Taking the Long Way Home

There is a lot to be said about the journey, but sometimes it is only a prelude to the rest of the story. The beauty of an expedition is that, unlike the journey through life, we know where it begins, which direction it will take us, and, most importantly, where it ends. That sense of certainty allows us the luxury of having time to smell the roses. Conversely, our lack of that knowledge is what makes it so difficult to do so in life.

The road from Fort Nelson, British Columbia, to Edmonton, Alberta, passes through the heart of Canadian oil country. It is a pleasant enough path, if you don’t mind the constant reminders. As I was being conveyed across two thousand miles by an internal combustion engine, I wasn’t about to point any accusatory fingers at the oil pump jacks, natural gas wells, pipelines, or refineries. And though not particularly attractive, it was actually a pretty awesome sight.

I took a break in Fort Nelson and had a real sit down meal at the Fort Nelson Hotel. The café offered free internet access, so I surfed around a bit, wrote Brandi, and updated my status on Facebook. After lunch I strolled down to the office of the local telecom provider. When I asked if he had any insight as to why my phone didn’t work, a young man there informed me that I would have to wait until I got a bit closer to the States. Although frustrating at the time, this was a good thing I later learned upon receiving my bill.

There were “Caution: Bear in Area” signs posted throughout the campground at Charlie Lake where we stopped for the night. I weaved the dogs’ leashes into a makeshift gangline and walked the nature trail down to the lake. I soon discovered three dog power is quite a bit more than one human power. When we twice encountered other dogs along the path, it was all I could do to hold the huskies back. Being isolated in the truck canopy had taken its toll on them, and they were anxious for interaction. Tensaw showed particularly poor form, tangling himself in the leads while performing howling backflips.

Having backpacked solo for years, I don’t own a tent, preferring the weight savings of a space blanket bivy. Made nervous by the bear signs, I had arranged my sleeping gear directly behind the truck and left the canopy door open while I slept, thinking that the dogs would warn me of any animal’s approach. I realized my error when I awoke in a terror, mindlessly leaping to my feet after feeling a paw upon my back. The dogs were tearing through the underbrush. It took a few seconds before I understood they weren’t after a bear, and that what I had felt was one of them landing on me as they launched themselves after some rodent. I collected my wits along with the dogs and shuttered them inside the truck before drifting off to sleep once more.

The following morning I drove the short distance into Fort St. John. Finally having found its voice, my cell phone made quite racket as it was inundated by a deluge of pending messages. I phoned Brandi and reveled in the fact that I could once again contact her at my leisure.

My next stop was the end of the line, sort of. Officially, the Alaska Highway has its beginnings in Dawson Creek, BC. I stopped there for some time, taking pictures of the dogs at the welcome sign like a true tourist. I talked to Brandi through her lunch break and felt my feelings about the journey pass through a metamorphosis. I wasn’t driving the Alaska Highway anymore. I was driving home.

Long periods behind the wheel were beginning to wear me down, so the dogs and I took every opportunity to stretch our legs. They were beginning to lose interest in obeying my commands; at a park outside of Grande Prairie, they assaulted a group of picnicking locals. A stop at Williamson Provincial Park was assured, but Blue lost her privilege to walk off leash almost immediately. As the day wore on, I looked more and more fondly upon the prospect of halting travel for the day.

The map showed numerous campgrounds on the road between Valleyview and Whitecourt, but somehow I missed them all. Panicking slightly, I turned south on a minor route and drove to a campground on the McLeod River. A sign at the entrance informed me that it was full. Distraught, I again checked my map. The nearest campground was another thirty kilometers away.

A call from Brandi helped check my disappointment and I wandered down a rural route towards Pembina River Provincial Park. It was nearly full as well, and I was extremely fortunate to find a campsite. The dogs had finally lost it and threw themselves against their tieouts as I tried to feed them. Exhausted, I threw myself on the ground and slept hard.

It was early when I pulled into Edmonton the next morning. I knew the West Edmonton Mall would be closed at this hour but I wanted to witness it anyway. From the outside, it was less impressive than I imagined. I bought a cup of coffee at Starbucks to help ease myself back into civilization before braving the four lane south.

Mapquest told me the quickest path to Hamilton was down I-15 through Helena. By the time I made Calgary, I was beginning to have my doubts about the route. The wind was howling off the east slope of the Rockies, and I swear my hand was bruised from gripping the steering wheel against the gale. When I stopped for fuel in Nanton, I’d had enough. I turned the truck west into the mountains.

