Month: August 2022

Finally, it starts to feel like summer! A couple days over 80 degrees! Up until now we’ve only had a handful of days in the 70s, and nothing above 66 for about 5 weeks.

From Dawson City we drove on towards Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon. The first night we boondocked next to Lenore Lake, and the next night we got an amazing camp site right on the lake at Lake Laberge, made famous by the Robert Service poem The Cremation of Sam Mcgee. The lake is huge (and actually part of the Yukon river), but it was totally calm the night we were there.

We passed through Whitehorse and didn’t find much that interested us, except the historic SS Klondike National Historic site, where Parks Canada has done a great job explaining the importance and challenges of the riverboats in this part of Canada before there were roads.

We stopped for a couple hours at Lairds River Hot Springs, which was quite nice. The campground was full, so we just camped along the river about 1 mile down the road from the springs. Christine had a hard time not collecting all the amazing rocks in the riverbed.

We next spent 2 days at MacDonald Campground on Mucho Lake. This is a fantastic no reservation campground where every spot has lake access. I did lots of kayaking on the lake and biked over the Stone Sheep Trail to see some really interesting rock formations.

Next on to Ft Nelson, where we decided to try the Canadian chain restaurant “Boston Pizza“, which has nothing to do with Boston (the pizza was OK, not great). Luckily our waitress let us know about a nasty accident which had caused a large bridge fire that closed the Alaska Highway to the south where we were headed. But they opened the road to cars and small RVs the next day, so it only delayed us a bit. It could have been much worse, as the only other road would have added about 30 hours of driving.

Next on to Dawson Creek, mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway. The town itself was quite unremarkable, but we did learn some interesting stuff about the building of the Alaska Highway. Check out this documentary if you want to learn for yourself.

We finally made it to our AirBNB in Hinton, just outside of Jasper National Park. We covered 1600 miles in 8 days, a record for us on this trip. Time to do laundry.

Full set of photos for the week are here.

We had hoped to visit Chicken earlier in the trip to go to Chickenstock Music Festival, but unfortunately it sold out before I had a chance to get tickets. But Chicken is on the way to Dawson City, so we got a second chance. We spent the night in the ‘free camping’ area outside the Saloon, and met lots of interesting folks in the Saloon, mostly folks from other parts of Alaska passing through. Chicken was once a thriving gold town, but is now only about 40 people (in summer). See the photo below, which explains all.

Then on to Dawson City via the top of the world highway, which was beautiful. The end of this road is supposed to be a 5 minute ferry ride across the Yukon River into Dawson City, but the ferry was out of the water to replace the propeller (see photo below). Luckily there was a nice campground near the ferry terminal, and they were running a ‘pedestrian ferry’ (a small fishing boat that held about 8 people), so we could still get into town. The ferry was back in the water by the time we were ready to move on, so we were not really impacted. The ferry runs all summer, and you can drive across the river in the winter. But spring/fall you are stuck on one side or the other, unless you fly.

The history of Dawson City is fascinating. The population went from 20 to 20000 to 2000 between 1895 and 1905, and it’s still about 2000 today. Parks Canada has done an excellent job preserving/restoring historic buildings, and runs a great walking tour of several of the buildings.

We happened to be in town for the annual ‘outhouse race’ in Dawson City. Only two teams entered this year, possibly because no one wanted to do the ‘poop the potato’ relay with a potato covered in chocolate fudge (I think it was chocolate…). But the event was really fun to watch.

This week’s photos are here.

After SalmonFest we headed for Anchorage for a couple nights in an AirBNB to do laundry and get a brake warning light on the Sprinter checked out (turned out it was just a bad sensor). On the way to Anchorage we stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center for more bear watching. Not much to see or do in Anchorage, but we did check out a great dive bar called Darwin’s Theory, and we had steak and king crab at the nearby Club Paris, which claims to have the same menu since the 1950s when it opened.

