Hitting Sixty at Latitude 60

Hello From Alaska!

We did it. Lynn, Bella and I made it to Alaska! Since the last post, we started the Cassiar Highway at its Southern town of Kitwanga, British Columbia. This “highway” of sorts is a two lane, no shoulder, remote 450 mile paved road which was completed in 1972. There are no passing lanes, a few 8 percent grades and very little traffic. We completed this in three segments, staying first at Meziadin Lake Provincial Park, two hours North of Kitwanga. The park has 66 camping sites and Lynn secured us a lakefront spot with 30 AMP power. Not sure if I’ve ever explained the difference between 30 and 50 AMP sites before, so…. In our four years of non stop travel, we had never camped on 30 AMP power, but on the road to Alaska, we have yet to see options for 50 AMP. While 30 sounds like it is 60% of 50, in campgrounds, 50 AMP is actually two legs of 50 AMP, equalling 100 total AMP. So, in electrical supply terms, 30 AMP actually offers just 30% of what we are accustomed to. Throughout our time in the rig, we have never tripped a breaker on 50 AMP service. Between three heat pump / air conditioners creating a total of 45,000 BTU’s, dishwasher, washer / dryer, residential refrigerator, two burner induction cooktops, toaster oven, microwave and three zones of heated floors, we have never had an issue at outside temperatures ranging from 20 degrees to 105 degrees. …..Well, that is with 50 AMP. With 30 AMP, we can run our washer and dryer at the same time, but that’s about it. Want to cook dinner? Wait till laundry is done. Heated floors? OK, but first we need to switch from electric-sourced heat pumps to our diesel furnace for hot air heat. So, there has been some getting used to the limitations of 30 AMP service, but we are getting along.

This was the view out our windshield for four days. It was a beautiful park with absolute serenity. Lynn saw a grouse in the campground as our only wildlife, apart from mosquitos. We picked this location in order to make a day trip to Hyder, Alaska and adjoining Stewart, BC. Stewart is home to about 500 people while Hyder’s population is just 48. Hyder is Alaska’s Easternmost town, accessible by road only through Stewart, and they were about 40 minutes from our campground. Our main reason to visit these towns was to see Bear Glacier and Salmon Glacier in Hyder and also for a nature boardwalk in Stewart.

We arrived in Stewart, parked the Jeep at the Visitors Center and walked out to the boardwalk. We made it about 75 yards out into a marshy, brushy area and …..well, to borrow an old line from Jimmy Buffett’s song God’s Own Drunk, back when Jimmy Buffett was making great music……”And That’s When I First Saw The Bear. He was a Kodiak-looking fellow, about 19 feet tall…”

Before anyone throws shade on this less-than-crystal-clear image, may I offer that A) It is cropped. B) The photographer may have been trembling. I may possibly get more into details on my absolute fear of brown bears, but for now, let’s just leave it at black bears have my sincerest respect, but these other guys terrify me. Grizzly, Kodiak, Alaska Coastal Brown Bear or if you want to get all scientific – Ursus Arctos Horribillis…they are all the same subspecies of the North American Brown Bear….And I. Don’t. Like. Them. We do have three cans of bear spray. I might even have one for my belt and the other in a bandolier / cross body holster. Cause….While I don’t want to die any way…I really don’t want to die THAT way. Yeah, the bear spray was in the Jeep, cause…well it was an elevated boardwalk and all. And hey, it was a boarwalk in the center of town at the Visitor Center. With two employees outside, one running a tractor mower and the other a loud gas powered leaf blower. So, with an elevated sphincter factor, I did my best casual / panic walk back to the Jeep and armed myself with the bear spray before continuing on the walk. May I say that it is one thing to know there is a adult brown bear close by because you see it, but a whole different thing to know there is a brown bear but you can not see it. We survived the walk and neither people nor Mr. Bear were mauled or pepper sprayed in the process.

Mr. Bear’s Neighborhood.

From here, we took in the sights of downtown Hyder….a town of declining populous.

On we continued to Hyder and the two glaciers were awesome to see. Bear Glacier was visible from the side of the road. A retreating glacier, its pace has greatly increased in the past few years. Between 1888 and 1950, its annual average retreat was 30 feet. 1950 – 2000, its retreat averaged 84 feet. Between 2000 – 2018, it retreated 662 feet per year, and 2018 – 2019 saw retreats of 2851 feet. Anyway, you get the idea. We saw it and it was beautiful.

After Bear Glacier, we continued out into the middle of nowhere, perhaps another hour, past silver mines, construction sites, abandoned snow machines and saw perhaps a handful of other vehicles. Lynn read that the access road was opened just a few days prior…..until we came upon this.

Just before I started laughing, Lynn said, “Go ahead. Keep driving. I think it’ll be fine”. I made a three point turn, shut off the Jeep and encouraged her to venture up there on her own. If this was Massachusetts, Minnesota or some other populated / civilized town….perhaps. With zero tracks in the snow, zero cell service and zero humans around, it was a no for me, dog. Lynn trekked off into the snow as I wished her good fortune and 45 seconds later, sensibly returned with this photo of the Salmon Glacier.

Anyway, a fun drive to a quirky set of towns and to reward ourselves, we stopped back in Stewart, waited 45 minutes for the pizza shop to open and had dinner. Would not want to live there, but fun for a peek.

After leaving the Provincial Park, we needed to get fuel. Along this 450 mile Cassiar Highway, there are five spots for fuel. That is….expensive fuel. That is fuel, if they have any. We opted for an Indigenous Nation-owned fuel station and at $2.26 per liter, this works out to $8.56 per gallon CDN. With the US exchange rate, it equals $6.41 per gallon USD. Julie is a thirsty girl, so at 150 gallon capacity, a full tank would equal a $961 dollar fill up. Thankfully, I only needed about 60 gallons.

