Ontario, Canada - August 29

We are Beaconing again in Canada. Check out where we are!!!


This part of our trip has been very uninteresting and boring. FLAT and lots of wind. We crossed into Minnesota and were able to see Lake Superior. Very blue. We crossed over the Mississippi River again and again found a casino with electric to stay overnight at. This time I lost $ 2.00. I should have gone for dessert again. We were so glad to have electric because it has gotten very hot and we were glad to be plugged in with A/C.
Saturday we pushed on another 350+ miles. We did see 5 Turkeys on the side of the road.  Wildlife again. Lots of lakes and every time we pass one I am still looking for Moose or Bears. At 8:26 AM we crossed into Michigan.  At 2:45 PM we hit 13,000 miles. At 4:15 we crossed the border into Canada again at Sault Sant Marie. Then we went to get gas and it was $ 4.16 / gal as opposed to the $ 2.80/gal  we paid the day before in Wisconsin.  We spent last night in a Community Park in Bruce Mines. Pretty rinky dink and the showers were gross so we didn't even use them.

But today we had a tail wind and made it to Huntsville, Ontario. Tomorrow we are meeting with another friend of mine who I have known since kindergarden at the age of 5. I haven't seen Gale in 6 - 7 years and the last time I was at her family's camp  was 26 years ago. We are only about 30 miles away so we will be there mid morning tomorrow. We plan on staying until Friday when we will head back down to the states.  We also look forward to NOT driving  for 4 days. Hopefully we will have some photos to share  shortly.

Grand Fork, N.D.

We left the Rockies and  visited Calgary and  the 1988 Olympic Winter Park.

Carol rode the chair lift to the top and Garry went with Gail in her motorhome as they  drove to the top. Carol decided to go to the top of the High Ski Jump and look at the view.

We also got a close up look at the bobsled and luge slide. After a birthday dinner at a Great Japanese resturant for Gail's 65th BD, we headed to a casino to spend the night. In the morning, we left Gail and  headed across the plains of Alberta and headed up to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. We spent the night at The Dakota Dodge Falls Casino outside of town that had free parking with electric hookup. What a deal. I didn't put any money in the slots here but we did go have a dessert and coffee.  I think I came out ahead this time. We then had a very long day of driving but crossed over the Canada/US border about 7:30 that night. 10 miles down the road we had cell signals again. We spent yesterday (Aug 26) crossing N.D. Flat land, many gas pipelines and cows. 

We did make a quick stop in Rugby, N.D. which is the geographical center of North America. (U.S., Canada and Mexico) Seemed like an odd thing but  there it is.
When we stopped for gas  it was $ 2.64 per gallon. Last night we were at the Air Force Base family Camp outside of Grand Forks. Our wonderful NPS Golden Age pass got us a full hook up for $6.00. My wallet is feeling much happier now.

August 23- Canmore, Alberta, Canada

BEACONING IS WORKING AGAIN!

We have departed Baniff after a three day stay in this beautiful city nestled between two mountains that actually rise straight up from downtown.  We made a visit to the Banff Springs Fairmont hotel and used our Presidents Club card to access the internet. We  hiked to the HooDoos, which is what they call irregularly shaped spires made from the sandstone of the mountains.   We ended up with some rain yesterday which not only   cleared out a lot of the smoke from the B.C. fires ( Good News) but  it also created a Hail storm in calgary where we were headed to. (Bad News) The rain kept us from some of the activities we had planned but we enjoyed the day of liesure after our hour and half walk to the HooDoo's.

We are now in Calgary where we spent the afternoon touring the site of the 1988 Olympic Village. We got up close and personal to the Bobsled/ Luge tracks and the Ski Jumps. WOW! This is our last night with my friend gail. She is heading South tomorrow and we are heading NorthEast towards Sakatoon.

We will update this with pictures when we can get them downloaded.

Jasper - August 16

August 16 - We spent the day touring Jasper. The fires in British Columbia have sent smoke drifting this way so there is a haze everywhere and it is difficult to see the mountains. We drove out to maligne canyon. Gorgeous narrow, deep canyon with a river and waterfalls. 

River in the gorge

Rainbow in the mist from the Waterfall

We saw bighorn sheep on the road and stopped to get a picture with them. Fun. There are many lakes in this area. they have the most beautiful Turquoise color.

Mother and her kid.

Up close to Sheep.

