Day 14, Thursday, August 6th
We woke up early and hit the road heading for beautiful country. Kluane National Park and Preserve is a huge fabulous park, adjacent to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park (in the U.S.), and a couple of other areas. These collectively make up the largest contiguous protected wilderness area in North America. It is probably 300 miles across and 150 miles North/South. In the middle are huge ice fields, glaciers and most of the highest mountains in North America. Unfortunately, fires are burning throughout Canada and Alaska, and as we pulled into areas off the Alaskan Highway where the book said, “on a clear day, spectacular views” we could only see smoke and clouds! How disappointing was that! We got some counsel from the visitor’s center staff, and decided to drive on a ways into the park and do a bit of hiking, we were reassured that it was much worse yesterday! As we drove, some of the mountains did appear, in a behind the smoke more washed out version, but lovely none-the-less. We stopped at a great trailhead up a valley, where Dick went for a couple of hours hike, with the trail going mostly uphill to the top of an area where he could finally see the beautiful valley on the other side. Patti, meanwhile, decided an uphill hike wasn’t on her plan, and she stayed and napped and read in the car. She has discovered an Alaskan author, Sue Henry, who writes murder mysteries with locations in the North. She had bought one, which took place on the Alaskan Highway, entitled Dead North. It was great fun to read about places that we had literally just been to in the past week. She finished that today and is now ready for the next in the series, this one about a dogsled race from Fairbanks to Whitehorse…. also on our route. Cool to read about these places from someone who obviously loves this countryside.
A moving part of our Alaskan Highway quest was stopping at Soldier’s Summit, the place in November 1942 where they had an official ribbon cutting ceremony commemorating the opening of the pioneer road to Alaska. They had done a great interpretive job with descriptions and photos. We had to hike up the old pionner road to get to the site where the ceremony took place. Then, at the top of this high hill overlooking a FABULOUS lake and mountain view, we got to hear a recording of the radio broadcast of the events that day. It was very much below zero (although the announcer said he couldn’t tell us how much because that was classified information!) 
It was a cool day even in the beginning of August for us, with the wind blowing up off the lake, so we could only imagine how cold it must have been that winter day! The band played a very cold sounding version of the American and Canadian National Anthems. And apparently the people gathered had to keep stomping their feet to try to keep from freezing, but they did it. The first truck rolled on by to drive the entire length of the Highway. And our journey on the Highway is nearing completion. One of the really funny stories were heard was that, even thought people were thrilled that the highway was completed, it was decided for security purposes to keep it quiet at first. Actually, the first radio announcement of the completion was in Japan, where, the spin-doctors stated that this was a great day for Japan, because this would make it much easier for them when they invaded North America.
Tomorrow will be our final day on the Highway! On to Delta Junction and then Fairbanks, AK.
Our plan had been to spend a couple of days in Kluane park area, but with the smoke, and then rain, it was seeming less fun of a place to settle in. Dick suggested that it might be time to change plans and actually get to Alaska tonight. We decided to go for it. We had heard that the stretch of road from the park to the border was the roughest part of the Alaskan Highway. After having such great roads forthe previous 1000 miles, this was a change. The word was that we would find lots of contstruction and road that needed to be reconstructed. That proved to be true. Several times we waited for pilot trucks to lead the line of cars and RVs through construction sites. At other time we felt we were on a roller coaster due the road shifting several feet, up or down, due to frost heaving. There were stretches of gravel and others with patches on patches. On top of that, we went through a serious rain storm. We both gave a sigh of relief when we reached the Alaska border. We cleared customs quickly and soon were on our way again, looking at scenery that looked like the other side of the border but the roads were slightly better. What we did find on the U.S. side of the border was more smoke, often dense to the highway, making it seem more like driving in fog.