Driving the Cassiar requires constant focus. Between rough patches, frost heaves, and the possibility of caribou, moose, deer, and my friends the bears springing out into the road is ever-present. This drive was made more intense by rain and drizzle. After about three hours we stopped for the night in Jade City. Sounds super cute, huh? Well, its described as a settlement of abut 30 people. We parked in a dirt lot alongside of the Cassiar, in the parking lot of Jade City Jade Store. When Lynn went inside the store to check in, they cautioned us that most nights there are wolves in the parking lot. That was an interesting thing to consider. Wolves. In the parking lot. Nice. Well, the price was right….free. They even had free WiFi. I wanted to purchase something, but most small pieces were $100-$300 and at the end of the day, I’m not a Jade kind of guy. But, if you are….I know a place.

After one night, we pushed on, North and completed the Cassiar Highway. We stopped for fuel here, then turned left onto the Alaskan Highway towards Haines Junction. Our next night was in a fuel station parking lot at Teslin Lake. Must have missed the lake…

Then we mercifully pushed on to the town of Whitehorse, crossing into The Yukon and a self labeled “Five Star” resort of Caribou RV Park. Later, Lynn explained that they described their customer service as Five Star. Here, allow me prove my point with the view out our windshield for four nights. Oh, the guy with the gun next to our rig. It’s OK, that’s his unit and he works there. Heard he was shooting a squirrel. Five Stars, I tell ya. Five Stars.

At this point, if I am being honest, I was not feeling gleeful. Been to Alaska twelve times and I was not feeling the awesomeness that has always been Alaska. Christina, my therapist, would interject with “This will pass”, “And, that’s OK” and remind me of my rigid thinking. Still, I was tired from the hyper-focus on driving these roads, the vehicles were dirtier than ever before and I was a T-Minus three days from turning 60 fucking years old. Thankfully, the tides shifted, the sun came out and we had a few awesome days. One day we visited Miles Canyon, Nine million years ago, basaltic lave spread over a pre-glacial landscape. A ribbon of fast moving turquoise water runs between the cliffs that remain – Says the Yukon government website.

From here we visited the restoration project of the S.S. Klondike along the Yukon River. It’s one of Canada’s few remaining steam-powered paddle wheelers. This 210 foot boat, a replica of an earlier boat, ran the Yukon River between Whitehorse and Dawson City from 1937 to 1950.

And, completely un-planned, we decided to drive two hours to Skagway, Alaska. This is a port which we’ve visited ten times on cruise ships. But driving down Main Street (Broadway, actually) with Florida plates, surrounded by sidewalks full of cruise ship passengers was unforgettable for Lynn and I. Along the way, we saw Emerald Lake, the Carcross Desert and crossed from the Yukon back into British Columbia, and then for the second time this trip through Customs into the United States.

So, that covers our trip to Skagway and when I could enjoy cruising along in the Jeep to amazing views, I started perking back up. Oh, I did mention another bear, yes? While brown in color, I am quite sure that he is a friendly, cuddly happy black bear. Not the murderous, sinister, stalker brown bears. And as they say, That Was Nice.

June 8th was my 60th Birthday. Never has a birthday provided me with much reflection – perhaps a shrug of the shoulder would be all. Maybe I’ll reflect in a future post, but let’s get back to our travels. Lynn treated me to a spa day of sorts. May I present the Eclipse Nordic Hot Springs, a growing resort and spa that would leave many to the opinion that they could not have spent more money building this if they tried. Over the top. They say that it combines Scandinavian and Japanese practices seamlessly. We spent three hours doing their Hot Springs Ritual and Nordic Cycle. In plain English, it a succession from hot springs to saunas of different temperatures, showers of hot, cold and fucking cold temperatures, individual giant clay pots with spring water flowing through, steam rooms (one infused with eucalyptus) and even a tranquility room with warm stone chairs and platforms to lie flat on. Wish I could show you photos, but cell phones were strictly banned. When I first read that, I thought…cool I’ll see a bunch of boobs on my birthday. Alas, no bueno on the phones nor boobs. So 4:40 PM Pacific Time, over an IPA and Wagyu burger at the geo location of 60.72323, -135.05399 (Woodcutters Blanket – Bar & Brewery, on the banks of the Yukon River) I hit 60 years old.

Below are a few photos from the spa website.

The next morning we made the three hour drive to Haines Junction where we slept in a RV area of a fuel stop on the Alaskan Highway. The first site did not have functioning power, but thankfully the second one did. Yes, this is a campsite on the Alaska Highway folks.

Good fortune hit us as two other couples that we know from our RVing group, Xscapers, were in Haines Junction, so we all went to a local cafe that offered a Friday night salmon bake and live music from a trio of Yukon ladies.

It was a wonderful bonus to the trip North. Each of these couples is the host for one of our three meet ups in Alaska and they are a wealth of experience on all things Alaska. The next morning, with fresh bakery scones, cookies and cinnamon rolls secured, we headed to Haines, Alaska where the next post will pick up.

Lynn’s Two Cents – The first section of the trip started off a little slow. But things are really picking up. Camping up here is just different from the U.S.. We have never stayed in a Walmart parking lot, but now we can say we have stayed in a gas station parking lot. LOL! The scenery is really starting to get more and more beautiful and that is what we are here for. It is definitely an adventure and I for one am here for it!

Jim’s Final Edit. Around my birthday I was telling Lynn how it was bothering me. And, as women often do, she put things in a different perspective. She said, “You feel funny about turning 60? Think of how I feel having a 60 year old husband”? What a 2 Cents that was…