We stopped at a gift shop out at Medicine Lake. I looked up at the clock and realized that Alberta was an hour later than our clocks were set for. We hadn't realized when we crossed the border that we needed to move watches ahead. Yikes. we had been an hour behind for 2 days! we also were suppose to be at the Visitor Center in Jasper at 4 in the hopes that my friend Gail would have made it to Jasper so that we could meet up with her. It has been difficult communicating because of lavk of cell phones and difficulty finding internet. ( Thus the lack of blog updates too) It was now actually 3:30 not 2:30 as we thought and we hurried back to town.

As in the old days we had been leaving notes for Gail at both the Visitor Center and at whatever campground we were going into at night so she could find us. When i checked back at the Visitor Center my note was Gone! Hooray she is here. We drove out to the Campground and were so happy to finally see her.

We spent that night at Whistlers CG and after dinner a small herd of Elk munched and strolled their way right past our camp sites. What a great way for Gail to start her trip with us.

One of many Elk we saw.

Salmon dinner  at the campground.

The next day  (Aug 17) we got a leisurely start and drove out to exploe and walk around some lakes.  We athen drove out to the Jasper lake Lodge. VERY posh. We had thought to get a cup of coffee there but as it was way past lunch time we decided to order lunch. What a mistake. Garry and I both ordered a bowl of soup. When served the waitress put a very shallow bowl in front of us - Garry had 2 noodles, a couple of bites of chicken, a speck of onion and some spices. I was given a shallow bowl with 1 totrilla chip, a couple pieces of corn and 2 bites of chicken. WHAT???????????????????????? I said to the waitress that I thought we were getting soup. She then poured the broth into Garry's bowl and the Chowder liquid into mine. What an odd way to present it especially as it didn't consisit of much when all was said and done. Good soup but we each only had about 10 spoonfuls and the bill came to $ 25.00. Welcome to the Fairmont Jasper Lodge.

Interestingly enough during all of this my friend Gail ( she did a lot of business traveling with IBM) has quietly asked about internet access. She comes back to the table with applications for us to join The Presidents Club at the Fairmont. No cost and we can get WIFI at any of the Fairmonts. So while we can't afford to eat here we can get WIFI free. WoHoo.  We hadn't brought our computer along so we will go on line another day.

We drove out to our campsite at Pocohontas. We grilled out using Gail's small grill, played cards until 11:00 and crashed.

Jasper - August 15

We left beautiful LaSalle Lake to drive into the small town of McBride for fuel and propane. While we had been at the Lake we met a fellow named Bob Elliott who worked for the town of McBride overseeing the parks. Delightful man and I whined to him abit about my shock at prices in B.C. especially for a box (small) of wine. He told me that B.C. stands for BRING CASH and that Alberta - AL stands A LOT (of cash). Oh Boy!!!  We had asked him where to get propane, etc. and he said that if we were going to stop in McBride that we should stay at the Beaverview CG. He knew how much we had enjoyed our  2 days at the lake and he thought we would like that CG better than the one we had planned to use in Valemont. His advice was excellent. This CG had the usual Showers, laundry, etc. but I was pleased to find the showers were FREE and the washer was only $ 2.00 and the dryer $ 1.50. We felt like we were simply parked in someones backyard. We had full service but the sites were grassy ( not mud/dirt) and there was a lot of space between each one of us so we had room to put out our awning, chairs etc. We had a quiet afternoon. That evening as we were having dinner we see an old  beautifully restored 1957 Chevy truck pull up to our site. We were so surprised to see that it was Bob and he had brought his girlfriend Dierdre with him. It seems that before she moved to McBride she had owned a wine store in Vancouver and she also made a lot of wine.  When she sold the business she had 100's of bottles left and she still makes wine for fun.  We were so surprised when she handed us 2 bottles of a red wine. She refused to let us pay for them. She said that after she heard about us from Bob she took pity on us and wanted us to have these bottles. What wonderful people! They have somewhat made up for our ( so far) negative feelings about Canada. Bob said he hoped we had taken his suggestion about coming into that particular park when they took off to find us. He probably wouldn't have driven all the way to Valemont looking for us. Amazing.

