Safe in Anchorage

Welcome sign along the Alaskan Highway at the border.

It was a frosty 16 degrees (Fahrenheit not Celsius as we were thankfully back in the U.S.) in Tok, Alaska when we started re-packing the car for the final leg of the journey five hours south to Anchorage.  As I packed I noticed the motel had posts in front of every room.  A quick glance at them revealed electric outlets on each post that explained their reason for being there.  The outlets were to plug in your car's circulation pumps that are necessary this far north when the temperatures reach fifty to sixty below zero and a car will not start.  The pump heats and circulates the antifreeze to keep the engine warm.  Another reminder that we're not in Pennsylvania any more.

After checking out of the motel/restaurant onto the Tok's main street, we made a right turn on the Tok Cutoff headed to Alaska's largest city where half the states population resides.  We could have continued up the Alaskan Highway toward Fairbanks to the turnoff at mile marker 1422 but this cutoff route in good weather cut hours off the trip.  The road, built high up on the permafrost, ran through muskeg tundra with high snow capped peaks in the distance.  This seems to have been a recurring theme the last 3000 miles.  During my first trip to Alaska the mountains had me in awe.  I can now say after making this journey that they not so much awe me as they do still excite and inspire me.  I have crossed the Rockies and the continental divide three times now in two weeks.  I have traveled north through length of the Canadian Rockies. I have seen the mountains change from high peaks and valleys to rounded hills surrounding northern prairie then barren high plains. The sight of the mountains is more common place to me but I still feel excited at the sight of them.  I still long to explore.

After a couple of hours on the road, meeting very little traffic, I had to stop the car suddenly in the middle of the road.  Eight elk bulls were blocking the highway.  Two were large 6 X 6 elk with the rest being young spikes. We tried to get pictures but they moved too fast as we heard them crashing into the brush along the road.  The road then wound up into the mountain passes and we could see the snow covered peaks rising above the snow covered valleys below.  As the highway wound it's way up through the passes of the Matanuska mountains the air became foggy then changed to snow.  The snow was several inches deep along the road covered the road surface making the going very slow.  Snow and ice colored the road white as we creeped along the mountain road. An hour of this and the road dropped in elevation. The snow on the road and hillsides abruptly disappeared.  This left us with the beautiful scenes of the mountains before us as we passed several glaciers grinding their way slowly out of the mountains.

The road then narrowed considerably along the glacial river and crews were working for miles to clear the roadsides of debris from landslides.  For sixty miles the signs warned of slide areas and rocks littered the road in places.  The small towns we did pass through had little to no activity or open businesses.  Palmer would be the next stop for gas on the trip south.  Palmer passed by as a suburb on Wasilla.  Both appear to be nice areas with the modern conveniences that Generica has to offer.  However, despite what Sarah Palin said I was unable to see Russia from there.  She might want to re-think her geography knowledge or get better glasses.  After a stop at a Fred Myers for lunch and to restock our bottled water supply, we were back on the road for the last 40 miles into Anchorage.  Traffic picked up as we neared the city and we were glad to see our exit to the university was one of the first we saw.  Through the thick rush hour traffic we quickly found where we had to go to meet our contact for housing.

The university is a beautiful campus with a large hospital and Tribal medical center.  New buildings are being constructed for the Engineering departments and new sports arena for the UAA Seawolves.  The dorm suite they have provided is nice and spacious.  We have use of it for as long as we need it at a very nominal cost.  A walk around the local portion of the campus revealed a nice campus with walking trail and restaurants nearby.   Tomorrow's agenda consists of meeting my new manager, setting up my parking and apartment hunting.

Glacier along the Tok Cutoff to Anchorage

Unfortunately with the overcast skies of the past two days, pictures didn't turn out well.  There will be plenty of other days for pictures.  I can't wait to explore Anchorage and Alaska.

One last tribute to Robert Service in honor of the trip through the north country.  I found this one appropriate for the journey north.

