1997 Alaska, British Columbia & YukonTrip

I woke up at 4:30 a.m.and started driving as it was an overcast day and sun not quite up yet. My intention during this trip was to wake up at sunrise and stop driving at night when I was tired. We started north on Highway 37 , known as the Stewart-Cassiar Highway and this would take us straight to the Yukon. Highway 37 would be gravel road the majority of the time with only a couple places to stop for gas. I saw a Black Bear who was looking for food along the side of the road around 6:00 am that looked like he weighed about 300 lbs. It ran off into the woods as soon as it heard the tires on the gravel road and I couldn't get a picture. Around 10:00 a.m.we stopped at Eastman Creek Rest Area and talked to some people who were from Maple Valley, WA. which is 5 miles from our home. They had just come back from Alaska where they had been for the last month and warned us to watch out for the roads along the Tok cutoff. They also said that we would probably run into a man from Denmark who was on his bike and just traveling in Alaska and Yukon this summer. There had been a lot of fires in the Denali vicinity but the weather had been overcast and raining most of the last couple weeks which had helped put the fires out.

We continued north, and stopped at Dease Lake for gas so we could go to Telegraph Creek which was 71 miles of winding, hilly gravel road that wound around mountains that overlooked the Stikine river gorge. We did not know what was at the end other than a small village where they used to mine for gold back in the 1800's. We finally reached a small community of houses that were right by the river and offered rides down the river. We ate some soup at a small store/cafe to so we could rest as we were not looking forward to the ride back. On our way back we hit a bad rainstorm and the total round trip took 4-5 hours, 218 miles and $33 dolllars to fill up the tank again. Not necessary to go there next time we’re around.

As we continued north we stopped at Jade City were they sold boulders of Jade that is from this area. . They did not accept VISA nor did they have phones as there are very few places to stop on this highway which connects with Yukon. We drove past Good Hope Lake which had some nice scenery with some islands within the lake. We eventually stopped at Boya Lake Provencial Park as it was a quiet place and it was still light out at 11:00. This was a nice park as you could watch the sunset over the lake. We drove 550 miles today but it seemed much longer because most of it was on gravel roads.