Traveling the Cassiar Highway and our First Flat Tire!

In the spirit of slowing down we drove 276, 300 and 301 miles in three days before making it to  the Stewart/Hyder area. We drove in 3 days what should have on our schedule taken us 6. In our defense we had a change in plans for the latter part of this trip which required us to make up a few days.

Leaving Dawson City we started to see a lot more wildlife along the roadways. Bears, grouse, moose and fox. Early on in our trip we would slow down, stop and even turn around to look at the wildlife, now we are zooming by yelling out the window to stay off the road. We did stop and take a few pictures of two fox that were just standing at the side of the road like they did not have a care in the world. Hopefully these guys will smart up before it is too late!

The traffic along both the Klondike Loop was almost nonexistent, it seemed like we virtually had the roads to ourselves. This changed once we turned onto the Cassiar Highway there was a lot of traffic going both ways. Parts of this highway were some of the best we have seen so far on the trip while others were…well not so much. Not as bad as the Alaska Highway on the way to Tok but there were plenty of potholes and a fair amount of construction. In fact it was this leg of the trip we had our first vehicle breakdown. We were driving merrily down the road when our tire pressure monitor alarm went off and indicated that we had 40psi in the inner dually (normally 65). As I looked for an area to pull over the psi continued to drop to 20 by the time I found a safe spot to pull over. The problem was obvious when we heard air hissing out from a rock imbedded between the tread of the tire. Luckily, thanks to Barb’s cousin Lori’s advice we had picked up a tire plug kit and mini portable air compressor for just such an emergency. So we grabbed a couple of larger rocks put them under the outer tire and drove up on them thus getting the inner tire off the ground. With a screwdriver I was able to pry the rock out, put a plug in, pump it up and was back on the road within 45 minutes. I kept an eye on the monitor the rest of the day and the plug held pressure. Disaster averted……Thanks Lori! This is the first time in 2 ½ years we have had a flat tire. Had we not had the tire pressure monitors that tire would have shredded as we had no idea there was a flat.

Getting it pumped back up!

This is the rock that was in there

Again on this road there are plenty of places to stop and spend the night for all sized rigs. We stopped for two nights; one at the Fox Creek Rec. Area where they have several informal campsites right along the Dease River and the following night just short of Stewart at the Bell River rest area.

The leaves are falling already!

Fox Creek Campsite

The drive down Highway 37A into Stewart was one of the most beautiful drives we have taken ranking right up there with our drive into Skagway and our drive into Valdez. Mountains, rivers, countless waterfalls and more than a dozen glaciers over the 38 mile drive.

Bear Glacier

Glaciers everywhere!

We had a list of things we wanted to do in the Stewart/Hyder area. When we arrived we went straight through Stewart and across the Alaskan border into Hyder. Interesting thing about this border is that there is no U.S. customs, you just drive right on through. I don’t know what we were expecting driving into Hyder but if someone were to ask us to guess we would have been wrong. No gas station, no grocery stores, not much of anything other than a gift shop, a bar and a bunch of boarded up buildings. Even the visitors center was closed.

Downtown Hyder

So after being in Hyder to 10 minutes we turned around and headed back into Stewart. Crossing back into Canada there is a full customs station with the usual questions; How long do you plan on being in Canada? I don’t know maybe 20 minutes? Did you buy anything in Hyder that you are bringing into Canada? You are kidding right? Questions answered we went to the Stewart visitors center got some area information, spent a few minutes on their wifi and headed back to Hyder.

First stop was the Fish Creek Observation Site where for $5 each you can view the spawning salmon from a raised boardwalk and with luck view some feeding bears. We watched the salmon for about 30 minutes then headed off to our next adventure seeing the Salmon Glacier.

Spawning Pink Salmon

Lagoon off the boardwalk.

Dead Chum Salmon were everywhere!

The boardwalk along side the creek

The drive up the road to see the glacier is 21 miles of a rough and gravel road but it is by far the most impressive glacier we have seen on our trip! The road led up to the foot (what they call the snout) of the glacier and then followed along it for miles and miles until you get to the summit of the mountain you are climbing and the glacier turns and goes up another valley. Absolutely breathtaking.

