History
As I discovered while planning this trip, the Alaska Highway was first constructed in 1942 by the U.S. Army in order to transport supplies and defend Alaska from Japan. The Alaska Highway runs from Dawson Creek (the town in British Columbia, not the TV show) to Delta Junction, Alaska for a total of 1,390 miles. The Army built the highway in just 8 months! Some people still refer to the highway as the “ALCAN” Highway, the military’s acronym for Alaska-Canada military highway. It was not a popular name with many Alaskans, who were unhappy with the restrictions of civilian traffic on the highway during the war years. The construction of the road included many existing trails and travel routes already in use before it was built. It was officially renamed the Alaska Highway in 1943. It opened to the public in 1948. After the war ended, the U.S. sold the “permanent structures” they had erected (i.e. bridges) on the portion of the highway that goes through Canada to the Canadian government for $77 million. There is a great display about the building and history of the highway in the Watson Lake, YT visitor center.
Road Conditions
Rough stretch on the Alaska Highway
All of the Alaska Highway is paved, but there are always improvement projects which result in sections of gravel. Weather conditions can be a challenge with floods, permafrost heaves and temperatures causing ongoing challenges. We were anticipating the road to be rough, but the quality was surprisingly good the vast majority of the distance, with just two 7 km stretches of gravel and potholes. From Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson is a breeze, just a normal non-divided highway. Then the road narrows, the curves steepen and the grades increase, but nothing out of the ordinary. I’m approaching this road with an abundance of caution given all the warnings we’ve both read and received from other RVers, but so far so good.
Road repairs are always underway somewhere along the highway
On getting fuel
Fuel stops are few and far between, and are typically co-located with a restaurant, general store and RV park. The genesis of these stops is the roadhouse, long a staple around North America, now relegated to a few remote locations. For fans of functioning petroliana, you couldn’t do better than the gas pumps still in use up here. Featuring the latest in analog counters, you can track the number of liters pumped. That’s it! Then go inside, talk about the weather for a bit and pay up (they all accept credit cards). It actually jives perfectly with the slower pace of life up North and this author didn’t mind the process one bit.
Our Route
The first leg of the Alaska Highway, from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, covers a total of 895 miles. We spent three days traveling this portion of the highway. From Whitehorse, we are taking the Klondike Highway north to Dawson City, the ferry across the Yukon River, and then the Top of the World Highway into Alaska. We will be covering the other portion of the Alaska Highway on our return trip. All miles listed below are from Dawson Creek.
Alaska Highway through British Columbia
Overall the drive included lots of forests, valleys, mountains, rivers and lakes. It is a very scenic drive. We passed numerous provincial parks with hiking, fishing and camping worthy of a future trip. The section through British Columbia, in particular, was very lush, green, and rainy. The forest areas have lots of brush and understory. We saw a good amount of wildlife. Traffic has been really light and has lessened the further we go north.
It has been weird adjusting to the longer days as we travel further north. As I write this in Whitehorse, the sun is setting at 11:15pm and rising at 4:45am. We are thankful for the good dark-out window blinds that came in our RV. We’ve started shutting the blinds at least an hour before we want to go to bed to help fool our bodies into winding down for the day. We have enjoyed seeing the road signs that are different from the ones we are used to in the United States.
Day 1
Day One (May 27) we drove from Dawson Creek to Toad River, British Columbia for a total of 404 miles. Overall, the weather was rainy throughout the day with light snow flurries in a higher pass area starting around mile 360. The day after we drove this section, some other RV travelers we spoke to got stuck for hours near Steamboat, which received about 8 inches of snow and had vehicles stuck on a steep road section. Good timing on our part (and some luck). Throughout the day we kept our eyes peeled for wildlife and were able to spot 5 black bears along the road, at mile 180, 260, 300, 330 and 334. Most were eating vegetation, one was napping. We also saw 3 mountain sheep and numerous deer. We spent the night at the Toad River Lodge and RV Park.
To put the area into some perspective, Dawson Creek has a population of 11,800 and Fort John, the largest town we drove through Day One had a population of about 18,000. The third largest town was Fort Nelson with about 6,147. The rest of the towns were significantly smaller. Toad River has a population of 99. This equates to large stretches of road that had few inhabitants with services such as fuel and lodges at a minimum. There were many pull-outs, a mix of paved and gravel, which almost always had a bear proof trash dumpster and sometimes restrooms. We made and ate our lunch at a pull-out.
Black bear along the Alaska Highway
Day 2
Day Two we drove from Toad River, BC to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory for a total of 208 miles. We had checked the weather and knew about the snow forecast which saved us from being stuck on the road. We still hit some snow flurries but drove through mostly rain throughout the day. We saw an additional 5 bears on day two at mile 463, 522, 543, 569 and 579. We also spotted 5 Woodland Bison, including one lone male at mile 471 and a group of 4 at mile 566, near the Liard Hot Springs. We also observed numerous bison wallows along the route. We saw a handful of deer.
Woodland Bison near Liard River
Welcome to the Yukon sign is at 7th entry
After we crossed the border into Yukon Territory, we were surprised to see an entering British Columbia sign a short time later. There were actually 7 “Welcome to Yukon” signs before the final entrance at mile 607. In Watson Lake we stayed at the Downtown RV Park, which is near a nice 3 mile hike around Wye Lake. We also visited the Sign Post Forest.
Day 3
Day Three we drove from Watson Lake, YT to Whitehorse, YT for a total of 271 miles. We drove through some more flurries and rain. We were able to park the rig at the Rancheria Falls Recreation Site and take a hike to the waterfalls on the Rancheria River. We spotted several snowshoe hares along the road, with their white feet. Their presence means lynx may be in the area, as they rely on the snowshoe hare as their main food source. Unfortunately we did not spot any of the elusive felines.
Rancheria Falls
Second set of Rancheria Falls
Trees in the boreal forest include white and black spruce
The Rancheria Falls are separated by this island
Nisutlin Bay Bridge
Nisutlin Bay Bridge had metal decking which played with steering
We crossed the Nisutlin Bay Bridge, the longest on the Alaska Highway at 1,917 feet and the second longest Teslin River Bridge at 1,770 feet. The Nisutlin Bay Bridge had metal decking which caused the tracking of our vehicle to wander greatly. We stopped and had lunch at Johnson’s Crossing, where we had some tasty burgers.
Johnson’s Corner served up a mean hamburger
Continental Divide along the Alaska Highway
We also crossed the Continental Divide in the Yukon Territory, where I got a lesson in a notable difference between the east and west side of the divide. Any water on the west side of the divide flows into the Yukon River System and flows north to Bering Sea (Pacific Ocean). Water on the east side of the divide flows into the Mackenzie River System and flows north and empties into the Beaufort Sea (Arctic Ocean). There is a sign at Mile 699 that explains: “There is a distinct difference in the land use patterns corresponding with this separation of river drainages. Pacific salmon migrate up the Yukon River watershed providing a reliable and relatively abundant food resource. This resource could generally support a larger and less transient human population than lands to the east.” Look at a map of Canada and you can see how this translates in terms of human settlement.
Typical view during our drive north
Welcome to Whitehorse, capital of Yukon Territory
We arrived in plenty of time to check out the capital town of Whitehorse, population 26,418. We checked in at the Hi-Country RV Park. We are staying for four nights so that we can explore & hike in the area. We crossed the Yukon River just before Whitehorse.
Yukon River Bridge
