Canada border

Frank,

Our plan is to ferry up amd drive back. We are taking our Truck with FWC camper and pulling a covered trailer with two railroad motorcars in it, mine and a friends. They are taking their truck and FWC camper.

The Ferry trip up includes layover in Ketcikan for 4 days and Juneau for 10 days. From Juneau we have multi-day trips planned to Sitka and Glacier Bay. From Juneau we go to Haines.

From Haines our plan is to drive up to Dawson City and then come down to Anchorage via the top of the world highway.

The trip home is planned to go down through Jasper, Banff and Glacier parks.

During our 2018 trip we drove up the Stewart-Cassiar Highway, took a side trip to Stewart B.C/Hyder, AK and visited the Salmon glacier and Fish Creek overlook. From there we went to Anchorage via Whitehorse and Glenallen. The return was down the Alcan to Dawson Creek then over to Prince George and South from there.

Doing the ferry both ways would cost too much with the camper and trailer on top of the railroad motorcar tour cost.

We are realizing that there is a very real possibility we will have to cancel the trip.

We have the option of containerizing our motor cars and shipping them up and flying to/from Anchorage. But that takes away all the other parts of the trip so we probably will not take that option.

I suppose we could ship the motorcars and take the trucks on the ferry to Whittier and take the ferry back too. I need to talk that option over with the other travelers but two of them get seasick easily and the trip from Haines to Wittier is outside and can be much rougher than the inside passage.

Thanks for the suggestion just the same.

Craig
 
Excuse the rant, but this blanket border closure to everyone absolutely sucks. We have a cabin in northern BC that has now been sitting unattended since September of 2019. The government should allow property owners to at least access our property for maintenance and repair, especially since we have been vaccinated and would not be anywhere near a population center. It will be incredibly frustrating if we cannot get north this year, which means the cabin (and all the other stuff there) will be unattended for almost three years (and that is presuming we could get there in 2022!). Who knows what damage we will end up with for our solar system etc.
 
Craig that sounds like a nice trip.
On our 2 latest trips to Ak using our truck/ATC Bobcat
we did some of the same routes you plan.

I realize the ferry with a truck and trailer can get very expensive.

The outside trip from Juneau to Whittier wasn't very rough but
defiantly not not as smooth or as nice views as the inside passage.

How do you use the rail motorcars on the rail line? What about the
other rail traffic in the line? Especially from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

Well look on the positive side about the Covid issue.
We are in a similar boat about visiting our daughter in Barcelona.

Hoping things will be open by Christmas.

Thanks for the info.
Frank
 
I belong to a club called the North American Railcar Operators Association (NARCOA).

https://www.narcoa.org/

We have Event Coordinators (ECs) who are trained and authorized by the organization to arrange motorcar runs on many different railroads all over the US mostly 3rd class tourist type railroads and shortlines but some 2nd class railroads like the Alaska railroad. Most are standard gauge railroads but there are a handful of narrow gauge railroads that we run on as well, such as the Cumbres and Toltec and Durango and Silverton (I also have a narrow gauge motorcar).

Our hobby has a motorcar operator licensing program and we must all be 1) Mentored and 2) subsequently pass a written licensing test every 2 years. In addition, we are all required to carry accident insurance to protect the railroads from us.

The ECs are in charge of each run and we typically pay about $0.50 a mile to operate. For safety reasons runs are often limited to no more than around 30 motorcars.

The railroads typically dispatch us as a group like a train and frequently they railroad has an employee operating a motorcar or highrail pickup in front of our group and one behind. They stay in radio contact with the dispatchedr and with the EC. Many, if not most of the motorcar operators have radios and can listen in.

When we are operating on traack we typically separate and the distance between cars can be hundreds of feet. On curving rail line it can seem as if you are out there by yourself.

On the Alaska railroad the primary traffic in summer are tourist trains and they have priority. Freights usually run at night. We get dispatched between the toruist trains and when one is coming we are directed onto a siding well before the meet up and then we wait until the tourist train passes.

In 2018 we ran the entire length of the Alaska railroad round trip between Seward and Fairbanks including a side trip to Whittier and back through the tunnel. The total on track mileage was just under 1,000 miles. Our 30 car group was allowed to spread out to a maximum of 2 miles so that allowed a lot of space between cars.

At night we parked our motorcars on a siding, locked them up then took our bags to a shuttle bus pickup point. Once on board we were taken to a hotel for the night. Sometimes we stayed more than one night. Example lodging venues were the Talkeetna Lodge, The Grand Denali Lodge, the Ayeska Hotel as well as the Marriott Springhill Suites in Fairbanks and the Harbor 360 Hotel in Seward.

Here is the 18 day motorcar trip itinerary from 2018 (we also took 14 days to drive up and 10 days to drive back - some others drove as well and a number of participants shipped their motor cars up and back by container and flew):

It is a fun, noisy, kind of dirty hobby. Mostly a guy thing but there are some Women operators which is awesome.

Regards,

Craig
 

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Sounds like I may need to bump TUK to 2022 :( Viking already canceled my Rhine river cruise. looks like its all going to be US travel this year, but there is a lot to see and do here.
 
I’ve seen people come through town with little rail motor cars on trailers from time to time. One of our equipment operators I worked with called them a speeder. I guess they are same thing. Always wondered what people did with them, now I know. Thanks for posting Craig. That sounds like an interesting and epic trip!

FWIW, I feel everyone’s pain. I had a big tour planned through BC and destinations north last year. Obviously that failed to launch. Still going to be on the launch pad this year.

Good luck all.
 
Heard it's 75 cents Canadian to the dollar now...if only I can cross the border!
 