The drive back down the hill was much faster but you should keep your vehicle in a lower gear so you don’t ride your brakes the entire way. I kept an eye on the tire pressure monitor both up and down happily seeing that the plug continued to hold pressure. Arriving at the bottom we headed to our next scheduled adventure for this area. The Glacier Bar…. For those of you not familiar with this bar it is famous for starting the tradition of getting “Hyderized”. Similar to the Sour Toe except there is no toe and the shot is 151 proof (it is poured into the shot glass from a bottle inside a brown paper bag). You have to drink the shot in one gulp and keep it down before you get your “Hyderized” credentials (card). A pretty good marketing ploy to be honest. Barb has been the one spouting off about this event so I sat back and watched as she slammed the shot then quickly took a drink of her beer. Her face got mighty red and she teared up but she kept it down! The bartender then took a lighter to the shot glass and lit the inside of the shot glass on fire to show how potent the shot really was.

We finished our beers and headed back to the fish/bear viewing area (I drove) and I noticed Barb was getting chattier, louder and goofier (yes, she can get goofier) as time went on. The shot went straight to her head! We returned to the observation area and maybe it was Barb’s yammering the entire time that kept them from coming in but we sat there until 9:30pm…..no bears.

The next morning we got up and decided to head off for the next leg of our journey driving 367 miles (slow down!) to Burns Lakes stopping in New Hazelton, Smithers and Houston along the way. We stopped for the night at a really nice campground on Co-op Lake about 15 miles east of Burns Lake just off of 16.

This is a free campsite with some really nice sites right along the lake for any size rigs.
Continuing our journey east on 16 towards Jasper we stopped in Prince George for lunch and fuel before ending our day 6 miles east of McBride at Beaver River Rec Site, another free campground with a variety of sized sites.

In the past 5 days we have traveled over 1400 miles and tomorrow we finally get to slow down when we arrive in Jasper for a few relaxing days of hiking and sightseeing!

Dawson City and How I Kissed a Dead Man's Toe!

Both Barb and I feel as though we are on the tail end of our Alaskan adventure as Fairbanks was the point where we start a more southeasterly route back towards the lower 48. We have been in in Canada and Alaska for over 3-1/2 months and have less than 3 weeks before we hit Montana. That said, we are both fighting the urge to speed up our pace south as we are looking forward to seeing our daughter and her family in Salt Lake, pick up our 5^th wheel, sell the camper and start our next adventure. We do this all the time, feel the need to speed up, hurry up and get home (wherever home is). The good thing is that we recognize this in ourselves and each other and resist it as there is still so much to see and do on our way back down!

Leaving Fairbanks we drove through North Pole where we stopped and talked to Santa and told him how good our grandchildren Dylan, Kendall and Lily were this year.

 

Then on to Delta Junction, the end of the Alaskan Highway

 

We ended the day in Tok where we did nothing more than fill up at the Chevron, use their free dump, fill up with water and spent the night in their parking lot. We had explored the town on the way up so we did not feel the need to doing any more. We did of course have to take a picture of the angry incinerator barrel to taunt our friends Steve and Linda who had a “run in” with this barrel the week before……

 

Then it was off to Chicken, our most northerly stop on our journey. The road to Chicken is very rough. Gravel, with ruts and potholes most of the way. In fact it is like this well beyond Chicken and does not really start to get better until you get to the Yukon. Average speeds with our camper were about 40-45 mph, trailers and class A’s were going slower than that. Along the way we stopped by a roadside pullout to pick blueberries. We had seen cars pulled and figured that was what they were doing so we spent 20 minutes picking and filled up a rubber quart size container of blueberries!

 

Blueberries and Cranberries

 

Berry picking Barbie!

Chicken is a very interesting little town consisting of a couple of fuel stations, restaurants and gift shops. With a population of 23 in the summer and 7 in the off season this town has no power service so everything is run on generators. For those of you who don’t know how the town got its name….it was reportedly named Chicken after no one could agree how to spell Ptarmigan. Well, let’s just say they embraced that name and made the most of it…..