The Quitter

by Robert W. Service

When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle To cock your revolver and . . . die. But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," And self-dissolution is barred. In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . . It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard. "You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame. You're young and you're brave and you're bright. "You've had a raw deal!" I know -- but don't squeal, Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. It's the plugging away that will win you the day, So don't be a piker, old pard! Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit: It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard. It's easy to cry that you're beaten -- and die; It's easy to crawfish and crawl; But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight -- Why, that's the best game of them all! And though you come out of each grueling bout, All broken and beaten and scarred, Just have one more try -- it's dead easy to die, It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.

Alaska!!!!

10:00am Sunrise along the Alaskan Highway near Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

It was barely light and lightly raining in Whitehorse when the car merged onto the Alaskan Highway at 9:30am  headed northwest for the final leg of the journey through the Yukon Territory.  The rain quickly turned to snow but soon the skies cleared an hour out of Whitehorse to reveal a beautiful sunrise. Within an hour of being on the highway on a straight away two elk cows stepped out of the brush on the roadside.  Their breath was white frost in the chilly morning air.

The road through the western potion of the Yukon is rough, barren and lonely.  The few small towns are long distances apart.  Many listed on the map turned out to be just an abandoned business that was boarded up and dilapidated.  The road was straight and rose and fell with the terrain.  It was obvious the road had been improved in places where the old highway was visible as it went around hills then rolled up and over steep hilltops.  The new road ran straighter and with less hills as cuts had been made through the hills.  The road ran toward high snow capped mountains and turned north skirting them.  These were the St Elias Mountains.  Thankfully we did not have to go over them.  The road followed the wide valley between the mountains rising higher and higher.

The Alaskan Highway (Alcan) follows the river valleys through this high section of the Yukon.  The highway runs straight with sweeping curves.  It bumps up and down like a roller coaster where the permafrost has heaved it.  You could see the bumps in the road by watching the white lines along the side the road (where there were white lines).  For miles the road was so rough with bumps and patches it was a slow going slalom course driving on both sides of the road to avoid them.  With the lack of traffic in either direction, I drove on the left side of the road often to avoid the bad sections.

Abandoned business along the Alcan

The highway passed a few abandoned businesses and houses as it wound northwest up the river valleys and over a long high ridge.  The road after Haines Junction climbed steadily for miles and miles as it climbed over a ridge then around the south end of Kluane lake.  A glacier in the St Elias range was visible high in the mountains on our left.  We crossed the wide rocky Slim, Donjek and White glacial rivers.  It was remote as we wound through the scrub pine trees on the tundra.  The road became covered with snow and ice in sections.  The plow truck had spread sand so travelling was good but with the poor condition of the road itself, it was a little nerve racking.

Casualty of the Alaskan Highway.  Roll over accident in the middle of nowhere.

After hours of driving, with only the occasional tractor trailer bumping by us heading south, we arrived in Beaver Creek.  This is the most western town in Canada and hours away from anything else.  The nearest big town with a grocery store was Whitehorse six and a half hours away.  This was the only gas station we had seen for over 125 miles and it would be 100 miles to Tok, Alaska. We made a stop here for gas at 3:00pm. The young girl working the register (wearing boots and pajama pants) informed us we were her first customers of the day when she had a problem with the cash register.  Leaving Beaver Creek it was a 30 mile drive to the U.S. border.  The highway for this last section was a wide dirt track.  Luckily it was smoother than the paved highway we had been driving for the past two hours.

Kluane Lake

Nearing Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory

Shortly after leaving Beaver Creek the U.S. border came into view.  This was a small building on a hill with nothing else around.  It only had three lanes and two of those were closed.  The border guard was nice and very relaxed.  I had worried about crossing back in the U.S. and having the packed car searched.  This worry was for nothing as the guard asked a few questions and gave us our passports back.  Apparently, terrorists aren't common in the Yukon in late October especially ones driving Hyundai Tuscons.  I had thought there would be a town at the border crossing.  I could not have been more wrong.  There was just that small building.  The road, however, did become noticeably better and I welcomed the signs in miles per hour. The Alaskan portion to Tok wound over some hills with snow capped mountains in the distance.  It was eighty miles of snow and ice covered highway to Tok and our stop for the night.  The motel, restaurant combination is nice and tomorrow it's on to Anchorage.