I had been eyeing Fernie since the beginning of the trip. For some reason, I knew I was going there all along. My plan was to call my buddy JP when I arrived; if I reached him, I would push on to Eureka. If not, I would get a room in Fernie and clean up some before setting out on the final leg.

One nice thing about being an American traveling in Canada is that all the distances along the roadside are displayed in kilometers, and our minds think in miles. The klicks ticked by much quicker than miles did. I was in Fernie before I knew it, with the added benefit that the drive over Crowsnest Pass was much prettier than the plains had been.

Johnny Paul didn’t answer at first, but he soon called me back. After the vast distance I’d already traveled, the hop, skip, and jump to the port at Roosville was over in a flash. The jackbooted customs agent tried his best to be antagonistic, but his heart wasn’t in it. He fondled my passport for a while before glumly waving me through.

Although not quite home, I was back in Montana, and on the Kootenai no less. The night spent with Des and JP made for a good transition, and we spent it in our typical fashion, ranting about the Forest Service while my huskies jousted with his retrievers. When I left there in the morning I got a bit off track and wound up following a logging road the back way to Trego. This unplanned side trip timed my arrival in Whitefish perfectly.

Brandi was at Flathead Lake, camped on Wild Horse Island doing field research. We made plans to meet at Big Arm State Park where her boat would land. I stopped at Elmo and let the dogs have a good long run, preparing myself for the reunion with her.

Her boat was late, which was good, because it gave the butterflies in my stomach a chance to calm down some. Brandi always gives me butterflies. These ones were in a particular frenzy after two thousand miles, but when she leapt from the boat and tore up the dock to greet me, they completely disappeared.

Forests to Farmland

I have burned 474.5 gallons of gas since having first purchased my pickup. I am not sure how many of those were consumed over the course of the 2250 miles that I drove traveling from Tok, Alaska to Hamilton, Montana but I do know that, until I started bucking a twenty knot headwind south of Calgary, the truck had been cranking out its best gas mileage yet, over nineteen miles per gallon. A combination of sub-sixty mile per hour speeds and minimal acceleration had conspired to drop fuel consumption by 33 percent.

I took my own advice on this trip and topped off the fuel tank at almost every opportunity. The needle on the gas gauge never fell below the halfway mark. The most I paid for petrol in Canada was $1.59 a liter at Liard Hot Springs; the cheapest, 91 cents in Edmonton. Gas was $3.25 a gallon in Alaska and $2.65 in Polson, MT. Although I do enjoy simple math, I’m not sure what all those figures add up to, other than the fact that oil and dollars are the predominate factors in every equation calculated along the ALCAN.

Following our night at Wolf Creek, the dogs and I trekked out to the Yukon River once again, then made tracks for Watson Lake. I still hadn’t decided whether I should turn south onto the Cassiar or continue following the Alaska Highway to Dawson Creek. When Cousin Tyler and I drove north on our previous trek, we had taken the Cassiar. It was a shorter route, but more rugged, containing several unpaved, gravel surfaced sections. Mapquest recommended the Highway, and since I had never actually driven the length of it, I tended to agree. It would be nice to have that feather in my cap, just in case I didn’t happen this way again.

Two things were once symbolic of the Alaska Highway: roadhouses and rock chips. On the Highway of today, technological advancement in the form of fuel efficient vehicles and wide well-maintained blacktop has conspired to greatly reduce both. Derelict buildings dot the roadside, abandoned for less solitary environs; the whole point of their existence, to provide services in the middle of nowhere, lost. Chips in the windshield caused by errant rocks flung from spinning wheels are still a certainty, but their impact, in scope and number, has diminished as the old surface has been upgraded to modern standards. I took note of those I gathered, and added them to the running tally I kept of things encountered on the Highway.

Unable to pass up a sign boasting fresh baked cinnamon rolls, I paused at one establishment apparently still able to remain open for business. Diversification in the form of gas service, RV parking, and homemade food kept it viable. I gave the pups some water while I devoured one of their delicious, oven fresh rolls.

It was later than I hoped when I made Watson Lake. I passed on taking the Cassiar and continued into town, hoping for some cell service. Disappointingly, I found none, discovering the infamous Sign Post Forest instead. Not nearly as intrigued by the sight as I, the dogs were left panting in the truck while I wandered through the veritable jungle of scavenged welcome signs and license plates. I was impressed, but not surprised, by the number of Montana cities and counties represented. I spent a good while searching for a Richland, Washington sign to photograph for the McCoys, but, alas, it was to no avail.

