Alaska Highway RVing: Whitehorse to Tok
We got home last night from 17 days touring Alaska in our motorhome, accompanied by Whitehorse friends who rented a motorhome from Fraserway. We drove 3,284 km in the RVs, plus another couple of hundred in the Tracker we towed. Total driving time in the RVs was just under 45 hours. This was our itinerary:
Sat Aug 1 – to White River
Sun Aug 2 – to Tok
Mon Aug 3 – to Palmer
Tue Aug 4 – to Portage
Wed Aug 5 – to Seward
Thu Aug 6 – in Seward
Fri Aug 7 – in Seward
Sat Aug 8 – to Talkeetna
Sun Aug 9 – to Denali
Mon Aug 10 – in Denali
Tue Aug 11 – in Denali
Wed Aug 12 – to Tangle Lakes
Thu Aug 13 – to Tok
Fri Aug 14 – to Congdon Creek
Sat Aug 15 – at Congdon Creek
Sun Aug 16 – at Congdon Creek
Mon Aug 17 – home
That looks like this on a map…
After editing, I have 1,875 photos. With good Internet only for a few hours during the entire trip (at Talkeetna), I was only able to post a handful of pictures on Facebook, and blogging the trip seems quite intimidating at the moment, but we saw some amazing things, so I’ll give it a shot.
Getting away from Whitehorse took a bit longer than we had expected, but as we headed west on the Alaska Highway, we left the rain, and just after 3:00 pm, we made our first stop, at one of our favourite beaches on Kluane Lake. MJ and Jim had rented a 23-foot Class C motorhome, the largest that Fraserway offers in Whitehorse, and we expected to make good use of Cathy’s Tracker.
MJ and Jim’s dog, Charlie, is a wonderful little rescue, and gets along great with Monty and Bella. He’s always seemed very adaptable, so we had high hopes that he’d enjoy his first trip.
Our destination for our first night was Discovery Yukon, formerly the White River Lodge, on the Alaska Highway at Km 1818, 409 km (254 miles) from our home. During the trip, we planned to stay at both commercial and government campgrounds, with location being the main criteria for which one we chose.
There are 50 pull-through, full hookup sites, and we got 2 side by side, with a picnic table between us. The sites cost $42 each, with 10% off for our Good Sam membership.
Scattered around the campground is a large collection of military construction equipment from World War II when the highway was built. This part of the campground doesn’t seem to be in use anymore – it was where I had hoped to be parked for the night.
Most of the equipment has deteriorated beyond restoration, but this ambulance would be a great project.
This “Northern botanical garden” is a nice new feature.
At about 9:30, with lots of daylight left, Cathy and I took the dogs for a walk along the highway to the bridge over the White River, just over half a kilometer west of the campground. Right at the bridge, the river changes its character dramatically, from being a mountain river upstream…
… to a braided glacial river downstream. Within a very short distance of the bridge, the riverbed is a couple of kilometers wide.
On Sunday morning, before hitting the road again, I spent more time checking out the artifact collection, which really is quite impressive. Overall the campground and the facilities in general at Discovery Yukon are quite nice – it’s a particularly nice place to wander with the dogs. My only complaint was that the advertised wi-fi barely functioned even inside the small lodge – it wasn’t really worth the time and frustration of trying to use it.
As were all sitting in our rig discussing the day ahead, one of Trans North’s Aerospatiale AS 350 helicopters came in to land, with a good-sized boat dangling from a sling! We actually knew that it was coming sometime today, as we had talked to a Whitehorse sheep hunter the previous evening. He told us a fascinating story about his party’s boat sinking up the White River, being rescued by helicopter, and now paying some $8,000 to fly the boat and motor out. That’s some adventure!
Sunday would be an easy day, with only 229 km (142 miles) to drive to Tok, and nothing in the way of stops planned other than the border crossing. At Km 1865, travellers come to an odd assortment of “stuff” along the highway that no doubt produce many guesses as to what it is. I’ve watched it expand over the past 20 years ago – it’s a section of highway for testing various ideas to protect the permafrost that lies below the road, and so stabilize the road surface. See this page for more information.
We stopped in to see the very nice Visitor Reception Centre at Beaver Creek. I used to spend a lot of time in Beaver Creek with tours, but few bus tours come this way anymore.
Staff at our Visitor Reception Centres can always be counted on to have the information you need, even when you didn’t know before you walked in that you needed it – Sid van der Meer was no exception to that rule 🙂
Sid invited us to have a look through his private museum a couple of blocks away, and I was quite stunned by the size and variety of his collection, and by what he’s done with it – it takes a while to start noticing some of the details in the many rooms. For someone like me, it’s exciting to see the sort of passion it takes to create a place like this over a few decades.
There are several themed rooms in the museum, including this wonderful bordello bedroom, which would be unlikely to exist in a public museum here.
I could have spent hours there. This old apple box end says “We believe in trade with the Empire. This box material and apples are Canadian products. Nails made in Great Britain. BUY EMPIRE PRODUCTS”. It makes me think of the maps we used in school when I was young, with countries of the British Commonwealth circling the globe in pink.
Alaska welcomes the gang 🙂 I actually took this photo as we left Alaska because the place was far too crowded as we entered Alaska.
We met a very large group of cyclists (50 or so) and their support vehicles at the border – some at the sign and the rest at the Customs crossing. They are members of a group called Texas 4000, and over 70 days will be riding all the way from Austin to Anchorage, gathering support for the fight against cancer. The first Texas 4000 ride took place in 2004, and since then over $4.5 million dollars has been raised for the cause. There’s a sign on the back windows of the van that says “We biked here from TX”.
Just before reaching Tok, we made a short stop at one of my favourite rest areas, at the Tanana River bridge, Milepost 1303.
Our home for Sunday night would be the Tundra Lodge & RV Park at the western edge of Tok.
We were given sites #19 and 20 at the furthest edge of the campground. Lovely, large sites with water and 30 amp power for $33 US (currently $43.21 Canadian). After registering, I’d gone over to the Tesoro gas station next door to fuel up and wash the rig (the wash is free with a fill).
The large, clean, washrooms were close by.
Wifi is only available in the very comfortable lodge reception area, which was either a very long walk or a short drive from our sites.
The next day, to Palmer, would be one of our longest driving days, so we had a quiet night and were in bed early.
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