t let the name fool you, the restaurant was clean and the food was very good). From the restaurant we headed back to the campground where we made a fire, had a whisky and a cigar and talked about how lucky we all were to be living the dream and seeing the world.
Driving back to Watson Lake, YT
The next morning after waking up, having breakfast and saying goodbye to David we drove the Alaska Highway once again. Today would be our one and only backtracking day. We were driving from Whitehorse, YT back to just outside of Watson Lake, YT. We were lucky as the weather was beautiful and as we made the 275 mile drive we noticed pieces of the roadway that had been under construction on our drive up had now been repaired. This calmed our nerves as this section of highway had done major damage to our windshield on the way north. The day went by without any incident and before we knew it we were pulling into our campground in Watson Lake.
Next up….We drive south and explore North Central British Columbia!
