This is the second in four posts on my quick trip to Alaska and back, with a focus on driving the Alcan Highway.
Recap
Two of my buddies and I decided to travel the Alcan Highway; just to see what it was and experience this historical roadway. Our trip consisted of three sections: four days on the Alcan Highway itself, three days in Denali National Park, and five days on a ferry from AK to WA state. We had reservations for the places we’d stay, a tour in Denali, and the ferry ride home (which was the most inflexible); not enough time for any of it but it was an unfortunate reality of working against the calendar.
In addition to those sections, we spent an additional day at the start driving deep into Canada to help shave a little bit of time off the first day’s travel.
With those details set, let’s go!
Staging day – Prince George
At over 500 miles from my house, Prince George was a good destination for being in position for our second day of getting to Fort Nelson … which would be an additional day of driving 500 miles. However, we also needed to budget time one the second day for detouring to Dawson Creek, a less direct route but a necessary diversion. With spirits high, the car packed to the gills, and no one tired of anyone else in the car yet, the miles flew past and before you knew it, we were in an older, but well-kept Travelodge hotel. Given that we’d spent over 8 hours driving, we were ready to stretch out legs and grab a bite … and so we walked to the Camelot Restaurant, about a mile distant.
Tim and I had baked spaghetti, and Ron had the lasagna. I’m not sure if this restaurant made it’s name on the (un)-healthy cheese portions, but there had to be a 3/4” of baked cheese topping my entree! Tasty, but probably not health-conscious. And yes, I ate the entire thing before walking back to the hotel.
Day over, we turned in.
Mile Zero – Dawson Creek
Our diversion to Dawson Creek is because that’s where the Alcan Highway starts, with “Mile Zero” in the downtown area. We arrived before noon, having driven a quick 300 miles, and immediately set about snapping pictures of anything remotely associated with the Alcan Highway.
Noting a Visitors’ Center nearby, we walked up, I threw the doors open and announced, “we’re driving the Alcan Highway!” It was hard to read the room but the looks we received were fear, dread, and a touch of sadness. After saying, “can you repeat that again?” any number of times, the message that the Alcan Highway wasn’t negotiable at this time finally sunk in.
Why would you close a highway?!?
Well, because of a big-ass forest fire, that’s why. Apologies for the crudity, but the emotions at that time were fairly low. The entirety of the town of Fort Nelson, our stop for that evening, had been evacuated. While we were bummed at being inconvenienced on our vacation, over 6000 souls had been told to leave home and were displaced for almost two weeks. And a quick look at the road service around that area shows there are literally no options for “getting around the fire”. The Alcan Highway is the only option in that area.
An alternate to preserving some of our trip presented itself in the Cassiar Highway, a north-south thoroughfare hundreds of miles to the west, but going that way cut over 850 miles off the Alcan route. And yet it was either that or turn around and return home. So we hopped back in, retraced our path to Prince George, and then pushed past it another couple hundred miles to New Hazelton. That made for a nearly 800 mile day but we could still salvage our trip.
Watson Lake – The Sign Post Forest
The drive up the Cassiar Highway was scenic but plagued by low clouds and an anticlimactic feeling as we weren’t here to see that road. But at the end, when we got to Watson Lake and reconnected with our chosen route: we were not only back on the Alcan Highway, but Watson Lake was where we’d intended on staying that night.
However, before getting to the hotel, we stopped at one of the iconic stops listed in a travel guide we carried: the Sign Post Forest.
More can be read here, but after walking around I found a living tree I could use as a post for my sign. It wasn’t my first choice, but literally every post had signs cheek-to-jowl and short of posting over someone else’s sign, I had to do something a bit less conventional. Sorry tree!
Before turning in we did take a short drive back east and south on the Alcan Highway, but before getting outside of Watson Lake, we met a sign detailing the closure of that road. The sign noted that we could have driven some 454 kilometers up the Alcan Highway from Dawson Creek, but it was then blocked and that would have just been 282 miles we’d have had to retrace.
Haines Junction – just a location along the way
Haines Junction was our stay for our fourth day and was pretty much just halfway between the prior evening’s stop, Watson Lake, and our final destination on the Alcan Highway, Delta Junction. Aside from that, Haines Junction is just another town on the Highway. But it was from here that we’d make our way to the terminus … disappointingly, which would be the very next day.
And while I’m not exactly being a civic cheerleader for Haines Junction, I will note that the area is absolutely lovely.
Delta Junction – end of the road
While it came all too fast, it was also another anticlimactic point in the trip: we arrived at Delta Junction, the Alcan Highway ended. I note it was anticlimactic because the address given for the end of the Alcan Highway had us drive an additional 4-miles or so down the Richardson Highway, which terminated at a generic industrial park with no signage indicating anything … not even the business’ name. We backtracked to where the Alcan Highway joined the Richardson Highway and at a park just off the interchange found a sign that gave us closure: The End of the Alaska Highway.
Alcan Highway thoughts
My overall impression of the Alcan Highway is one of a bit disappointment … but even that isn’t the right word. I think I was expecting more but also appreciate that “more” was never promised me, it was just what I was expecting. And I certainly wasn’t expecting a forest fire to close the entire thoroughfare.
Tales of grandpa working on the Alcan Highway, a storied and fabled roadway through the Yukon and across mountain ranges to Alaska: these were part of my childhood and upbringing. it was never more than that regarding grandpa, but my Uncle Joe had shared stories of joining his father on the Alcan and the hardships (and enjoyment) experienced by him on those adventures.
I think I expected marvelous feats of civic engineering: roads hugging tightly to mountain sides, deep tunnels piercing lofty shafts of rock, and a roadway suspended over threading rivers in permafrost terrain. And what I got was a highway. A simple, non-descript highway.
The road is in nearly uniform great shape, trees are cut back from the asphalt by 20 yards or so on either side, and the easiest, straightest, simplest route was chosen in the creation of the road. On the portion we drove, there were zero tunnels, maybe a handful of bridges (most without any merit whatsoever), and rugged terrain wasn’t anywhere to be seen except on the horizon.
The road is also a testament to basic, solid engineering practices, was set down with the help of native peoples who understood the land and seasonal impact, and spanned hundreds and hundreds of miles. That I could simply rent a car and drive to Alaska in a few days is part of the marvel in and of the road.
And that, my friends, was my experience on the Alcan Highway portion of the trip.
What’s next
The next portion of our trip will be heading into and enjoying a day or so in Denali National Park. Stay tuned!
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