Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge

We pulled over for the evening within an hour of the Canadian border, parking in a pullout overlooking the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. Just a few miles earlier we’d encountered a large grizzy crossing the road which made me both hopeful and cautious about encountering one where we were parked. We didn’t.

This image was taken the following morning as we prepared to cross back into the Yukon and continue south.

The scenery along this part of the Alaska Highway was spectacular. Because of our detour to Dawson City on our way north, this was the one section of road that we had not driven.

Mom and Dad were in the lead this morning – I don’t remember exactly why – but it wasn’t long before we fell behind them. We spotted a moose grazing in a distant pond and pulled over to watch it. Mom and Dad didn’t see the moose and had not yet thought to turn on their two-way radio so we were unable to give them a heads up.

Before we left on our trip, I had described my perfect moose shot to Darla. It was a bull moose lifting its head out of a lake with water pouring off its giant rack. This wasn’t exactly what I had described but it was close.

One thing that Darla and I have noticed year after year is that we can drive for hours through wilderness in the U.S. without seeing a wild animal but once we cross the border into Canada they start appearing everywhere. Our trip so far had only reinforced this impression. Canada was the place to go for wildlife sightings.

Meanwhile, my parents, now about 20 minutes ahead of us, had a close encounter with a black bear – although to me this looks like a man in a bear suit.

I like Mom’s second shot even better, although some may criticize it for being a little soft…

We finally joined up again at Kluane Lake, where my mom got some wildflower shots while they waited for us.

I had read a number of Alaska Highway travelogs describing long delays due to road construction. It wasn’t until the last two or three days, between Tok and Haines Junction, that we’d encountered anything significant. I considered this good luck – but not The Boy, who relished any opportunity to watch heavy construction equipment in action.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the condition of the roads which, for the most part, had been excellent. It wasn’t until we drove south from Tok that we encountered the infamous Alaskan frost heaves. These frost heaves were every bit as brutal as they had been described, making the drive slow and very tiring. It wasn’t as slow as it probably should have been though; I told Darla, who had been doing most of the driving over the last few days, that I was going to get her a t-shirt that read, “I accelerate for frost heaves.” Darla responded by offering to let me drive. I responded by shutting up.

I was behind the wheel when we passed this creek on the way to the Kathleen Lake campground. I didn’t stop, concerned that the campground might fill up in the time it took to take a couple photographs. Once we got set up at our sites, Dad decided he’d better drive back to Haines Junction to get a little more gas. This worked out to my benefit as he agreed to drop me off here while he continued into town.

For several days now Darla and I had been wondering about the identity of a particular kind of tree. It looked like an aspen but with silver leaves. We had never seen one of the trees before this trip. The mystery was solved when we took a close look at one of them and discovered that it was indeed an aspen infested with some type of insect that was sucking the green right out of its leaves.

A not-so-subtle reminder to watch out for bears…

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