The ExploreNorth Blog

I had intended to post a fairly lengthy report about my trip home from Calgary, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I do want to show you a very special moment that happened during the trip, though. I left Stewart at 6:00 am (an hour before the only breakfast restaurant in town opened) and was at the Bear Glacier as the sun came up in a light-cloudy sky a half-hour later. On the way into Stewart this was a spooky spot, with avalanches coming down everywhere. This morning, though, it was -1°C so things were temporarily firmed up. There wasn’t a sound, and I sat there for quite a while soaking up all of the spirit of the place I could. Moments like this are why I travel. (click on the photo to enlarge it)

You all know about email spam, but many of you won’t know that blogs are prime targets for spammers. Not just sex ads like the majority of email spams, but anything you can imagine, from travel agents to magazine sales. The only thing that keeps me relatively sane is a Wordpress plugin called Spam Karma 2. What would life be like without it? Well, in the past 24 hours, Spam Karma has caught 887 phoney posts!!! Obviously if I had to deal with that manually, this blog would have been closed a long time ago. In my perfect world there would be a minimum 2 year jail term for spammers and taggers…

Kayla is a such a sweet dog I often chuckle at how she came into my life, and about the wolf-hybrid horror stories that circulate. She’s a registered wolf hybrid from a breeder in Ocala, Florida. When she was abandoned in Whitehorse, I took her in with the understanding that it would be short-term until I could find a suitable home for a dog “known” to be unpredictable and potentially violent. That was in 2000. It quickly became apparent that she was nothing like the legends suggest she would be. The photo below shows her with Latimer yesterday afternoon - I never let Kayla have puppies, but Latimer happily accepts that role

 

  

It’s time for a major road trip to see some of my family in Calgary and Kelowna. It was timed so that I could help my daughter and grand-daughters move when I reached Calgary.

I left the house at 6:15 am on April 13th with the temperature at 0°C. When I turned onto the Alaska Highway I found it quite amusing to have the GPS voice tell me that the first turn I needed to make was 1,389 km away! That’s the roundabout at Dawson Creek, Mile 0 of the highway.

Gas at Whitehorse yesterday had risen to $1.259 per liter at most stations, but SuperSave still had it on for $1.199.

Once I lost Whitehorse radio at Jake’s Corner I fired up some classic John Lee Hooker on my iPod, putting me in a better marathon-road-trip mood Topped up my gas at the Yukon Motel in Teslin for $1.269 per liter.

The photo below is southbound at Logjam Creek, Km 1165.

 

Rancheria Lodge was open and had a survey crew staying there - gas was $1.299. Reached Watson Lake at 10:55, with the temperature up to +4° C.

I had good weather pretty much all the way - a couple of hours of wet road and a few minutes of slush, but lots of sunshine. The snow squall seen below at about Km 720 was the only snow and it was brief.

 

It was a herd of Dall sheep on the dry mountain slope that stopped me here along the Racing River. Spring breakup is a beautiful time along the Alaska Highway.

 

Fueled at Contact Creek for $1.319 - they usually have lower prices than Watson Lake, but nobody had road-sign prices posted at Watson Lake this trip so I can’t confirm that this year. Liard Hot Springs Lodge has new owners, but the historic gas gouge there continues - $1.409. Lunch was good and reasonable, though. It was +11° when I pulled away at 1:40 pm. I usually stop for a soak in the hot springs (and recommend that everybody does), but now that I have a hot tub in my forested back yard it’s lost its appeal.

A new bridge at Km 587 is the only obvious construction that will be starting up soon.

 

The road ahead at Km 391, about an hour south of Fort Nelson.

 

A detour to the impressive curved wooden bridge over the Kiskatinaw River on the old Alaska Highway, and then back for a stop at the new (1978) Kiskatinaw Bridge makes for an interesting contrast.

 

At 8:40 pm, I arrived at the Shepherd’s Inn just north of Fort St. John, some 1,350 k from home. A huge clean room with a comfortable bed was $81 including taxes and a cinnamon bun (a bun because the cafe was closed, so that was dinner).

I was back on the road at 0445, but stopped at Humpty’s in Fort St. John for a good breakfast. Gas at Fort St. John was $1.259.

Below, Spring cleaning on the streets of downtown Dawson Creek, British Columbia. Gas at Dawson Creek was from $1.229 to $1.259.

 

Gas prices dropped to from $1.170 to $1.179 as soon as I crossed into Albera, and stayed at that level right to Edmonton. I spent Monday afternoon and night with my youngest brother and his family at wetaskawin.

Below, the highway south of Fox Creek, Alberta.