We woke up early and hit the road heading for beautiful country. Kluane National Park and Preserve is a huge fabulous park, adjacent to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park (in the U.S.), and a couple of other areas. These collectively make up the largest contiguous protected wilderness area in North America. It is probably 300 miles across and 150 miles North/South. In the middle are huge ice fields, glaciers and most of the highest mountains in North America. Unfortunately, fires are burning throughout Canada and Alaska, and as we pulled into areas off the Alaskan Highway where the book said, “on a clear day, spectacular views” we could only see smoke and clouds! How disappointing was that! We got some counsel from the visitor’s center staff, and decided to drive on a ways into the park and do a bit of hiking, we were reassured that it was much worse yesterday! As we drove, some of the mountains did appear, in a behind the smoke more washed out version, but lovely none-the-less. We stopped at a great trailhead up a valley, where Dick went for a couple of hours hike, with the trail going mostly uphill to the top of an area where he could finally see the beautiful valley on the other side. Patti, meanwhile, decided an uphill hike wasn’t on her plan, and she stayed and napped and read in the car. She has discovered an Alaskan author, Sue Henry, who writes murder mysteries with locations in the North. She had bought one, which took place on the Alaskan Highway, entitled Dead North. It was great fun to read about places that we had literally just been to in the past week. She finished that today and is now ready for the next in the series, this one about a dogsled race from Fairbanks to Whitehorse…. also on our route. Cool to read about these places from someone who obviously loves this countryside.
A moving part of our Alaskan Highway quest was stopping at Soldier’s Summit, the place in November 1942 where they had an official ribbon cutting ceremony commemorating the opening of the pioneer road to Alaska. They had done a great interpretive job with descriptions and photos. We had to hike up the old pionner road to get to the site where the ceremony took place. Then, at the top of this high hill overlooking a FABULOUS lake and mountain view, we got to hear a recording of the radio broadcast of the events that day. It was very much below zero (although the announcer said he couldn’t tell us how much because that was classified information!) 
It was a cool day even in the beginning of August for us, with the wind blowing up off the lake, so we could only imagine how cold it must have been that winter day! The band played a very cold sounding version of the American and Canadian National Anthems. And apparently the people gathered had to keep stomping their feet to try to keep from freezing, but they did it. The first truck rolled on by to drive the entire length of the Highway. And our journey on the Highway is nearing completion. One of the really funny stories were heard was that, even thought people were thrilled that the highway was completed, it was decided for security purposes to keep it quiet at first. Actually, the first radio announcement of the completion was in Japan, where, the spin-doctors stated that this was a great day for Japan, because this would make it much easier for them when they invaded North America.Tomorrow will be our final day on the Highway! On to Delta Junction and then Fairbanks, AK.
Our plan had been to spend a couple of days in Kluane park area, but with the smoke, and then rain, it was seeming less fun of a place to settle in. Dick suggested that it might be time to change plans and actually get to Alaska tonight. We decided to go for it. We had heard that the stretch of road from the park to the border was the roughest part of the Alaskan Highway. After having such great roads forthe previous 1000 miles, this was a change. The word was that we would find lots of contstruction and road that needed to be reconstructed. That proved to be true. Several times we waited for pilot trucks to lead the line of cars and RVs through construction sites. At other time we felt we were on a roller coaster due the road shifting several feet, up or down, due to frost heaving. There were stretches of gravel and others with patches on patches. On top of that, we went through a serious rain storm. We both gave a sigh of relief when we reached the Alaska border. We cleared customs quickly and soon were on our way again, looking at scenery that looked like the other side of the border but the roads were slightly better. What we did find on the U.S. side of the border was more smoke, often dense to the highway, making it seem more like driving in fog.
We reached Tok, Alaska at about 8 in the evening. It was cool and smoky and we decided to eat in a restaurant and stay I a hotel instead of sleeping in the van. A good choice! The hotel even had a laundry room across the hall from our room and we were able to get some clean clothes. A good night’s sleep and then tomorrow, on to the end of the Highway and then to Fairbanks! It’s good to be back in the U.S. 
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