Back in Canada

Dease River Crossing Campground

We've just parked the camper at Dease River Crossing RV Park, about 90 miles south of the Alaska Highway. As I stepped outside, fragrant balsam tree scent filled my nostrils, reminding me of trips our family took New Hampshire when I was just a kid, where they sold balsam needles in little bags at the souvenir shops.

We're next to a lake, and the Dease River. As I walked Thumper near the beach, an eagle flew overhead, perhaps sizing up Thumper for an evening meal. He must have decided against it, as he flew off into the woods.

The Cassier Highway is a big step down from the Alaska Highway. We knew there would be some rough stretches, some dirt road. The first 5 miles from the Alaska Highway were under construction, and rough and potholed, limiting us to 15 mph in places. The next 15 miles were dirt, but being sealcoated, so it was loose gravel. After that, we got hard road, but not the best. Speed limit is 50 mph, and frost heaves and roughness limit that to 35 at times. We chose this route as our stateside destination is Washington state, and the Cassier saves 300 miles over going back through Dawson Creek.

A young eagle along the Cassier Highway

The Cassier is also much more wild than the Alaska Highway. There are no shoulders, and few guard rails. The road is lined with lodgepole pine forests, some spruce forests, and a few poplars and aspen. Just before we parked, we entered a valley between the Cassier Mountains, rising 3-5 thousand feet on both sides of us.

We've been traveling for 3 days and nights, since our last overnight at Eagle Trail State Park just south of Tok. We got through customs without any issues, though Canadian customs alerted me to the fact that my passport has expired. I had checked Consuelo's passport, which expires in November, and thought ours were both the same. This could be an issue when we enter the states again, currently planned for being on the ferry into Ketchikan.

US customs at the border were doing thorough checks on outbound vehicles. The drug sniffing dog gave us the once over, said hello to Thumper, and went on to the next car. The officer asked if we had any ocean mammal trinkets, and Consuelo acknowledged that she had bought some seal fur thimbles at the Museum of the North. He told her that he never saw them. They're not illegal, but there supposedly is a raft of paperwork to be filled out for such things.

The roads were pretty mediocre on the Tok Cutoff of the Glenn Highway to Tok, and the Alaska Highway from about 40 miles from Tok until Burwash Landing. The problem is that these roads have been built over permafrost, and they develop huge sags where the permafrost melts with the summer sun. In many cases, an alert driver can see skid marks in the dip, left by other RV drivers who have bottomed out their suspensions. Slowing to 30 mph in most cases prevented me from doing the same, but I managed to hit a couple of them too fast. Also, they were repairing the roads in Canada, some dug up and just dirt, other places patched with gravelly tar.

We stayed the first night at Burwash Landing Resort, something of a historical place with free dry camping and a good enough restaurant. We had roast beef, with gravy, mashed potatoes, carrots, and Jello for dessert. It was yummy.

1950s T-Birds

We had leapfrogged four 1950s Thunderbirds as we left Tok, with them pulling up right behind us at the border. As we prepared to leave Burwash, they arrived for breakfast, and we snapped a couple pictures of the cars on the way out. In addition, one of them was from New Jersey, the last continental state missing from our “see the license plates” game we had been playing since Banff. We're only missing Hawaii for a complete set.

Teslin Lake

We continued on down a section of the Alaska Highway that was all new to us, until we reached Whitehorse. The days were mostly cloudy and rainy, with brief bits of sunshine poking through the clouds. Our goal for the second night was Mukluk Annie's Restaurant and RV Park, where you can dry camp for free if you buy a salmon dinner. We were ready, mouth's watering, only to find that the place had closed for the season. It was closed when we went north, too. Guess we'll never know if it's any good.

There was a government campground about 10 miles north of Mukluk Annie's, where we stayed on the way north, but we were loath to go back north again. We found a roadside rest area next to Teslin Lake, with a sign posted “No Camping or Overnight Parking” which we ignored, and stayed undisturbed for the night. I found some of that tar mixture from the previous day's travel stuck to the hood, windshield, and roof of our VW Beetle, which I removed before we left. Cosuelo picked up some interesting driftwood on the shore, and I pocketed a few more pebbles.

Travel on the Alaska Highway was uneventful. We saw no wildlife. We stopped for fuel at the junction of the Cassier and Alaska Highways, and took on 270 liters of diesel fuel, at $1.099 per liter. On the Cassier, touted for having more wildlife than the Alaska Highway, we saw one chipmunk. Not too impressive so far. But we've still got hundreds of miles to cover on this route.

On the Cassier, we stopped at Jade City, at the Jade Store. There is a jade mine near there, and the store was loaded with all sorts of jade objects, from earrings to 5 lb chunks of uncut jade. It was all very pretty, but didn't generate an urge to extract the wallet. We moved on.

Dease Crossing Campground presented new challenges. The woman in the Jade Store said that the campground was under new ownership, alerting us to this in case we had stayed there before. When we arrived, a Japanese gentleman was standing on the porch of the “office” which is actually a house. He invited me and Thumper in, gave me an apple, poured me tea, and signaled to me that he didn't speak English. I sat in the living room, drinking my tea, and he went to the porch and hollered to somebody. I waited. Eventually, I said I would take Thumper for a walk, and he said, “OK”. I reported the situation to Consuelo, and then walked Thumper to look at the campsites. When I returned, another Japanese gentleman was there who spake some English, and said we could park “anywhere along the road”, and that the fee was $15. I paid him and we found a great spot next to the lake.