As a I spent the majority of today driving the last section of the Alaskan Highway through the Yukon, I thought I'd post another poem as homage to Robert Service the famed poet of the Yukon.

The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill

by Robert W. Service

I took a contract to bury the body Of blasphemous Bill MacKie, Whenever, wherever or whatsoever The manner of death he die -- Whether he die in the light o' day Or under the peak-faced moon; In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, Mucklucks or patent shoon; On velvet tundra or virgin peak, By glacier, drift or draw; In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom, By avalanche, fang or claw; By battle, murder or sudden wealth, By pestilence, hooch or lead -- I swore on the Book I would follow and look Till I found my tombless dead. For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, And his mind was mighty sot On a dinky patch with flowers and grass In a civilized bone-yard lot. And where he died or how he died, It didn't matter a damn So long as he had a grave with frills And a tombstone "epigram". So I promised him, and he paid the price In good cheechako coin (Which the same I blowed in that very night Down in the Tenderloin). Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine: "Here lies poor Bill MacKie", And I hung it up on my cabin wall And I waited for Bill to die. Years passed away, and at last one day Came a squaw with a story strange, Of a long-deserted line of traps 'Way back of the Bighorn range; Of a little hut by the great divide, And a white man stiff and still, Lying there by his lonesome self, And I figured it must be Bill. So I thought of the contract I'd made with him, And I took down from the shelf The swell black box with the silver plate He'd picked out for hisself; And I packed it full of grub and "hooch", And I slung it on the sleigh; Then I harnessed up my team of dogs And was off at dawn of day. You know what it's like in the Yukon wild When it's sixty-nine below; When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads Through the crust of the pale blue snow; When the pine-trees crack like little guns In the silence of the wood, And the icicles hang down like tusks Under the parka hood; When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off, And the sky is weirdly lit, And the careless feel of a bit of steel Burns like a red-hot spit; When the mercury is a frozen ball, And the frost-fiend stalks to kill -- Well, it was just like that that day when I Set out to look for Bill. Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush Me down on every hand, As I blundered blind with a trail to find Through that blank and bitter land; Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild, With its grim heart-breaking woes, And the ruthless strife for a grip on life That only the sourdough knows! North by the compass, North I pressed; River and peak and plain Passed like a dream I slept to lose And I waked to dream again. River and plain and mighty peak -- And who could stand unawed? As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed At the foot of the throne of God. North, aye, North, through a land accurst, Shunned by the scouring brutes, And all I heard was my own harsh word And the whine of the malamutes, Till at last I came to a cabin squat, Built in the side of a hill, And I burst in the door, and there on the floor, Frozen to death, lay Bill. Ice, white ice, like a winding-sheet, Sheathing each smoke-grimed wall; Ice on the stove-pipe, ice on the bed, Ice gleaming over all; Sparkling ice on the dead man's chest, Glittering ice in his hair, Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart, Ice in his glassy stare; Hard as a log and trussed like a frog, With his arms and legs outspread. I gazed at the coffin I'd brought for him, And I gazed at the gruesome dead, And at last I spoke: "Bill liked his joke; But still, goldarn his eyes, A man had ought to consider his mates In the way he goes and dies." Have you ever stood in an Arctic hut In the shadow of the Pole, With a little coffin six by three And a grief you can't control? Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse That looks at you with a grin, And that seems to say: "You may try all day, But you'll never jam me in"? I'm not a man of the quitting kind, But I never felt so blue As I sat there gazing at that stiff And studying what I'd do. Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs That were nosing round about, And I lit a roaring fire in the stove, And I started to thaw Bill out. Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days, But it didn't seem no good; His arms and legs stuck out like pegs, As if they was made of wood. Till at last I said: "It ain't no use -- He's froze too hard to thaw; He's obstinate, and he won't lie straight, So I guess I got to -- saw." So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs, And I laid him snug and straight In the little coffin he picked hisself, With the dinky silver plate; And I came nigh near to shedding a tear As I nailed him safely down; Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh, And I started back to town. So I buried him as the contract was In a narrow grave and deep, And there he's waiting the Great Clean-up, When the Judgment sluice-heads sweep; And I smoke my pipe and I meditate In the light of the Midnight Sun, And sometimes I wonder if they was, The awful things I done. And as I sit and the parson talks, Expounding of the Law, I often think of poor old Bill -- And how hard he was to saw.