 

An early start from Wetaskawin had me in suburban Calgary just after 9:00 am. Below, I’m nearing the Hidden Valley area of Calgary, where Andrea was moving from. The growth here in the north-west of Calgary, and at the community of Airdrie just to the north, is quite astounding.

 

 

Or at least trying to photograph polar bear. This solo sport helps develop agility, coordination and mental acuity in survivors. It’s also great fun to take photos of the participating athletes. 

I just pulled this image from the Calgary traffic cam site - it might be funny if I wasn’t leaving for Calgary on Sunday.

 

It’s not really Spring yet with well-below-freezing temperatures every night, but many folks in the North are digging their way into Spring, if not Summer.

Up in deep snow country (the White Pass), the Yukon Suspension Bridge has the trenches dug into the property, now has to wait for Mother Nature to lend a hand.

 At Spirit Lake Lodge, they got an early start and are now well into drying out.

 Here at Mary Lake, I’m doing lots of digging. As well as getting the driveway dried out, I’d like to have the white stuff gone from a few areas when I get back from a road trip to Calgary and Kelowna (I’m leaving on Sunday) so I can get a permanent dog fence built, with gates so I can get my truck back to the barn and firewood shed.

With a couple of huskies, I’m doing other digging as well - that’s a job that some people are able to find the humour in

 What we really need now is a day or 2 of heavy rain - Spring arrives very quickly when that happens, melting the snow and getting enough warm moisture into the ground to encourage plants to start growing.

I don’t think I’m a radical at all when it comes to progress - I understand the greys, not just the blacks and whites of issues. But Yukon Electrical seems to have carte blanche to do whatever they want in the Yukon, with no regulatory and/or public input, and that bugs me. When the Mayo-Dawson power line was built a few years ago, a lot of people raised hell about the location of it - right beside a highway that used to have some great views. The result of the complaints - nada.

Now another power line is being built along the South Klondike Highway (and apparently along the North Klondike as well). There is a power line along the South Klondike now, but it’s mostly back in the bush, out of sight. I assume that this is an upgrade to the line. I’ve heard nothing about it - was anybody consulted? Did they go through the YESAP process that everyone else has to go through to do anything related to the land? I’ve haven’t been in touch with Yukon goings-on much for the past few weeks, but the answer to both those questions seems to be “no” (nothing shows up in searches at the News and Star sites). The logical question that follows is “why hasn’t there been any input??”

I understand doing things the easy way, but that doesn’t make it right. Construction of a line along the highway is much easier than building it through the bush. The 3rd photo below shows the current line through the bush on the right, where the new line will hook up to it, right at historic Mile 18 (these photos were shot yesterday). Back in about 1996 when I wanted power into my Carcross cabin, Yukon Electrical engineers and I discussed this exact issue over the course of about a year and a half. I wanted the line to go through the bush so it wouldn’t mess up my view, they wanted it to run alongside the railway tracks where it was easy to build. They initially refused to build it through the bush and I said that if it had to go across my view I’d find another power source. The engineers were great to talk to, and when a site inspection was done by one of the head engineers rather than a lower-end guy, he saw my point - the line now runs through the bush. Those of you who enjoy our (relatively) pristine views should contact your MLA to find our why Yukon Electrical is allowed to continue buggering up those views.

 

 

I love our new property. Most mornings, we have over 150 birds feeding at the 2 feeders or close by, and their sound filling the forest is wonderful.

 

Renovations have started on both property and house, though, and seeing if we could get a mountain view without losing any privacy was high priority. This was the view from the breakfast nook 3 days ago.

  

Another issue was that a tree had fallen against the barn, doing some minor damage, and a huge one that could do serious damage is leaning over the barn.

  

 I got the view cutline figured out, and the first major sweat has been cutting down trees the past couple of days. Today I’m resting - that’s tough work for an old man!

 This is the view looking back at the house from half way up the corral.

   Tah-dah! Here’s Golden Horn this morning. I LOVE mountains, and having this view has made a huge difference to both of us.

   

When I posted last Saturday that Winter was over, I must have tempted fate, because Father Winter returned the next day and got the de-icing crews at YXY back to work.

 We’ve had a good run of days now where the temperature gets above freezing for a while now, though, and the White Pass summit area is loaded with people enjoying what may be the best snow conditions of the year. I was down to Skagway yesterday - the summit had 4-6 inches of fresh snow, the temperature was -6°C, and there was a steady stream of RVs of all types coming down the highway. Playing hookey for half a day or so to get a good parking spot at the Summit or Log Cabin is almost mandatory with these conditions on what, for many people, is a 4-day weekend!

 Cathy and I were out for a walk around the neighbourhood today, and saw a few pussy willows fully out, and many of the willows are swollen. It seems pretty early, but it’s great to see them - come on Spring!