Driving to the Yukon

July 6, 2024 – Saturday – Day 13

We left Jasper before 8:30 am and drove north through the rest of Jasper National Park. We saw a few big horn sheep, a herd of elk and a moose along the road. It took about 4 hours to reach Grande Prairie, Alberta. About 60 miles from town we hit the smoke from the wildfires. The smoke lasted for 30-40 miles past Grande Prairie.

In Grande Prairie we gassed up at Costco and while we were there, we had a couple of Polish dogs and our first taste of poutine, a Canadian favorite. Poutine is French fries mixed with cheese curds and covered in hot brown gravy. It was nice to have Polish dogs at Costco again, but we will pass on any more poutine. It was not our favorite.

The next major town was Dawson Creek. This is the official start of the Alaskan Highway. There were several other travelers that stopped to take pictures of the start of the highway. The Alaskan Highway is 2480 km long and was built in 8 months in 1942 to provide a transportation link to the northwest of North America during World War 2.

This part of north Canada is mostly rolling hills and lots of farms. This is a big change from the Rocky Mountains we had been in for the past week.

Our final stop for the night was in Fort St. John. We are spending the night in the parking lot of Canadian Tire, it is a store like Cal Ranch, but a lot bigger.

July 7, 2024 – Sunday – Day 14

We had a good night in the parking lot. It was quiet all night long, but it was pretty light. The sun didn’t set until after 10 pm and I’m not sure it ever got truly dark.

We went to church at the Fort St John ward in a building about 5 minutes away. After church Eva was able to help an older sister who only spoke Spanish. She is from Ecuador and had lived in Canada for 2-1/2 years. She lives with her son, but he works in the oil camps and is gone all the time. She has been attending church for 2-1/2 years, but not understanding anything. There is a Philippian family in the ward and they try to talk with her, but they mostly have to use Google translate. The sister does not read or write, so they have difficulties. She was very happy to talk to Eva in her native language and she was telling Eva her life story.

We ate lunch in the church parking lot and then continued our way to the Yukon. It was a long day of driving, with not much to see. The terrain was rolling hills covered with pines and aspens for as far as you could see, with a swath cut out for the highway. It was that way for about 5 hours of driving and then we hit some mountains. It was very pretty with the trees and several large rivers and lakes. We drove until about 8:45 pm, but the sun was still up when we arrived at camp.

We ended up camping at Mineral Lick trailhead. There was another truck/camper there, but we just parked on the other side of the lot. It was a quiet night.

July 8, 2024 – Monday – Day 15

Today was a driving day as we wanted to get closer to Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. However, just 25 minutes from our camp was the Liard River Hot Springs. This is a provincial park that has beautiful hot springs. It cost CA$5 each for a day pass. The hot springs are at the end of a ½ mile boardwalk. We arrived around 9 am and there were only a few people there. I have seen pictures where the pools were pack, so we felt lucky to be there so early.

We spent about 1-1/2 hours in the hot spring and then walked back to the van. The water was a perfect temperature and it felt good to soak in the water.

The rest of the day we drive northwest on the Alaskan Highway. Today was also a wildlife day as we saw 3 black bears, bison and mosquitoes. We got pictures of the bears and bison, but not the mosquitoes.

Later in the day we entered the Yukon Territory and stopped in Watson Lake to view the Sign Post Forest. Soldiers based here during World War 2 started putting signs up, point to their hometown. It just grew from there. Today the estimate over 100,000 signs, license plates or other messages are posted here.