In May 2007 we set off
north from our Florida home. The idea was to see new places in the Canadian North
and Alaska, visit old haunts in Edmonton and see what we could see along the way
in the US West.
If you click on "Photos" on the right, you can
see some of our pictures of each section of the trip.
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From Florida we drove north across Georgia,
Tennessee and Kentucky, and by a rickety old ferry across the Ohio River to Illinois.
Susan spent a few days at the Humanities Computing conference at Urbana, then
we headed west across the plains of Iowa (the Bridges of Madison County) and Nebraska
to South Dakota. We admired Mount Rushmore and its half-finished big brother,
Crazy Horse, then headed to Devil's Tower in Wyoming and Custer's Last Stand.
From Montana we crossed into Canada
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Photos
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| After a few days
visiting old haunts in Edmonton, we headed up the Alaska Highway as far as Whitehorse
- a route we had followed on our last Alaska trip the year Susan left Edmonton.
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miles north of Whitehorse we hit the Dempster Highway, a 450 mile gravel road
which heads over the Arctic Circle to Inuvik on the Mackenzie delta. Halfway along
the road is a motel and petrol station, but apart from that there is no habitation
except two villages of the Gwi'chin people in the Mackenzie delta. The road is
open most of the year - the locals told us it was easier in winter because you
just drove across the frozen rivers and did not have to wait for the ferries. In
summer the road ends at Inuvik, a town of 3,000 people. In winter you can drive
further on an ice road down the Mackenzie River and across a bay of the Arctic
Ocean to Tuktuyaktuk, an Inuit village. For us it was summer (the sun did not
set until 3 weeks after we left), so we flew the 100 miles to Tuk. There we took
the obligatory dip (toes only!) in the Arctic Ocean and lunched on muskox soup,
muktuk and seal blubber (the Inuit's source of vitamin C). One of us visited the
village icehouse, dug 30 feet down into the permafrost, better than a freezer,
they said. The Dempster Highway is a dead end, so then we had to drive back
down the road - a two day trip.
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Near the south end of the Dempster is Dawson City and the Klondike
River. Sadly not much gold left, although we did look. Dawson was once a busy
place, with sternwheeler steamers plying the Yukon River. Now the sternwheelers
are crumbling in the undergrowth on the riverbank.
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| We headed west from
Dawson on the Top of the World Highway to the Alaskan border - a straight line
agreed between the Russians and the Brits in 1825, so the border post is in the
middle of nowhere on top of a mountain. In Alaska we decided to visit parts
that we had missed on our previous trips there - Kenai Fjords, Homer and the Wrangell
St Elias National Park. We followed the McCarthy road into the heart of
Wrangell St Elias. There Martin took an ice walk on the Root Glacier, and we took
a spectacular flightseeing tour in a 40 year old Pilatus Porter.
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From Alaska we returned to the Yukon on the
Alaska Highway, then headed south on the Stewart Highway in British Columbia.
The objective was to revisit Hyder, a small town which is actually just over the
border in Alaska. We were hoping to see some grizzlies there fishing for salmon.
They showed up on cue, Mama and two cubs, but salmon were in short supply so early
in the season. The bears looked disappointed.
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We then headed east to the Canadian Rockies. We often visited there when Susan
lived in Edmonton, but not usually in the summer hiking season, when Susan was
in the UK. So this time we were able to go hiking.
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Then
south to Glacier National Park in Montana. It was hot, glacier-melting weather.
We went hiking, and Martin did the cliff-hugging Highline Trail (not sure if he
would have been up for it if he'd seen the pictures of the trail first!).
| Glacier
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Then south again
for some geology lessons in Yellowstone National Park, and the long haul back
east across Wyoming, Kansas and Missouri to St Louis. Then an easy drive back
south across Tennessee and Georgia to Florida.
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