Anyway we then left for Jasper the next day. The Rockies are big. unfortunately there is hardly any snow visible and they are very barren looking. Guess I have been spoiled by Alaska. Garry ( who has been here before) says it will improve as we head South. We had hoped to meet up with my friend Gail yesterday. Unfortunately she is coming a longer way and without cell phones we are having trouble communicating.  We went to a place that our friends John and Karen had mentioned but you had to buy airtime at $ 2.50 for 30 minutes. We usually take over an hour if we try to do the blog so we said no and moved on. The Visitor Center sent us to a pizza place that was suppose to have WIFI but you had to buy something to get it. We had thought we would get a PIECE of pizza so sat, ordered a complete pizza as they would not sell it by the sloce  and  then found out that the band width wasn't very strong and we couldn't even get to our emails to see if Gail had sent us something. Great. So then we went to a bakery cafe who again said we had to buy something to get WiFi. I don't mind buying something I want to get the service bit I get steamed when I feel that we are not getting what we paid for.  We really needed to get in touch with Gail so we bought a piece of apple pie and yes we finally were able to get the internet. We took the pie home for dessert last night. We were out at a site called Snaring River ,last night. Dry camping near the Snaring River. Garry bought a fishing license and had hoped to fish the river but the current was too swift and he wsn't able to catch anything.
So this morning being Monday the library is now open and that is where we are after paying $ 2.50 for the service. We are now off to explore the area. Hopefully we will be meeting up with Gail tonight. The townsite of Jasper is very nice although RV's are the cruise ships here. Weather is beautiful but they too need rain. interestingly there was an absolute ban on campfires in B.C. while there were campfires all around us in the campground last night. Hopefully everyone will be very diligent with their fires.

Toward Jasper - August 14

I can finally say that we have warm/hot weather and I have finally !! taken out some tees and Capris. My feet are in flip-flops finally!!!!  We have only had occasional rain showers and all of British Columbia is so dry that there are no campfires aloud anywhere.
After we left Smithers  we  drove  to Burns lake. They have a municipal campground on the lake. Pretty place and the price was right (free) but as we shortly learned it was a hangout for the town drunks.  We initially had 5 natives at the site over from us drinking to the point where one of them fell asleep and his buddies left him there for hours ubtil he finally woke up and staggered off into town. We then had an enjoyable dinner and watched some of the local families who  brought their kids over to play in the lake. Later that night 7 cars showed up with other locals who caroused until late in the evening. The next morning there were broken bottles, empty beer cans, etc. all over the place.  We drove out very carefully and were glad to leave that town behind.

The weather is getting better. We continued on to the town of Vanderhoff. This one has a Swiss influence. Thankfully it was a very cute, neat and clean town. There wasn't much to see here so we backtracked a little and drove 30 miles out to the Historic town of Fort St. James. This was right up mu alley as it was a restored old fort from the early 1800's and was part of the Hudson bay Fur trading business. this was one of the major stops along the fur route. There were several old buildings to see and the guides were all in period costumes. We really enjoyed seeing this site.  They rent out the bedrooms in the Fort Administrators house. There is no running water in the house. For the comfort of their guests they have a washroom hidden in a seperate building and they have replaced the straw mattresses with new modern mattresses. They will provide dinner and breakfast. The side dishes for dinner are prepared for you but when you are ready to eat dinner you have to cook either your steak or your fish on the wood stove. the next morning the docent will fix pancakes and coffee over the wood stove. I think it would be fun to stay there. You have the run of the site after the visitors leave. You will even have chickens, shepp and cows keeping you company. We were given permission to spend the night in there shaded parking lot overlooking the river.  We had a restful night here thank goodness.

Inside the Fort grounds

Garry "relaxing" in the fur trappers barracks

One of the bedrooms you can stay in.

Wood stove used for cooking.

Inside the mens barracks.

Carol talking to Docent in the Trading Post.

 

The last 2 days we have been parked in a provincial park campground managed by the town of McBride. No charge. It sat right on the LaSalle lake a beautiful fresh water lake. We were surrounded by the Caribou Mountains. They are the outer mountain range before we get to the rockies. .The water was crystal clear and we could see the mountains reflected in the water. Gorgeous. We felt very peaceful here. That evening  we were joined by another camper and a couple who were tenting. They all left the next morning and we had the place to ourselves all day. We put the awning out, got our chairs out and just vegetated by the lake. it got hot enough in the afternoon and the lake looked so inviting that we ended up going for a swim and taking a bath in the lake. It was cold initially but we got use to it pretty quick.

Beautiful laSalle Lake.

Resident geese.

 Still no campfires allowed because of the dryness of everything. Later  that afternoon we were joined by an educational summer camp of 11 kids and 2 counselors who were canoeing, rafting and hiking from Mt. Robson (outside of Jasper) to Vancouver. They had come down to cool off  in the Lake. they were actally camping  on someones property a little way up the highway.

Bathing the old fashioned way.

Garry in the Lake.

