The Yukon’s historic and remote South Canol Road
I’ve got Spring Fever or some such malady – I just want to be gone Exploring all the time. Yesterday I took the motorcycle out to the South Canol Road for a short outing.
From my house to the intersection of the Alaska Highway and the Canol Road is about 114 kilometers (71 miles) – a nice easy ride. I did think for a while about continuing on to Teslin or maybe a bit further, but decided to keep it short.
There’s a rest area a couple of hundred yards up the Canol Road with several old trucks and some interpretive signage about the road and the WWII Canol oil project.
I love taking photos of my “heritage-styled” bike with old stuff – the Robinson Roadhouse, the sternwheelers Tutshi and Klondike, trucks…
A look at the Canol Road from behind the wheel of one of the trucks.
From here north you’re on your own – there are no services until you reach the village of Ross River, 226 kilometers away (140 miles).
On the other side of the Alaska Highway is some building wreckage that I decided to go and have a look at. I seem to recall that in the very early 1990s the building was still standing.
It used to be a garage. There was a large highway construction camp here during the war, and it could well date from those years.
Past the garage is another back road – the original Alaska Highway – to explore some day…
The view north along the Alaska Highway to the Teslin River Bridge.
This is what the bridge looked like in 1944 during construction when it was just called Bridge No. 416. It’s 37 meters high and 450 meters long, with a 66-meter cantilever truss on each side of the arch. To the right are 2 of the original wooden bridges.
And this is the scene today.
As I was heading back home, this section of old highway just south of Squanga Lake prompted a U-turn 🙂
You just never know what you might find down these roads – in this case only 3 Arctic hares, but it was a nice little detour anyway.
I went into the Squanga Lake Campground but it was dead quiet. It gets fairly popular in mid-summer, but most of the lake is still frozen. The boat launch is 4-wheel-drive only – well at least getting back up from the lake is!
The weather is pretty flat again today, so it’s a good day to get some work done at home. Tomorrow I just may have “the fever” again 🙂
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