Wood's Prairie Travels

We drove down our driveway late last night, and scattered the deer who were browsing there. Wow, it felt great to walk into our house, greet our cats, and then debrief about our journey on the back deck while taking in the quiet noises of our little prairie. Our exploratory Alaska-Canada journey was just shy of 6,900 miles and 6 weeks! We really enjoyed our first long trip now that Pat has retired. It feels great to be home, but we are already planning the next adventure...        We'll go back up to the northern country sometime, but maybe head east next year? Maine? One person we had chatted with traveled to Nova Scotia? Who knows, we have a year to think about it. We wanted to say, "Thank You!" to those of you who followed our adventure through this blog. It was our first attempt at writing one and was an interesting experience. Often we'd be driving and chatting about what people may want to know or coming up with ideas for the blog titles. Anyway, tha

As our trip rolls to a close, we are already reminiscing about this adventure. In addition to the beautiful scenery and wildlife, we have enjoyed meeting many interesting people. Some conversations are brief while others are quite lengthy, but all of them added spice to our travels. For example, a sweet little Athbascan lady in Tok who was making birchbark baskets at a visitor center. I was asking her about the supplies and tools she uses. She mentioned spruce root as a lacing. I asked if she meant the black spruce we had been seeing. She chuckled and said, "Nooo, I don't use that ol' black spruce. Its roots are too messy. Our nice white spruce is much better, its roots is smooth."  Her tool for making the holes in the bark? A sharpened screwdriver. Or there was a Dawson city resident who asked if he could join us at our table in the Westminster Tavern. He pointed to a painting behind us and said that was him boating through a rapids on the Yukon years ago. A l

Traveling to new places means looking at and decifering signs.  Some are a bit confusing. Like these corner hazard signs on the Top of the World Highway. "Which way? Right? Left? Both?' Or how about these horizontal traffic lights that they have in Whitehorse, Yukon? Other signs are amusing like this busy bakery with the "Nazi" lady who kept people in the correct line to choose their pastries. Cars turning into their parking lot block traffic sometimes. Then there are the  warning signs about wildlife... of course these were not typically the places we actually did see these animals. And then signs that give you an inkling about hazards they have regularly dealt with! I don't know if it was only motorcycles on some of those narrow metal plated bridges! These are just some of the signs that we found interesting :-)

Can you see the two men standing on the rocks? On the Yellowhead Highway is a town named Whitset. We had noticed a neat waterfall on the Skeena River as we made our way north, but hadn't wanted to stop at that time. We made that a lunch stop on our way south. Wow, more than a neat view! We soon realized that some of the First Nations people were using dipnets to catch fish in the falls by standing on rocks along the waterfall. As we watched, a man climbed down the rocks above the foaming cauldron and peered into the water. We don't know if he actually saw the fish there, or just looked for some indication in the swirling water. Then he reached the pole down into the swirling water and held it a few seconds before hand-over-hand pulling the net back up to the rocks he stood on. Most of the time he had four to six fish in the net. A few times he had a lot more fish than that evidetly because he  had to struggle to carry the squirming fish. The man would carrry them ba

Driving down the Cassiar Highwy headed home we were on bear watch again, or moose watch, or cariboo watch, or anything that moves watch! The northern section of the highway was pretty uneventful. A red fox ran across the road, stopped to look at us, then went on his way. There were numerous flocks of tiny birds that would fly out from rocks along the shoulder to swirl around in front of us before veering off and flying away. The scenery is pretty though and changes frequentlyly so the trip would be enjoyable even if you didn't see wildlife. Heading south on the highway looks much different than on our way up, however there were sections that we remembered driving through what feels like months ago! South of the town of Deese Lake, we saw a black bear near the back of a gravel pull off. A bit further down the road we saw a black spec on the left side of the road. When we got closer, we realized it was a black bear, and then to our joy we saw a cub behind her!  Pat stopp

A few of you may be wondering what kind of food we eat while traveling. The camper actually makes it pretty easy to have tastey food. One thing we learned from our years backpacking and canoe treking with the Scouts is that oatmeal and Top Ramen get old after awhile! Here are some of our typical camp meals: Breakfast: When we want something fast, our go to is oatmeal or cereal. However, a couple quick cooked meals are Egg McMuffins or breakfast burritos. A couple other favorites are cinamon swirl French toast or pancakes. We mix the pancake batter in a ziplock bag, cut off a corner to squeeze out the batter, and throw away the bag for quick cleanup. Of course we periodically have hashbrowns, eggs, and sausage. Lunch: Typically, lunches are a short stop so we often have deli meat and cheese sandwhiches or tuna tortillas. I packed a lot of tortilla packages because they are versatile and last several weeks without refrigeration (we found that out on the Bowron canoe