After sending Brandi several messages via email and attempting to remedy the nonexistence of my cell phone coverage via a landline call to AT&T, I continued on towards Liard Hot Springs. A particularly “hot” spot to camp along the route, I was a bit concerned that I would find the campground filled to capacity. Fortunately, I was able to snag one of the last two sites and set up camp amidst an almost incomprehensible cloud of mosquitoes.

Stopping at Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park is a must. All the tour books rave about it, and they’re probably right in doing so. I did indeed camp there, but I would feel guilty if I didn't admit to not actually having soaked in the pools. For whatever reason, fatigue, fear, or something even more inexplicable, I simply didn’t feel like it. So I played guitar, fed the dogs, and built myself a hootch out of visqueen to keep the blood suckers at bay. Quite happy with its construction, I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next day was the most visually stunning part of the drive. Before leaving Liard River, I topped off the tank. The fine gentleman who sold me the petrol was particularly pleasant for such an early hour, and I soon understood why. “Great day, eh," he extolled. “Gonna have me a beer.”

I stopped at Northern Rockies Lodge and enjoyed an honest cup of coffee on the shores of Muncho Lake. The woman in the café had a German accent, and she gave me the coffee for free. I had packed away my insulated mug and was reusing a Styrofoam cup that had accompanied me the length of the journey from Tok. It had become ugly with coffee stains, and when I offered the woman good money to see it filled, she kindly refused my payment. I tipped her a loonie and continued on down the road.

A short distance later, I encountered a lovely little enclave situated between the Toad and Racing rivers. Several horse herds were pastured here in fields alongside the Highway. One thing that had annoyed me about Alaskans was their staunch dismissal of agriculture. Beyond their personal gardens and the government projects in Delta Junction and the Mat-Su Valley, it seemed they were adamantly opposed to even the notion of harvesting anything other than moose and oil. Given, conditions in Alaska are considerably more harsh than in northern BC, or even the Yukon, but it appeared to me that mindset was the limiting factor, not environmental factors or carrying capacity. Throughout Canada, one observed a certain Continental influence, and it was obvious that settlers, both early and late, found value in husbanding the land.

Stone Mountain Provincial Park is beautiful, filled with glacier carved geography. We took a break near Summit Lake and climbed a hiking trail to the ridgeline. The dogs were mad with animal scent, which was making me madder still. As I paused to photograph them, I noted a lone caribou walking along the roadside below. It appeared as if its arrival at the truck would coincide perfectly with ours. I stepped up the pace and forcefully called the dogs to heel as we made our approach, but all for naught. The caribou had grown wise to his situation, and thankfully fled.

Crossing the Continental Divide, I passed a sign that claimed the last rest stop in four hundred kilometers lie two klicks ahead, and though I remained somewhat dubious of its credibility, I halted nonetheless. A huge RV towing an SUV dominated the gravel parking lot. A man inside was occupied with talking on his cell phone. As I stepped out of the pickup, I was nearly run over by a semi-truck that ploughed into the rest area at a very rapid clip. I took a quick stroll to stretch my legs and got back on the road.

The Highway wound down from the mountains into the Muskwa River valley. I was closing in on Fort Nelson and would be leaving the spectacular part of the drive behind. After this farms and fields, boasting yields of both food and fuel, would rule the landscape. I scanned the radio and found several stations to choose from. Be it isolation or development, mountains or malls, blue sky or rain, no matter where you go, there is always plenty of something.

Crossing the Line

The border crossing was much less dramatic than I had imagined it to be. I still maintain that gaining entry from the lower 48 would have posed a greater challenge, but that is mere speculation. The customs agent was quintessentially Canadian, aloof and unconcerned. Her only display of emotion occurred while she was registering my hunting rifle, a simple process that amounted to little more than a very cursory inspection and a $25 fee. The rifle, a Ruger Model No. 1, is a rolling block single shot chambered in the ubiquitous .30-06. “Don’t see many like this,” she noted, twice.

My plan was to limit driving to six hours a day. In theory, that would keep me healthy, allow for lots of stops and side trips, and still get me back to Montana in less than a week. It seemed like a good plan. Of course, plans are always subject to change.

