The Alaska Highway is closed indefinitely between Fort Nelson, BC, and Watson Lake, YT, due to a major wildfire that has been ongoing for about four days.
No detour has been suggested, but I think the obvious solution is to take the Cassiar Highway from Prince George, which, I’m told, can be a bit ‘rough’ in spots, but which will take you to twenty minutes north of Watson Lake.
I saw this poem on a poster on the wall in the ladies’ bathroom at Nugget City:
The Great Alcan Highway
Come drive the great Alcan Highway from one end to the other
Miles of splendor and adventure, become a vein of northern gold.
One time in the summer, let the Arctic sun steal your slumber.
Again in winter, challenged, by the frost and bitter cold.
What a great highway, with its very few by-ways,
Just think, you’re heading northwest to the Pole.
Don’t wait too long to drive it, prove you can survive it.
You should go now, before your dream grows too old.Come drive the great Alcan, from one end to the other.
Give a thrill, bless your bones, far from home.
The people you meet, and the places you eat and sleep,
Make it worth all the miles, upon miles, you roam.So come drive the great highway, give thanks for those By days,
Don’t complain, till it’s explained, how the whole thing was done.
Take the trip of your lifetime, celebrate the grand northern lifeline.
The great deed done under the spell, the midnight sun.J. Hamilton Clarke – 1989
Leaving Nugget City involved my having the stuffing hugged out of me. 🙂 I pulled out sometime between noon and one.
The first part of my trek to Whitehorse is along the Alaska Highway, the last section that meanders in and out of British Columbia. I had hoped to make it to my non AH detour today, but I seriously over-estimated my energy reserves!
The problem with the drive today was the wind. It buffeted the rig from all sides, making it difficult to stay in my lane. I’d done barely 2okm and already my hands were sore from clenching the wheel!
I drove about 50 klicks and had lunch at a non-descript rest area. Next stop was 50km later at Rancheria Falls Recreation Area. There, I took an easy 2/3 of a mile hike (round trip) to see the falls:
one of the two Rancheria Falls
Next stop was Swan Lake, British Columbia (cue the music):
Swan Lake, BC
At Swan Lake, I took a picture of the impressive Simpson Peak that must have served as inspiration to the ancient Egyptians!
Simpson Peak
By this point, I was done. The landscape, while stunning, is the same endless expanse of black and white spruce, poplar, and snow-capped mountains. I found my focus drifting too often. It was time to stop for the night! I decided as I approached Teslin to stop at the first place that offered an easy in and out.
entering Teslin
I had hoped to start to spend less on my nights, settling for 15A, for example, but this didn’t happen for tonight. I pulled into the Yukon Motel and RV Park and found a nice campground with big pull thrus and a great view for 27$ per night for 30A, water, and internet. I decided to stay for two nights, with a stern promise to myself to never again wait until I’m completely exhausted to look for a place to stop!
Teslin Lake
Tomorrow’s agenda is to sleep in and then explore Teslin by bicycle. I might even do some laundry. 🙂
When planning this trip last year, I had hoped to stop at ‘Mukluk Annie’s’ here in Teslin, renown for serving some of the best salmon in the west, but Annie chose to retire this year. 🙁 So, I decided a few days ago to just drive through Teslin and spend a few days at a territorial park on the detour, but it would have been foolish to keep going tonight. Perhaps I was just meant to stop here.
Unfortunately, the genset is truly dead, so there is no extended boondocking in my future until I can get it fixed. 🙁 Otherwise, all systems are good and my house battery is once again charging properly when I’m driving, so I’m making progress!
As a final note, I can’t properly convey the sheer beauty of this isolated land, so I will quote a poem that has been a favourite for at least twenty years.
The Lonely Land
by: A.J.M. Smith
Cedar and jagged fir
uplift sharp barbs
against the gray
and cloud-piled sky;
and in the bay
blown spume and windrift
and thin, bitter spray
snap
at the whirling sky;
and the pine trees
lean one way.
A wild duck calls
to her mate,
and ragged
and passionate tones
stagger and fall,
and recover,
and stagger and fall,
on these stones –
are lost
in the lapping of water
on smooth, flat stones.
This is a beauty
of dissonance,
this resonance
of stony strand,
this smoky cry
curled over a black pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pines
and curdles the sky
from the north.
This is the beauty
of strength
broken by strength
and still strong
If you’re Canadian, chances are that you’ve made bannock at some point in your life, probably in summer camp or as part of a school outing. I used to make it whenever I camped, but sort of forgot about it as the years went by. I picked up a recipe for this quick bread at the Fort Nelson Museum last week and have had a craving for it since!
This morning, I looked at the multigrain bread I normally have for breakfast and felt mildly queasy. So, I decided to whip up a batch of this bannock for a welcome change of pace. Of course, bannock tastes best cooked over an open fire, or, in a pinch, a cast iron skillet, but this morning’s batch made in a non-stick frying pan was most satisfactory.
Ingredients
(can be halved)
4 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 cups water
raisins (optional)
Method
Mix dry ingredients. Add water and mix dough to a drop consistency.
the dough will be very wet
Melt cooking fat or heat oil in a frying pan until hot.
Drop tablespoons of mixture into hot fat.
Fry until brown all over.
Suggested toppings: honey, butter and jam, or, this morning’s sweet treat, real Quebec maple syrup.