 They left at dusk and we had 3 car/trailers arrive to feel up our little paradise.  Oh Well. We had a clear night last night and actually saw stars for the first time in awhile. It is actually starting to get dark around 10 now. It is helping us to sleep better. We are now in a campground with elec. and water outside of McBride.  Believe it or not we are actually running the Air Conditioner. First time all summer.We need to do some servicing to the camper as we get ready to go into Jasper National Park. Stay tuned.

August 7 in Hyder, Alaska - Our last Alaska outpost. Boo Hoo!!!

Welcome to Hyder

 We left Jade City and drove on to Hyder. We had to again cross the Canadian border to arrive here. This town is a lone outpost on the backside of the Misty Fjord mountains. It is at the end of the Portland Canal, a long 12 hour/ 120 mile boat ride around to Ketchikan, Alaska. It is only 2.3 miles by the only road to Stewart, B.C., Canada. However everything is so much more expensive on that side and any supplies brought in by road have to go through the customs check and duty, etc. paid, so that the Hyder residents prefer to order things in from Ketchikan. Thus all their supplies and even their mail comes in by float plane. They like to call themselves "The friendliest ghost town in Alaska."  Only 100 residents.

Hyder to left of line on mountain, Stewart to the right.

Run-A-Muk Campground

Very alpine looking

The drive down Stewart-Hyder access road was another gorgeous drive. We were back among very tall mountains which were still snowcapped and had glaciers coming down off of ice fields.

3 waterfalls

One of several Glaciers

We had just had several long days so we treated ourselves to a campground in Hyder. We decided to go to the Run-A-Muck campground. When we went to check in the owner offered us a senior discount if we would stay for 2 days. SOLD! This was a very nice place regardless of its name. They had Wi-Fi and we were able to get the blog updated and sent out emails. we had one from some friends we had last seen at the Russian River on the Kenai. John and Karen were trying to find out where we were so I wrote them back. The next morning they showed up at our camper. They were staying about 6 miles down the road in a campground in Stewart. What a wonderful surprise. 

They were heading over to the Bear Observation Viewpoint which Hyder is known for. Salmon use the Fish Creek for their spawning grounds so bears are frequent visitors there. No bears were there at the time so we drove back into the village to have lunch at "The Bus". Another quirky place with great food.

John and Karen

After lunch we explored the village. We drove out to the town dock where the float planes come in. On the way back towards town we looked up on the hill and saw the demarcation line down the mountain that divides Canada and Stewart. Apparently the 2 countries take turns each year hacking out the overgrowth on the line.

The Bus

Spawning Salmon

After we got back to our campground we said our goodbyes (again) to John and Karen. They were continuing South while we were going to spend one more night in Hyder. After we had dinner we drve back to the Bear Observation Platform. We were in luck as there was a big grizzly having his dinner.  We spent about an hour there watching him. We can't seem to get our fill of watching bears in the wild.

This was a big bear.




We left Hyder yesterday. We have fallen in love with Alaska and it was difficult for us to leave our last Alaska stop. We again crossed the border and came into the town of Smithers, British Columbia. This town is very pretty and has a Norwegian/Swiss influence. We were able to camp outside the Visitors Center last night. It is a beautiful, sunny day today so we may do some exploring and spend another night here.

August 3 - Skagway

This is the true color of the lake enroute Skagway

We arrived in Skagway in the afternoon after crossing through customs and the  canada/US border. We drove the Klondike Highway down  into the town which has to be one of the most gorgeous drives of the trip. Have we said that before?

Mirror image!!!!!

This is the other side of the road from previous photo!!

Do you believe this view?

We drove into town and parked. The people we bought the camper from have summer jobs in Skagway so I gave them a call.   Linda was parked a block away from where we were as she was picking up her husband Laurie. He works for the White Pass and Yukon Railroad.  When we bought the camper he had told us that if we ever got to Skagway he would get us passes on the train so I wanted to collect. We had a wonderful  short visit with them  and made plans to meet them for dinner the next night.

Skagway was built on the Klondike Gold Rush and there is a lot of history relating to that there. Very interesting.  Unfortunately it is also a cruise ship stop and there were 4 in town that day. Not nearly as bad as it was in Ketchikan although there are some company stores here too.  We were tired and headed back out of town to a NPS campground. It was around the other side of the Taiya Inlet from the town. Quiet night and did we sleep.

Toured the town the next day. We liked it but never could get on the internet. The library only had one computer and all the people in there with laptops had overload the band and it was down. We meet up with Lauri and Linda for a great dinner. They said it was a little deja vue to see the camper parked on the town street. Lauri gave me a pass to ride the train the next day. It goes up along the side of the mountain and  up to the summit so therefore Garry didn't want to go. Heights.

