Day 54 (July 7). Out of Alaska

From: Tok, Alaska

To: Destruction Bay, YT

Miles today: 228

Total miles: 11240

After the amazingly clear air of yesterday, things returned to “normal” today.  The sky was overcast and it sprinkled from time to time.  The more dominant effect was the smoke from yet another fire, this one close enough so that I could smell it. The air was still warm and the ride pleasant as I rode my last hundred miles of Alaska.  Below are shots from Tetlin National Wildlife Reserve, showing the theoretical scenery versus the effects of the smoke.

Tetlin NWR in Alaska, in theory and in practice.  That is a lot of smoke. 

At the border, the Alaska Highway changes from AK 2 to YT 1.  Here, the border crossings are considerably staggered; I drove by the US entrance post at the actual border (more or less), and did not arrive at the Canadian post for another 20 miles or so.  I was driving through a plain that seemed to be surrounded on all sides by low mountains.  This road follows a fundamental geological migration route followed not only by humans for thousands of years, but many species of birds on their present cross-continent migrations.

Roadside scene on the Alaska Highway

 The road surface was definitely not as good in Yukon as it was in Alaska, but mostly it was fine – the exceptions being a 10 kilometer and a 17 kilometer stretch of road construction, in which I was back to driving on gravel.  I was glad I still had my knobby tires, worn as they are! Between the delays associated with construction and the loss of an hour due to re-entering the Pacific time zone, I decided to stay at the “town” of Destruction Bay rather than push on to Haines Junction.  The name’s origin is slightly anticlimactic.  It came from soldiers building the ALCAN highway in the 1940’s; a winter storm blew down some of their makeshift buildings here. It sits overlooking the beautiful Kluane Lake (not a bay), and functions as a base for road and government workers along this section of the highway.  Very few people live here.

While eating dinner in the Talbot Arms motel/diner/gas station, an older couple pulled up on a three-wheeled Honda Goldwing. They turned out to be Daryl and Tobey Johnson, retired schoolteachers from Arkansas, and had ridden one motorcycle or another through all 50 states and all of the provinces of Canada, even Labrador (you have to take a ferry to that one).  Daryl is 84 years old, and still riding. They had dinner with me and we chatted for a couple of hours; it was great.

My new heroes:Tobey and Daryl Johnson