The bread is very light and chewy. Unlike my former favourite quick bread, biscuits, bannock is great cold.
You can, of course, adjust the quantity of fat. I’ve been burning a lot of calories these days, so I didn’t go lightly on the olive oil this morning, but normally I wouldn’t use any fat at all in my non-stick skillet. I would also normally do half whole wheat flour, half white, but I was out of whole wheat today.
I didn’t count how many cakes a half recipe made, perhaps a dozen or so. Total time from getting the ingredients out of the pantry to flipping the last cake out of the pan: fewer than fifteen minutes.
I never keep eggs in the house, so these are going to become my alternative to pancakes. They’re so good! With raisins, they can easily be eaten as is. Next time, I’m going to add some nuts, in addition to the raisins, to turn the bannock into a great hiking snack.
I was up surprisingly early this morning, before seven, and decided to take a closer look at my genset problem. I had initially thought that the problem was that my house battery was too depleted to start it, but the generator wouldn’t fire up with the truck battery running either. This, and the fact that my house battery hasn’t been charging while driving, lead me to conclude that the installation of the new truck battery could have something to do with my problem. I spent about a half hour under the hood with a flashlight trying to see if the techs had missed a wire, but could not see anything loose. My RV manual pointed me in direction of a solenoid switch, but I couldn’t find anything that looked like the picture in the book, so that was a dead end for me, but could be a starting point for whomever will be lucky enough to take a look at my dead generator. 🙂 At the very least, I know that my house battery and converter are working fine. I’ve also relearned that my true battery voltage is a couple of points higher than the inverter says it is.
I pulled out by, oh, eightish at the very latest, and drove the 9km that separated me from the fabled Liard Hot Springs. I had serious misgivings about stopping here, expecting a tourist trap, but nope! There is a lodge with a restaurant across from the park, but that’s the extent of the commercialism. I parked in the day use lot, across from the campground entrance, and hoofed it the rest of the way (about 1km total to the springs). I paid my 5$ day use fee and received instructions on how to get to the springs.
You have to follow a long wooden boardwalk through muskeg:
Liard Hot Springs boardwalk
The first stop is Alpha Pool, which you smell before you see:
Alpha Pool
This is a shallow pool with a wading area for children.
I pushed on and passed the hanging gardens:
‘hanging gardens’
I then came to Beta Pool, which is deeper and slightly hotter:
Beta Pool
I had this pool all to myself for the time being, so I changed into my bathing suit and waded in.
Have you ever had a moment when you feel completely at peace and as one with the world? That’s how I felt as I took my first strokes in Beta Pool, looking at the last patches of snow as steam rose around me. The water was hot and rich with mineral, making me even more buoyant than I normally am. I have no idea how long I floated in that hot blue-green water staring at the bluest sky I have ever seen.
Eventually, I heard voices coming up the boardwalk and the mood was broken. I climbed out, wrapped myself in my towel, grabbed my things, and headed barefoot back down to Alpha pool. It wasn’t nearly as cold as I would have expected (just… chilly 😀 ). One lady stopped to say that I was ‘very brave’ to be walking down in my bathing suit, there was no way she was going swimming ‘in this weather.’ To my horror, I heard myself reply “Oh, it’s not so bad, really, to be walking here with no clothes on.” *dies*
Alpha Pool wasn’t quite as satisfactory, being rather crowded and noticeably cooler. I didn’t stay long. I changed and headed back to the rig, enjoying the peaceful stroll.
boardwalk heading back towards the parking area
There were buffalo a short ways south of the day use area when I got back to Miranda!
I pulled out around 9:30 and soon thereafter saw this little guy:
black bear
I had a pleasant drive, passing through thick spruce forest. I was eager to reach the Yukon, but knew that the arrival would not be dramatic. The Alaska highway takes a serpentine route through BC and Yukon for a stretch, to the point that it is not officially decided if a segment of route is one side of the border or the other. So, I take this to be my first official glimpse of the Yukon since I was coming up to what was obviously a ‘welcome to BC’ sign in the opposing direction:
the Yukon, at last!!!
And, then:
And then:
*big grin*
I wasn’t too set on where I would stay for a least two nights in Watson Lake. I had been warned that there was a lot of theft going on at the Downtown RV Park and that the RCMP was recommending people stay at the parks west of town. I stopped in a the eastmost ‘Campground Services’, but it was just opening up and didn’t feel very secure, so I pushed on to 20 minutes(ish) west of Watson Lake to the RCMP recommended ‘Baby Nugget’ RV park. I believe I’m the first customer of the season, although there are three of us here now! The park doesn’t have running water at the moment (frozen underground pipes), but I have 30A power and excellent internet for 21$ per night, including taxes. I won’t get too comfortable since I will need to move out and get water (and dump too, at some point!), but I’m happy with the cost vs. service ratio.
So, a lifetime’s yearning has come to fruition. I am in the Yukon. Now, comes the challenge: finding work. *wry grin* I really hope to find a week or two’s worth of work then push on to a new location, all the way to Inuvik in August, but I have learned to stop making plans. Tonight, I am taking the time to breathe. Tomorrow, I will explore Watson Lake and get the word out that I want work. It will all sort itself out in time and I will savour every moment of this summer, no matter where it takes me.