May 21 Day 12

We awake at 7AM and leave around 9AM.  It has been so quiet during the night.  It’s sunny, about 40 degrees.  Breakfast is the usual; Pat with Total flakes/frozen blueberries and dried cranberries and yogurt; Chuck has a banana.  We both drink lots of coffee.  It is so important we start the generator to run the electric pot.  We return to Rt 37, the Cassiar going north.  We are still very high elevation and we are ever moving north.  We are barely in spring with frozen lakes and no blooms.  Dease Lake is huge and fills the wide valley for miles, it has Lake Trout up to 30#.  We have only seen homes in the two towns so far, Iskut and Dease Lake.  Getting fuel is always a concern.  The Milepost travel book says we should be getting it without a problem but many are closed.  We try not to travel with less than a half tank.  We are still in Tlingit country where the symbols and names reflect their history.  Most people living in this area are native.  The road is fair with some breaks.  We cross the Continental Divide once again amid the beautiful Cassiar Mts.  These mountains remain a center for gold mining, jade, and asbestos in the past.  We stop off at Jade City.  This is a family owned mining business.  They cut jade onsite; but only produce large unrefined pieces, the fine pieces are done in China and some in New Zealand.  It is not true jade but is very nice.  They also have argonite and rhodenite.  The shop girl is from Edmonton area.  She confirmed they had a late 3 ft snow fall and predicts a short cool summer.  There are a few cars traveling today and always the semi’s.  We enter the Yukon Plateau where we can see the Horse Ranch Range, the oldest mountains in the area from the Cambrian Period or earlier. They mine several types of semi-precious stones from there.  We have entered very thick fir forests and then we come to a burn area.  For at least 50 miles we see the results of a forest fire.  The rest of the Cassiar highway through this area is hard to negotiate.  Frost heave, large pot holes, and shoulder subsidence.  We begin to see ‘stone graffiti’.  It was started by a swim team from Fort Nelson in 1990 and it has become a popular way of traveler communication.  People just take available stones and make messages along the hillsides.  There are inukshuks too.  Rock cairns (stacked rocks) used by ancients for mapping landmarks.  Today people make them to communicate their passing.  We pass into the Yukon, Welcome to Yukon, the 60th parallel.  We come out at Junction 37 just outside Watson Lake and onto the Alaska Highway, ending the Cassiar adventure.  We are able to get fuel there for $1.43 per liter. We see another Ak RV coming out of Watson Lake.  This time around we have seen an Ak RV everyday so far.  (We stopped at Watson Lake last year but skipped it this time.  It is where the famous license plate village resides.) We are in the area of the Rancheria Caribou Herd, and one pops out for us to see.  Getting fuel is a concern. We weave in and out of the Yukon and BC borders. We finally find a station open at Jake’s Conner right at the beginning of Rt 8, a short cut through Taglish to Carcross.  Pay $1.38 per liter.  We leave the Alaska Highway for a while.  Eventually we will be on Rt 2 to Skagway.  We can see the St Elias Mountains and they are so huge with big glaciers coming down.  We think we can see Mt. Logan at 19k, the highest mountain in Canada.  And the highest coast mountain.  The range is still gaining height and the glaciers here are growing.  We pass by Porcupine Creek and several of the little critters come out to greet us.  They are cute and brown and very prickly. We stop in Carcross.  The White Pass and Yukon Route historic railroad runs through here.  From Whitehorse to Skagway.  A poplular round trip for the cruise line visitors.  We will be driving the same valley tomorrow.  We are staying at the Montana RV park.  All the advertised services are not available.  That has been typical across our whole trip.  So we have learned to take all claims with skepticism and create a Plan B.  We are in a parking lot of sorts.  At least we are surrounded by great mountain scenery with wilderness steps away.  The road signs says there are rock slides ahead.  We are counting on getting through to Skagway.  We will be there for 2 days.  Several cruise ships will dock during that time which means the streets will be full with travelers and the town will put on its best face.  Skagway sits on the Inside passage.  This is one of the times we can access the water from our land route.  We had hoped to do some pre-coifing before our arrival tomorrow, given we will be hobnobbing with the cruise folk.  But no showers tonight, the water lines and the sewage lines are still frozen from winter.  We have been able to remain clean but we need some polish.  Chuck’s eyebrows look like two wild caterpillars fighting and or mating.  Pat’s chin hairs can now be braided.  Oh well, we’ll just look like those wild eyed travelers who have driven thousands of miles over every kind of terrain imaginable.  The North loves its characters and legends.  Pat bakes pizza in the oven for dinner.  Made wonderful hamburgers last night.  But could go for fresh halibut dinner.  Maybe tomorrow.  We are far enough north that night will barely come and go.  We have more adventures tomorrow.  Nighty night.

RV Mileage total today 380

Total RV Mileage 3458

Total road miles 4374

Hours traveled today:  9 hours with stops