Along the Alaskan Highway

The Alaskan Highway, Yukon Territory, Canada

9:00am Downtown Watson Lake

9:00am Downtown Watson Lake

The sun rose above Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada and bathed the two dirt streets along this straight section of the Alaskan Highway with diffused light.  It was still dusk at 9:00am.  That's correct.  It was 9:00am and just starting to get light. A stark reminder that we were closer to the Arctic Circle and not at home.   A quick stop at the Native run convenience store, next to the only three motels in town lined all in a row, provided a breakfast for the road.  Nine dollars bought a box of pop tarts and a very small orange juice. Another reminder that we were not in the U.S. any more.  Food, gas and lodging are incredibly high in the small towns in this remote wilderness.  The dirt, pot hole filled parking lot of the store was frozen hard and slippery where ice covered the ground.  A conversation with a local had informed us that winter was late arriving to this part of the Yukon.  Usually it would be colder and more snow would be on the ground for the remainder of the long winter.

Before heading out of town, we stopped at the Sign Post Forest.  This unique park covered a three acre portion of the town and had walls covered with signs from all over the world. Road and highway signs were tacked on walls along with license plates from travelers passing through.  A Pennsylvania Interstate 81 sign and a novelty front license plate from Nauvoo, a small village southwest of Liberty, PA brought back memories from home in Tioga County.  If we had known about this park, we would have brought something from home to leave as homage to the infamous Alaskan Highway.  It would have been fun to leave our mark as an indicator that we had passed through this remote wilderness.

The Alaskan Highway winding through the Yukon is ribbon of asphalt running between a wide corridor carved out of the pine forest. The highway is also known as Route 1.  One of only four highways in the entire territory and of those, one of the only two that are paved. Originally built as a military haul road to connect Alaska to the Lower 48, the rough dirt road has been upgraded and is now paved.  The pavement is heaved, cracked and patched as it winds over hills and across rivers.  During the entire drive from Watson Lake to the territory capitol of Whitehorse, a total of 5 hours, we only saw two other vehicles going in our direction.  There were many tractor trailers coming east.  All had Alaska license plates and large grill guards on the front to protect the trucks from animal collisions.  The trucks were an impressive sight as they topped the rises coming toward us on the highway. Their tall twin exhaust stacks belched smoke as black as coal.

Teslin, Yukon territory, Canada

Over hills and rivers the highway wound its way through the wilderness. Pine trees stretched for miles in every direction backing up to high snow covered mountains.  The road rose and fell with the terrain. Occasionally a long lake would appear through the trees or directly below the elevated roadway.  The highway had been build on a base raising it thirty feet above the forest floor.  The view of the tree tops created a carpet affect as you looked out the car windows.  A couple of small villages along the highway were comprised of a few houses and junk cars.  Sign and sign along the road advertised campgrounds with large closed signed across them.  Lodging and fuel are a huge concern along the Alaskan Highway.  The days travel must be carefully planned.  Our destination of Whitehorse had been carefully chosen as the next larger town with lodging was Tok, Alaska eight hours past Whitehorse.  There's very few villages between the two larger towns and gas stations tend to close early in the evening we were warned.  Plus dark comes early this time of year this far north.  The only safe choice for travel was Whitehorse.  Between Watson Lake and Whitehorse the only fuel stop was Teslin.  Two gas stations and handful of houses comprised this small village next to a large bridge crossing the Teslin River.  The narrow open grate bridge was long and boasted a sign before the bridge that appropriately warned of a rough bridge deck.