That night we decide to drive out 9 miles to camp on "The Flats" out at Dyea. This is free and we just had to register our intent  with  the police dept. This is at the site of the other town that sprang up during the gold rush days. At one point it was bigger than Skagway. The miners at Dyea took the 33 mile Chilkoot Pass up to the summit at an altitude of   2865 feet. The miners out of Skagway took the White Pass trail - it was 10 miles longer but its summit was less steep and 600 feet lower.  I could write a lot more about the gold rush but I won't. Anyway Dyea eventually ceased to be as Skagway had a better port. So off we went to spend the night out on the flats. We had heard that a grizzly bear fished for Salmon along the creek bed. Sure enough he showed up @ 8:30PM.

First night bear - Is this close???

 There were several people from town out there to see him too. He ambled along on the other side of the creek from us paying no attention to any of us. What a thruill. We were parked about 25 feet from the creek bank and the creek itself was about 25 feet across so he got very close to us. The creek is only between 1 - 2 feet deep and there was Salmon in the creek. After he ambled away we went to bed. At 11 PM I heard all this splashing outside my window. It is getting dark now around 11 so in the dusk I was able to make out his silhouette as he was splashing after fish. Unable to get a picture because it was too dark. He disappeared around the bend in the creek and we went back to sleep only to hear him splashing around again about an hour later. We have our night vision monocular with us and we were able to see his antics. He caught a fish and dragged it up on the opposite bank. Someone rode out at that time on a motorcycle and the bear dropped the fishing and ran off. They can really run fast! That was the last we saw/heard him that night. The next morning we looked around and there were several fish carcasses in front and in back of the camper. WOW!!!!

We drove into town the next day and I took the train ride. It was wonderful. I was on the other side of the gorge we had driven along coming into town. This construction  has been placed alongside the Eiffel Tower and the Panama Canal in its engineering marvel. We went over the most unbelievable (high) trestle bridges over canyons and through 2 mountains. I really enjoyed the ride  but was so tired from bear watching all night the night before that I dozed on the way down.

One of many trestles.

Now you see why Garry wouldn't go with me.

 I arrived back in town at 4:15 and we headed back out to the flats for another night. Of course I was hoping to see the bear again. Well we waited and waited but by 9:30 he hadn't shown up so we went to bed.  This time we were parked facing the other way and Garry woke me at midnight because the bear was back. We watched for awhile and went back to sleep only to hear him again an hour later. He ambled off down the creek and we went to sleep again. At 5 it was daylight and he again woke us up with all the splashing. I got a video and great pictures of him this time. He even walked right beside the camper. I hardly breathed as I had the window down taking pictures.  I have never had so much fun NOT getting any sleep. What a thrill.

You can see our camper mirror at the bottom of this photot. This was a CLOSE encounter.

One of our last nights in Alaska and we finally got the close encounter in the wild that we had been hoping for. What a thrill!!! I was sorry to leave Skagway the next day as I wanted to see him again.

Prudhoe Bay, Part Two

Here are some photos of the Brooks Range. Let me back up and say we were thrilled at the Tunda coming into Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay. It was nearly 100 miles across without a rise in evevation (just above sea level) and no trees or bushes. Upon waking on it, one's foot would sink about one inch down, so it is a very fragile eco system and one we took very carefully. When talking to the oil workers at the hotel, they do not drive in it durning summer, only winter, when they can make ice bridges to drive on and in the spring they thaw with no damage to the fragile tunda.

Tundra and river outside Prudhoe Bay

Brooks Range is a long and wide range in which one must pass over 4,000 foot passes on dirt roads, which this time of year are always under repair and renewal, so work crews can stop traffic while they lay down new rock and grade it in.

Typical day

Last Tree standing

We had good weather on the return trip allowing us great views of the range that we missed the day before. Another great evening at Igloo #8 inWiseman and a wonderful breakfast. The owners gave us a indepth view of the history of the community and life in this remote town, where power is by solar, wind and diesel generator.

Great looking peaks

Old miners cabin

Typical home in Wiseman

Play house in Wiseman

We are on our way to Tok so Garry can ship the pistol back to Hickory, MD and then in to Whitehorse, Youkon Territory. We have taken jeff and Maren bak to the airport and said our tearful goodbyes. It has been really wonderful to share part of this Alaska experience with such close friends, laugh alot and eat a lot and walk alot. It seems when the four of use get together, there will be an adventure to be made. From Whitehorse, we will go back into Alaska to Skagway and then back into Canada and back into Alaska at Hyder,AK. Stay tuned!!!!!!!!