     We camped at an Alaskan Forest Service camp called Lakeview. It is a small, 11 site rustic camp along the shore of a small lake. The landscape to the west is fairly flat with the St Elias Mountains in the distance. To the east of the lake, the camp is set in a hillside that has a mixed  spruce and birch forest. The lakeshore has a grass marsh surrounding most of it. The camp has a trail through the birch trees leading a few hundred feet to a bird blind.  After dinner I had gone down to the lake to get some sunset pictures. There were  a few groups of ducks peacefully paddling along and the sunlight cast a golden reflection on the lake. I saw a beaver swimming across the lake in front of camp and it was heading north to the marshy side near the bird blind. I walked out the trail to see if I could catch the beaver as it climbed up the bank. Earlier we had walked out there and saw a lot of trees the beavers had cut down. You can see the path through the Birch trees.

**Pictures speak a thousand words, but they won't upload on slow internet. I will try to add them the next time I get stronger wifi** We traveled the Denali Highway as we begin making our way home.  This road connects the Parks Highway (Anchorage to Fairbanks)  with the Richardson Highway (Fairbanks to Seward) as a "short cut" from Denali to the interior. Well,  like my dad's "short cuts", this was a bit bumpier and dirtier, but very interesting to travel! The road begins in a mixed forest of spruce, aspen, and willow. There are about 8 miles of pavement before it turns to gravel. We wound along the side of many small lakes and streams before we started to  climb up in altitude. About 20 miles in we wound to the top of hill covered in low alpine brush. It opened onto a wide glacial basin full of kettle lakes and morraine piles. We wound through, over, and around this wide basin for much of the day. Then we rounded the foothills of the Alaska ran

Sorry for the play on words, but we saw a lot of moose during our stay in Denali! One of the most interesting encounters occurred the first day as we were returning to camp for lunch. We were on the road in Denali, when a large cow moose stepped out of the brush and up onto the road less than 50 feet in front of us. However, rather than looking at us she began to intently look further down the road. Within a minute we saw a large cariboo climb onto the road. He began to slowly walk toward us and the moose. The moose did not pay any attention to us, she was only interested in the cariboo. Pat and I began to wonder if there was going to be an inter-species fight!  "Moose Wars" The cariboo kept slowly walking closer and closer. Another car coming from the opposite direction came up behind the cariboo. He stepped off the highway. At that point our moose turned to look at us (I was taking pictures behind the safety of the car door), then she slowly walked across the road a

I'm not sure I will fit Denali into one blog... I think I will split it up into a couple posts. When I came up here in 1962, the mountain was called Mt. McKinley. I remember gray sky and dad telling me the "... mountain would be over there if it wasn't covered with clouds."  I also remember a vastly wide valley and towering mountains. Pat and I found the spot that I remember where a large herd of cariboo were crossing what I now know is the Savage River.  We didn't see the huge herd, but the wide valley is there as I remembered and native animals are allowed to lead mostly undisturbed lives in this national park. (We've seen a number of animals, thatl'll be my next post) One of the Athbascan names for the mouintain was Dinale, meaning "The Big One". That it is, towering over other mountains  that rival Mt. St Helens. At 20,308 feet it is the tallest mountain in North America. Mt. Rainier comes in second at 14,411 ft. We saw glimpses of Den

We went on an excursion with Denali ATV Adventures. It was a blast! A shuttle bus takes you to their base camp and after a brief safety talk you load up on the machines. Pat and I rode individual ATV's, but you can also go on side-by-sides.       Our awesome guides, Rachel, Tucker, and Gayle made sure we were safe, but also took us on trails with some challenging aspects that were fun to tackle. We rocked back and forth over trails with humps and bumps, climbed a couple hills covered with fist sized rocks, and splashed through a few puddles and streams. Much different than riding through our back field at home. Kevin should be proud of me spraying mud and water! In addition to keeping us safe and taking us on an exciting ride, our guides entertained us during our brief photo breaks. They told us about the coal mining history of the area, the various mountains and landforms, and some of the glacial geography that formed the surrounding landscape. I'm sure I was g

On our way north towards Denali we took a side road to Talkeetna. We just like the sound of that name and it is the home of the Denali Brewery. As we drove into the tourist congested area and saw some of the buildings, I exclaimed, "Hey, I remember being here before!" When I came up to Alaska with my folks in 1969 we drove around to a variety of small mining and ghost towns. My dad always liked prospecting and rockhounding. The ghost towns intrigued hin with their history. I remembered being in this town when there was a general store and some old buildings, most of them were boarded up.  The road at that time was dirt, or in the case of our trip mud. I'll have to compare my folks' photos with those I took today.      One memory in particular of Talkeetna was walking up to an old building and peeking through the dusty windows. I remember seeing a dusty wood floor and dust covered wooden furniture. Now it is all spruced up and has renewed its funcrtion as