Five hours after leaving Watson Lake and driving through a vast forest ringed by mountains, signs appeared for Whitehorse.  Street lights began to line the highway and signs advertising local businesses dotted the roadside.  Turning down the hill into Whitehorse revealed a town much different then what I had been told it was like in the 1970's and 80's.  A small frontier town with a wild west feel back then, that proudly boasted the only paved section of road on the whole highway, now had a feel of a modern small city.  I had heard tales of guys that had hung out in the town telling tales of wild partying, drinking and TV's being thrown out of the windows of the Yukon Hotel.  Now it's a small city boasting Mcdonalds, Tim Hortons, Pizza Hut and even a Walmart.  Even in the middle of nowhere the evil empire shows it's presence.  For curiosity sake, a quick trip to the only Walmart in the Yukon revealed disappointingly that they in fact did not sell racks of flannel shirts and suspenders.  Robert Service is probably turning over in his grave knowing that his tales of the Malamute Saloon  has been replaced by goods mass produced by slave labor in China.  I'm sure his Yukon is still alive up here somewhere but Whitehorse has changed much in the past 100 years.  Natives worked in all the businesses and teenagers wandered the downtown streets enjoying the sunshine while they still could before winter fully set in.  New modern architecture mixed with older buildings to form the downtown area of the small city. Territory government buildings were a looming presence in the one time wild gold mining boom town.

Tomorrow it's on to Tok, Alaska further along the Alaskan Highway.  The border crossing back into the U.S. should be interesting.  Hopefully, we're not picked for a random search as the car is packed so tightly it might not be possible to repack.  Two more days to arriving in Anchorage and the end of this segment of the journey weather permitting.

The Shooting of Dan McGraw

by Robert W. Service

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up In the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box Was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, Sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, The lady that's known as Lou. When out of the night, which was fifty below, And into the din and the glare, There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, Dog-dirty, and loaded for bear. He looked like a man with a foot in the grave And scarcely the strength of a louse, Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, And he called for drinks for the house. There was none could place the stranger's face, Though we searched ourselves for a clue; But we drank his health, and the last to drink Was Dangerous Dan McGrew. There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, And hold them hard like a spell; And such was he, and he looked to me Like a man who had lived in hell; With a face most hair, and the dreary stare Of a dog whose day is done, As he watered the green stuff in his glass, And the drops fell one by one. Then I got to figgering who he was, And wondering what he'd do, And I turned my head -- and there watching him Was the lady that's known as Lou. His eyes went rubbering round the room, And he seemed in a kind of daze, Till at last that old piano fell In the way of his wandering gaze. The rag-time kid was having a drink; There was no one else on the stool, So the stranger stumbles across the room, And flops down there like a fool. In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt He sat, and I saw him sway; Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands -- My God! but that man could play. Were you ever out in the Great Alone, When the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in With a silence you most could HEAR; With only the howl of a timber wolf, And you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, Clean mad for the muck called gold; While high overhead, green, yellow and red, The North Lights swept in bars? -- Then you've a haunch what the music meant . . . Hunger and night and the stars. And hunger not of the belly kind, That's banished with bacon and beans, But the gnawing hunger of lonely men For a home and all that it means; For a fireside far from the cares that are, Four walls and a roof above; But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, And crowned with a woman's love -- A woman dearer than all the world, And true as Heaven is true -- (God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, -- The lady that's known as Lou.) Then on a sudden the music changed, So soft that you scarce could hear; But you felt that your life had been looted clean Of all that it once held dear; That someone had stolen the woman you loved; That her love was a devil's lie; That your guts were gone, and the best for you Was to crawl away and die. 'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, And it thrilled you through and through -- "I guess I'll make it a spread misere," Said Dangerous Dan McGrew. The music almost died away . . . Then it burst like a pent-up flood; And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," And my eyes were blind with blood. The thought came back of an ancient wrong, And it stung like a frozen lash, And the lust awoke to kill, to kill . . . Then the music stopped with a crash, And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned In a most peculiar way; In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt He sat, and I saw him sway; Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, And he spoke, and his voice was calm, And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, And none of you care a damn; But I want to state, and my words are straight, And I'll bet my poke they're true, That one of you is a hound of hell . . . and that one is Dan McGrew." Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, And two guns blazed in the dark, And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, And two men lay stiff and stark. Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, Was Dangerous Dan McGrew, While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast Of the lady that's known as Lou. These are the simple facts of the case, And I guess I ought to know. They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch", And I'm not denying it's so. I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, But strictly between us two -- The woman that kissed him and -- pinched his poke -- Was the lady that's known as Lou.