We then drove north, heading for a stretch of the Richardson Highway between Glenallen and Delta Junction, hoping to escape the daily rain near the ocean. We found lots of great campgrounds and boondocking spots along the way. We got a great spot near the lake at the mostly empty Paxson Lake BLM campground. We stayed in a large boondocking area with amazing views of the Gulkana Glacier and a hike to the glacier across a really scary suspension bridge. And, at the Lost Lake Trail Campground, outside of Delta Junction, we had the entire campground to ourselves! Good hiking and kayaking with flirtatious ducks, and amazing sunsets.

Full set of photos for the week are here.

We scheduled our time in the Kenai peninsula around Salmonfest in Ninilchik, Alaska. Both of us volunteered to work the festival in exchange for free tickets. I helped with setup (mostly putting up fences and tents), and Christine did security (mostly helping with bag checks).

SalmonFest has 4 stages (1 big, 1 medium, and 2 small), and about 1/2 of the bands where from Alaska, and half from the lower 48 (mostly California). Most of the bands played 2 sets on different days. For the 3rd year in a row the fest ‘sold out’ at 8000 tickets. Highlights included great sets from the California Honeydrops and Diggin Dirt, and my favorite Alaska Bands were Hope Social Club and Blackwater Railroad Co. The highlight of the festival was Steve Poltz. Poltz played one set on the large stage that was just OK and a second, incredible set on the smallest stage. Steve said it was his “best set ever, so don’t bother seeing him again, as you’ll be disappointed”. But I imagine he always says that. 😉 Steve Poltz is most famous in Alaska for co-writing Jewel’s big 1995 hit You Were Meant For Me (Jewel is from Homer, Alaska). Check out their duet on that song from Salmonfest 2017 on the same small stage.

The main headers for the festival were Umphreys Magee and Shakey Graves. I tried to like Umphreys Magee, but just could not get into them. I found their songs unnecessarily complicated and with no ‘hook’. The biggest crowd at the festival was for Shakey Graves. I love his solo work, but with a band I find him less compelling, and most of his set was with a band.

Food at this festival was particularly good and very diverse. The lines to order food were never too long, but often it took 20-30 minutes for the food to arrive after ordering. Not good. It seems to rain 2 out of every 3 days in Kenai, but it only rained for 1 of the 3 festival days, so we beat the odds. The final day of the festival was about 50 degrees, 20 mph winds, and light rain, so most everyone left, including me after a couple hours.

I brought a mini drum kit hoping there would be a good campground jam scene. I was able to tempt one guy (guitar/vocals) over to jam for an hour, but was otherwise unsuccessful. I asked several folks who had been to Salmonfest several times before if there was a campground jam scene, and they all said no. I think part of the reason is that the camping area is up on a hill, and windy most of the time, which made it hard to have a sheltered jam space.

But overall it was a really cool festival, and I would definitely go back if I was in the area (which is unlikely).

Photos and videos from the fest are here. We now begin our journey back to Grass Valley!

We spent four days relaxing on the beach near Anchor Point in a fabulous free camp area with incredible sunsets and views of the volcanoes across Cook Inlet. Anchor Point bills itself as “America’s most westerly highway point”.

Next on to Homer, where we spent two nights in a campground at the end of the ‘spit’ near the famous Salty Dawg Saloon, and three nights in an AirBNB next to the lake where many of Homer’s sea planes are based. It was good to get out of the van for a few days.

We did a lot in Homer, including taking a water taxi to Kachemak Bay State Park to hike to the Grewingk Glacier (Brian), a 2 hour nature tour by boat (Christine), the weekly farmers market, the Pratt Museum and their history walking tour, and the excellent Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge visitor center.

The highlight of our stay in Homer was a day trip to Katmai National Park to see the Grizzly bears at Brooks Falls. Even though you can watch the bears anytime live on their webcam, we decided to splurge for a chance to see them in person. After a four hour weather delay, our six person sea plane made the bumpy two hour flight over to ‘Brooks Camp’, where Grizzlys are everywhere! Overall a very special day. After 2 months in Alaska, Christine still had not seen a bear, and I had only seen a few at a distance on my glacier trek. We sure made up for it today!

Check out the full set of photos of Anchor Point and Homer, and from Katmai National Park.