On the road – Top of the World to Fairbanks

Posted On July 12, 2008

Diamond Tooth Gertie’s in Dawson City was fun as always, even though almost everyone left after the first show. Maybe they just figured that after watching Barry performing on stage, everything else would be a let-down! 🙂

Yesterday morning, we began our adventure across the Top of the World Highway (and the Taylor Highway). I always enjoy the little cruise across the Yukon River on the George Black – the rapidly-rising river necessitated the rebuilding of the gravel ramp almost every trip.

Crossing the Yukon River on the ferry George Black

The weather was erratic to say the least – we got torrential rain and we got very warm sunshine. Due to the fact that the group used Air New Zealand’s new Auckland-Vancouver direct service, we had to deal with green card processing at Poker Creek, which made the usual 10-minute crossing a rather painful 45-minute one.

Driving Alaska's Taylor Highway on a rainy day

This morning, we left Tok in much better conditions, and the drive to Fairbanks, enhanced by sightings of a bear and cub and 4 moose, was very pleasant. The first photo below was shot right at Mile 1336 of the Alaska Highway.