A funny quirk about traveling the Alaska Highway is that it seems like no matter whether you drive straight through at ninety miles an hour or lollygag along at a crawl, the trip takes five days. To be certain, that is a gross oversimplification. When Cousin Tyler and I drove the Highway in 2001, we crushed the route in a brutal 72 hour sprint. Some travelers spend a month on the road. Ideally, a trip along the ALCAN would be about the journey, not the destination. Unfortunately, that has yet to be the case for me.

Another interesting attribute of long drives is that the closer we get to our destinations, the stronger their pull. It’s a phenomenon similar to gravity. Obviously, it doesn’t make much sense to start a drive like the Alaska Highway thinking about its end, and for the most part I wasn’t. That first day I was just thankful to be in Canada and finally on my way home.

Canadian customs is actually situated twenty miles southeast of the international border, just outside the tiny community of Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory. It feels immediately different from Alaska. Sure, mileages are displayed in kilometers and gravy is offered with French fries, but it’s more than that. Although we “Americans” are quick to think of Canada as just an extension of the United States, a strange cousin we’re not willing to admit to as family, it is actually a foreign nation and fully a country unto itself.

It always seems odd to find sub-continental Asians living in the far north, but I wasn’t surprised that the man operating the motel slash café slash gas station where I filled up with my first tank of Canadian petrol was Indian. With that in mind, I misread a bumper sticker in the glass cabinet on which his cash register was placed. “There isn’t one single mosque on the Alaska Highway,” was how I read it. That’s odd, I thought. Upon further inspection, mosque was really mosquito.

My next stop was at a road side rest area overlooking a lake. After the other users left, I let the dogs run. There were quite certainly mosquitoes present, not one single one but swarms of them. When there was no more space to feed on my neck, they tried to fly up my nose, in my ears. I kept after the dogs, and not because they were looking to escape. I had to keep moving or be devoured.

The change from Alaska to Canada is abrupt. Immediately, the terrain was different and more to my liking, the valleys narrower and the mountains closer at hand. The sun was bright, the sky brilliant blue. CBC radio was talking about social concerns, rather than economic ones. I felt better than I had in weeks.

I was proud of Canada for having FM radio in the middle of nowhere, but it was a short lived satisfaction. The CD player in the pickup had died during Brandi's visit, and I was soon hurting for audio distraction. I played the few cassette tapes I had, and then occupied myself listening to looped weather reports on XM radio and scanning the broadcast bands every time I saw a microwave tower.

When I had driven the Highway with Cousin Tyler, I had been surprised by the amount of cell coverage along the route, and that in 2001. In Beaver Creek, I had witnessed a motorcyclist talking on his phone at the visitor center. My phone, on the other hand, hadn’t seen a scrap of signal since I left Tok. At the sight of each hulking red and white striped microwave repeater towering over the route, I powered up the device and checked for service. Each time I was greeted with the same result. Nothing.

I made numerous stops at various attractions: Pickhandle Lake, Kulane Lake, Rancheria Falls. I was shooting for a campground near Haines Junction, but when I couldn’t get a signal there even though I was staring at a young Canadian talking on his phone at the gas pump, I knew I was going to push on to Whitehorse. I topped off the pickup’s tank and bought some groceries at the local market before hitting the Highway once again.

Traveling the Alaska Highway is a journey one has to share. It overloads the senses. The more I drove, the more I longed to talk to Brandi. Huskies are great companions but they are poor conversationalists, other than Tensaw, who speaks a language all his own. Besides having become accustomed to speaking with her regularly, I needed Brandi just so I could decompress.

Whitehorse has a Starbucks. A city of twenty odd thousand, it is the territorial capital of the Yukon. Sixty-six percent of the territory’s population lives in Whitehorse, and I was certain AT&T would have coverage there. Even if they did, I didn’t.

I sent Brandi a text via email through a bootleg wifi connection scabbed off one of the local hotels. Ah, the glories of the modern age. She was emphatic that I call her, so I resorted to an ancient technology, the pay phone. It’s amazing how disconnected we have become from what used to be a fixture. I felt almost foolish standing in front of the convenience store chatting with her. Look at this bozo, I imagined the passersby saying. Backwards American doesn’t even own a cell phone.

We made camp at Wolf Creek campground just a few miles outside of town. It was a nice location, with a nature trail only steps from our site. The mosquitoes weren’t too fierce. After taking a lap out to the overlook and back, grabbing a quick bite, and strumming the pups a few tunes on the guitar, I settled into my bivy and enjoyed the fact that it was actually getting dark.