Canada renewed the border closure on April 21 for another month. They are reviewing the closure and deciding on renewing it on a month to month basis. I have read several reports, supposedly from people who understand Canadian politics, that they expect the Canadian border to open no earlier than mid summer to Fall.

As a consequence I modified our ferry itinerary this week (just in time it turns out), to go all the way to Whittier instead of disembarking at Haines. I also booked a return trip to Bellingham from Whittier just in case we are unable to drive back though Canada (cancellation fee is only 5% if cancelled at least 31 days prior to departure). If we cancel the return ferry trip it will cost around $350 for both vehicles, which is cheap insurance to be sure we can get home.

The Alaska Ferry agent told me that the ferrys were wide open until the week after the renewal of the Canadian border closure on April 21 and in the past three weeks the available ferry reservations have been disappearing fast, so much so that the Alaska Ferry management this past week added more ferries to and from Whittier this summer.

They added a ferry to Whittier in August that was still wide open for reservations this past week but I was told that at the rate of bookings they expect it to be full by the end of this week. Similar for the ferry I booked for our return on Sept 27.

Anyone thinking about going to Alaska by Ferry this summer needs to act fast, indeed, it may be too late for for reservations depaending on dates for a number of destinations.

Good luck.

Craig
 
Craig that's great to hear.We enjoyed the Kennocitt ferry.
It has a different car/truck elevator system and was fun to watch
it in use while docked in Yakatt.
Enjoy your trip.
Frank
 
Craig,

If they refuse you passage coming home and you need to make a break for the border, let me know which border crossing and I will bring reinforcements to help you escape! :cool:

Phil
 
Frank,

You comment is useful. I don't know much about the ships yet.

We will travel on the MV Kennicott for two legs of our trip North. Belingham to Ketchikan and Juneau to Whittier. The Ketchikan to Juneau leg will be on the MV Matanuska. We have cabins booked for all the legs but the rooms on the Kennicott look pretty spartan. I hope the narrow bunk bed matresses are resonably confortable. One night on a bunkbed separated by several days is no big deal even if I sleep poorly.

The return trip is booked for the MV Kennicott, again with cabin. But that is a direct trip back to Bellingham of 4-1/2 days. I am not looking forward to 4 nights on that little bunk bed. I hope the Canadian border will be open by then.

;-)

Craig
 
Craig our trip on the Kennicott we wanted a cabin with bath but had to get one that slept 3/4.
It worked nice for us more room.We can sleep both in the bed >they seem to be a little wider
then a single.
The ferry is equipped with a stabilizer system for the open water.
Frank
 
Craig,the Matanuska is also a very nice ferry.
It's one of 2 that years ago was refitted and stretched
longer.
Since our first use of the ferry system in 1990 we have
traveled on just about every one of the systems ships,
from the largest Colombia ,Kennicott to the small Aurora.
Why is your trip north split?

We envy your ferry trip.
Over the years we have enjoyed that means of travel.
You meet a lot of interesting people.

We have even used the Canadian system from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert
several times.Great way to travel.
Frank
 
We will be taking our truck and camper. We will be spending 4 days in Ketchikan to explore and camp then we stay 10 days in Juneau with a few days of camping. 2 or 3 days will be devoted to a trip to Sitka and 2 or 3 days will be devoted to a trip to Gacier Bay. After Juneau we will continue on to Whittier. We will have about a week to spend before our railroad motorcar trip on the entire legth of the Alaska railroad begings (16 day excusion). Since the leg to Whittier is a recent change from our original itenerary to disembark at Haines and then drive up to Dawson City and go to Anchorage via the top of the world highway we still need to work out what we will be doing after arriving in Whittier and before we start the motorcar trip. I am thinking we should go to McCarthy and perhaps Valdez. We drove down to Homer in 2018 (my second time there). Maybe buy three day fishing licenses and go fishing as well.

This will be a repeat of the motorcar trip we did on the Alaska Railroad in 2018. For that trip we drove up the Stewart Cassiar highway, detoring to Stewart and Hyder (wonderful time viewing Slamon and a Grizzley feeding at the Fish Creek observation site and a trip up to the toe of Salmon Glacier) and we returned on the Alcan Highway where we saw lots of animals, Woodland Bison, Cariboo, Fox, Moose, etc. We will have layovers in Talkeetna, Denali, Fairbanks and Seward during the motorcar trip. We plan to repeat the Kantishna roadhouse bus trip agin as that was a highlight on our last trip. We also enjoyed the Fountainhead Auto Museum in Fairbanks and the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks as well as the Anchorage Museum.

This time we hope to be able to return through Jasper, Banff and Glacier National Park (instead of coming back on the ferry).
 
Don't know if you have stayed at the Williwaw CG through the tunnel
from Whittier. We stayed there just after getting off the ferry then again
6 days later on route to Denali.

It's a nice CG there are several spots there to view the salmon.
We really enjoyed it. Very quiet and great views of the glaciers.

While in Ketchikan will you camp at Ward Lake CG?
If you haven't in the past it is very nice ,camp sites next to the lake.
We haven't stayed there since 09 when they refurbished it.
Salmon in the lake and some beavers.

In Juneau Mendenhall Lake CG is nice.Free showers and lots of good spots for trailers.
You now need to make reservations before but I don't think it gets very full.
In 2016 we had to make reservations,unlike past times we stayed there.
You used to be able to just drive up and get a spot.

Frank
 
Craig,

Glad you got a room on the ferry, my last trip I had to sleep on the rear deck in a sleeping bag! My goal is still Tuk, so no ferry this time.

Hal
 
Hal,

Maybe you can get to Tuktoyaktuk next year. I don't think the border will be open soon enough this year. ;-)
 
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