An old dredge

We had another chance encounter when we arrived when we met up with friends Ben and Jo who happened to be in town at the same time we were. They were headed in the opposite direction on their way to see Lee and Trace as well as Bill and Kelly. We had first met Ben and Jo in Florida and then again last winter in Arizona. Both are traveling nurses who live on the road taking contracts in hospitals for months at a time before moving on to their next location.

After catching up with Ben and Jo we headed down the road, crossed the border into Yukon and following the Klondike Loop and Top of the World Highway (TOTWH). This is an absolutely beautiful drive with most of it being high up on the mountains overlooking the valleyed landscape below. We spent the night on a roadside pullout about 30 miles before Dawson City with not another vehicle going by after the border closed at 9:00pm.

Daisy on "Top of the World"

 

When traveling the TOTWH there is only one way into Dawson City via a small ferry that takes you across the Yukon river. This free ferry holds anywhere from one large RV or truck to 6 smaller vehicles. Coming from this direction that early in the morning we pulled right up with no waiting but Faye and Dave who were traveling from Dawson City towards Fairbanks last week reported some people waiting as long as 6 hours in line to get across.

 

Dawson City appears to mainly a tourist town and was a lot bigger than we expected. One thing we learned right away is that it is mainly a night town as most restaurants and bars did not open until 4:00 or later and many businesses were closed on Mondays. So we toured the town walking through the numerous gift shops, did some window peeking and took advantage of the free Wi-Fi at the Visitors Center to post our Fairbanks blog. Before we knew it it was 6:00 and time to hit the town!

 

Our first stop was Klondike Kates for dinner. This is a cute little restaurant with typical Yukon prices, we each had an appetizer (bbq poutine and chicken wings) and water for $40. Then it was off to Diamond Tooth Gerties (opens at 7:00) for the 8:30 Cancan show.  The show itself is $12 each but you get a card and go for as many times as you want during your stay. It is an interesting and funny show with a lot of audience interaction. If you are in the front few tables there is a good chance you will be singing or even dancing up on stage! Luckily we were seated at the bar (go figure) and out of range of the performers. This is good entertainment and well worth it if you are in town.

 

 

After the show we headed down to Sourdough Saloon in the Downtown Hotel home of the infamous Sour Toe Cocktail! What’s a Sour Toe Cocktail you ask? Well, let me tell you….it is a shot of booze with a dehydrated human toe in it! The link above gives a little more of the history behind this drink.

For those of you who really know me, you know I can be somewhat of a germaphobe so you could say I was a little more than hesitant to do the Sour Toe. But I had been spouting my mouth off about how I was going to do it and even have a bet with my son-in-law who said I would not follow through. Arriving at the Sourdough there were instructions on how to do the Sour Toe. First you had to order a shot from the bar that has to be a minimum of 80 proof (probably to kill any germs). Then you go over to a table at the side of the bar where the toe is displayed on salt. The modern day Capt. Dick records your name and explains the rules. There are only a couple of rules; 1) The toe must touch your lips, 2) You cannot throw up 3) You cannot let the toe go past your lips.

You would not think the last rule was even necessary but it is. There have been cases where drunken partakers have actually swallowed the toe! There is a $2,500 fine for anyone who swallows the toe. In fact this is the 7th toe since they started this drink in 1973.

First let me tell you the toe is downright gross looking….

Gross!

Am I really going to do this??

 "Capt. Dick" puts the toe in my glass, I try not to look or think about it and down the shot while trying not to open my mouth too much. The toe hits my lips as I tip the glass upside down and I am done. Not so bad after all!

I think I am going to puke!

 I receive my fancy certificate and we head back to the camper.

We were planning on spending 4 days in Dawson City and Barb got behind the wheel to find us a spot  for the night. Next thing I knew we were an hour outside Dawson City heading for our next stop! So much for slowing down!!!!!