On the way to Fairbanks we passed the end of the Alaskan Highway in the small town of Delta Junction.

 I am still RV bound, but the pills seem to be working! I hope to feel well enough tomorrow to go on the tours. Today Duf went with the group on a  Sternwheeler Riverboat Cruise, Discovery III. They cruised the Chena and Tanana Rivers and stopped at a Chena Indian Village for a tour,then spent time with Athabaskan Indians on their settlement. They learned why clothing is made from different furs in different areas; some furs resist water, some add moisture so they are used around the face, some insulate better, etc. To them mink was the least desired fur because it has no use but decoration! 

The next activity was to go into a room that has a temperature of -40 degrees! You are in you street clothes and stay only long enough for a picture! Crazy cold!!

Next stop was the Fairbanks Ice Museum. The center of the room is a theater lined with glass walls that contain amazing Ice Sculptures. There was also a glassed in area where a fellow was crafting amazing ice Sculptures while they watched. Near the lobby was the Ice Bar. Tables, chairs, bar, glasses and everything were made out of ice! 

When you can….play golf on the Top Of The World Golf Course at midnight and it is still light. Or drive to the top of the Midnight Dome and watch the sun quickly dip behind Ogilvie Mountain for the little darkness of the night. Visit the local saloon and partake in the ritual of the Sourtoe Cocktail. This is a Dawson tradition of drinking a shot of Yukon Jack that contains a human toe that must touch your lip. If you are able to do this your name goes into the official Sourtoe book. This was a tradition started during the gold rush using a miners frozen toe! Books have been written about this! Some of the filming of “The Big Year” was in Dawson and those actors and crew have their names in the official book! We did it!! In fact our names are in the book twice!!

When you can…..drive the Top of the World Highway from Dawson City to the Little Gold/Poker Creek border crossing from the Yukon to Alaska, at the most northern international border in all of North America. From Dawson City we rode the, free of charge, George Black ferry across the Yukon River to begin our beautiful drive on the Top of the World Highway.This narrow, winding, dirt and loose gravel washboard highway winds along above the timberline with steep grades, no shoulders, and few guardrails.  Potholes are abundant and wet weather makes it even more exciting. It is a drive we will never forget! 

I want to say these towns of 38 people in Alaska are amazing UNLESS you are as sick as I am and there are no DR or Walgreens for days. We will arrive in Fairbanks tonight and I hope to get to a Dr. So this is fairly messed up but I am trying to do something today! Goodnight!

When you can…..take a walking tour on Dawson Cities dirt streets and wooden sidewalks while learning the history of the area. We toured the cabin of Robert Service and heard readings of his poems: The Land of Beyond, The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and The Cremation of Sam McGee. We also visited a cabin Jack London lived in during his journey to Klondike during the gold rush era. We ended the evening at Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall watching the cancan girls. We arrived home at 11:30 and it was still as light out as it was at noon! OMG by midnight I was so sick I couldn't move. It is now days later and I am out of bed and hope to feel better soon. Tonight we will be in Fairbanks and the famous Salmon Bake. I do not want to miss that!

When you can……..take a tour of beautiful Whitehorse, Capitol of the Yukon. We toured the SSKlondike, a paddle boat used to transport guests and goods during the gold rush. Whitehorse was the end of the railroad and guests and goods were transferred to the paddle boats for transport down the hazardous Yukon River.  The Yukon River is 2,000 miles long with constantly changing weather, sand and gravel bars, and fast moving shallow water. This was the end of the railroad until the 1980’s when a road was built from Haines to Whitehorse and goods were then trucked in. When this happened the trains quit coming this far and the tracks are now used for a  tourist trolly.

We enjoyed dinner at the oldest building in town, Klondike Rib & Salmon BBQ. The building is made from tents left by the military and aluminum sheet siding. I had Halibut and Duf had Elk stew, both were mouth watering delicious! After dinner we walked across the street to The Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue. This show was in an old theatre and the entire experience was like stepping back in time. I wish I could remember some of their hilarious one liners!

We returned home at 11:30 and it was still so light it seemed like noon! The last three days have had 19 hours of daylight with the remaining hours like dusk. Hard to stop moving when it is so light outside. The weather is crazy, it was 90 when we got up and then around 1 it rained and the rain was full of ice chips and the temperature had dropped to 50. One minute it is sunny and warm and the next it is chilly and raining!

When you can….see Buffalo and Bear on your way to Watson Lake. Watson Lake is the home of the Sign Post Forest! During the war soldiers left signs here that indicated where they were from. Now it is a large area of signs that people from all  over the world have posted as they pass through this area. 

When you can ……spend time at the Liard River Hot Springs soaking in the 108 to 126 degree natural flowing sulfur water. People enter the water at the 108 degree end and then walk, relaxing along the way, as far as possible toward the 126 degree pool. Those that get to the end place a rock on the wall to signify they DID IT! Duffey and Mike got to the 126 degree pool and placed their rock!

When you can…. drive from Dawson Creek, through an almost contained forest fire, to Ft. Nelson. All around us for six miles of the Alaskan Highway small fires kept copping up. Huge sprinklers lined the land around the highway keep the fires from spreading. Three miles down the highway were Spectra Energy, the world’s largest natural gas processing plant is across the highway from Petrosul, a recovery plant processing sulfur, a by-product of natural gas, into a pellet form and both companies were out of the fire zone but in the smoke zone!

After the fires we drove over the Muskwa River Bridge, the lowest point on the Alaskan Highway, elevation 1,000 feet. The water level in the Muskwa River was so low there were campers on dry spots in the middle of the river.

For the RVers, this is an example of the places we stay. Elk wondered by while we were here and some saw Bear not far from us. I saw a moose walk by our site!

The curved Kiskatinaw River Bridge is 17 miles outside of Dawson Creek. This is the only original timber bridge built along the Alaska Highway that is still in use today. Since the Canadian portion of the highway was turned over to Canada it has been their responsibility to maintain their roads and bridges. They have built a bypass section of highway for trucks so that the bridge does not get destroyed.

When you can…..learn that the Alaskan Highway or ALCAN was 1,680 miles from Dawson Creek, BC to Delta Junction, Alaska. Improvements have shortened the highway to 1,422 miles. The Alaskan highway is really the highway to Alaska through Canada and in 1942 it was built in a bit over 8 months. Canada supplied the land for the highway and the USA paid to construct the Alaskan Highway.The agreement between Canada and the USA was that the Canadian  portion of the highway would be turned over to Canada six months after the end of the war, April 1, 1946. The highway was constructed through Canada for the purpose of connecting Alaska to the lower 48 during WWII. It is quite interesting to learn this part of history and would be worth looking it up on the net!

When you can..... Ride the Jasper Sky Tram that

traverses 7,000 feet up Whistlers Mountain into the rugged Alpine Zone, above the limit of tree growth. Once at the top the views were breathtaking. At one point the clouds encased the entire area and the tram had to stop and wait for the whiteness to clear! It was a beautiful 7 minute ride up and a scary 7 minute ride down. On the way down the wind began to blow so the tram had to stop and sway in the wind for a very long minute!

The Ice Fields between Banff and Jasper are in the middle of 5 glaciers. We rode an ice bus over 700 feet deep ice and got out on the fields to walk around on the beautiful blue ice and drink water, that was thousands of years old, pouring out of a spot that was melting. This water was crystal clear, ice cold, and tasted Great! The ice bus had tires that were 5 feet high and 3 feet wide enabling it to take us up and down a 32% grade incline! 

When you can…. discover Banff. Canadian Highway 1 has numerous wilderness over and under passes for bear, moose, elk, and other wild animals to cross the highway. These were designed to keep animals and humans safe from highway deaths and they have been working for 15 years. Animals have migratory routes and these passes have become their routes.

Trains have now become the largest killer of the animals. Trains hauling grain, corn, etc, spill bits as they rumble along the tracks and the animals get on the tracks to eat and are hit by an oncoming train. We saw a huge grizzly bear on the track having an afternoon snack. To eliminate this problem the train manufacturers are inventing powerful vacuums that will attach behind the caboose and suck up what the train has spilled.

We attended the Calgary Stampede Rodeo, Chuck Wagon Races, and the evening show.  Each part of the Stampede has been filled with excitement and we have been amazed at the talent of the young people involved in the evening entertainment. Traveling around the city of Calgary on the CTrain has been so easy!

We had breakfast downtown at the top of one of their tallest buildings, it looks much like the Seattle Needle. The restaurant rotated while we ate giving us a great view of the entire city. After breakfast we went up to the observation deck and found that, like Chicago,  there is a glass floor. We are not daredevils, but we were there, so we both walked out on the glass floor and looked down to the street where the opening parade for the Calgary Stampede Chuck Wagon Races was taking place. The horses looked like small dots!

We are now in Canada and we did not have any problems crossing the border. Calgary is about 2 hours from the border and we are staying near McMahon Stadium. We have unlimited ride passes on the Ctrain so we are able to get downtown in 10 minutes and to the Stampede grounds in another 5 minutes.

When you can.....make it to Great Falls, Montana. Today I drove the RV for over an hour. Driving a 40 foot vehicle with a Jeep behind it is much different than driving a car. It was a tense 90 minutes barreling down the highway at 65 mph, but I learned to control the monster!  We took a back road , highway 200, and were amazed at the number of beekeepers in this remote area. It was an open range for cattle and sheep and the only people we saw were beekeepers tending all the bees.
This area definitely lives up to the nickname of Big Sky, the stars seem so close and are so bright. The only thing blocking our amazing star view is the smoke from the Canada and Alaska forest fires. Who would have thought we would see and smell smoke from fires so far away.