Over the TOP...again

[captainkettel]

Here are a couple of shots taken going over the Top Of the World Hwy on 26 June 07. I just got back from a 5300 mile trip thru Canada to Alaska and back!
I took a few different routes this time and have some new adventures to share.

 

[Brian]

Top O' the World Hwy.

Captain.....What a great road that is. Thanks for the memories. My first time there was in '76 and my wife at the time and two small sons and I were in a 1966 VW bus. The starter burned up right at the border station at Boundary entering Alaska and I had to leave the wife and youngest son there while I and my oldest boy hitchhiked to Delta Junction and back after finding a good used starter there. We were picked up on the way back by a family from Michigan that was doing a whirlwind trip to and through Alaska by camper....we were able to stop for a few minutes and I showed them how to pan for gold at the old gold dredge on Jack Wade Creek. I came back there once the bus was fixed and panned close to a half ounce of gold in a long rainy day with a medium size pan. Great fun, but my wife and kids were bored to tears. It was someone elses claim but I found out that he lived in a cabin in Jack Wade, asked him if I could pan and he said "sure just don't go commercial on me!" I guess a guy had set up a small suction dredge there and was taking more than the guy wanted to lose. That entire trip (3 months from Oregon to Delta Junction where I went to work at Fort Greeley for the winter) was a total blast. What a great place Alaska. I also love B.C., Yukon and Northwest Territories. Hope you had a great time. I lived in AK for 22 years before retiring down here in the desert.
Brian

 

[captainkettel]

Brian did you ever take the dirt road in the Yukon from Carmacks to Watson Lake? That is on Hwy 4, the Campbell Highway. This was my first time. The dirt road was graded and smoother than most of the highways in the top end of the Yukon! Only saw about ten vehicles on the 370+ miles between Carmacks and Watson lake. No place to break down. But what a blast. Several really nice Provincial Parks and lots of places to just boondock if one wanted. I went through several thunder storms with lots of rain. But all in all a very cool road. Here is also a photo of my 1994 Sportsmobile at a rest stop going over Moose Pass on the way down the Kenai Peninsula.

 

[Brian]

Yukon..

Cap'n,
First off, nice rig! Perfect for the northland.
No, I have not been on that road. Some day perhaps.
One of the coolest roads we went on on that trip was the road north from Johnson's Crossing to Ross River, then on north to MacMillan Pass. That is the old Canol Pipeline road which was built during the building of the Alcan road. They say that they never used the pipeline although they finished it to Norman Wells in NWT. When we were on it we saw about two or three other people the entire time. At that time it was only maintained to Mac. Pass but they were doing a lot of prospecting up there and I believe it is a major mining area now. We camped on a small lake on the lower portion for several days and found a little trappers cabin with a sign on the door saying "if you use the cabin replenish the wood". We did, stayed for a few days, bathed, washed clothes, baked bread and fished the lake. Nice lake trout there.
I also had the pleasure of driving the Dempster highway as far north as the Eagle River which is as far as it went at that time. It now goes on to Inuvik I am told. Man was that remote! There was a Canadian Army Engineer camp set up at the Eagle River then and they were bridging the river. Apparently there were more engineers road building south from Inuvik at that time.
You have posted a picture of your rig at Moose Pass. My last residence in Alaska was off the other highway, in Sterling, right near the confluence of the Moose River and the Kenai.
Brian

 

[captainkettel]

I have a little cabin/house down on the Kenai Peninsula. Located in Anchor Point. That's about 10 miles north of Homer. Everybody knows Homer but not always Anchor Point. So I get to Alaska at least once a year. Go up to do my annual inspection. Good excuse to get away up north. Have been driving up the last 5-6 years. Do the Alcan or Cassiar Hwy. The last couple years I have been coming back using the Top Of The World Hwy.

 

[craig333]

Makes me want to out and buy a lottery ticket.

 

[Brian]

Anchor Point

My son worked for several seasons as a mate on a puker boat out of Homer and the skipper and his woman friend owned a B & B in Anchor Point: " Top of the Rock Lodge". Their guiding operation was called "Alaska Action Anglers". Maybe you know them. I can't remember their last names...John was the skippers name. Old age after me again!

I have driven the Alaska-Lower 48 route many times...equally divided between Cassiar and Alcan....my sons and their mother lived in Haines for a number of years and I would drive my converted bus between there and Denali Park where I worked as a mechanic twice a year.
If you haven't done it....and I can't really vouch for what it is like now, I was there in '76...driving out to Telegraph Creek from Dease Lake on the Cassiar is a trip you will never forget! You go along the Grand Canyon of the Stikine. I had friends that had homesteaded out near the ruins of Glenora, the furthest the road went down the Stikine River. Incredible place, as is the Tahltan Indian band there right next to Telegraph Creek. I can't think of anyplace on a road system that is more remote than that....the road is clay in a lot of places so when it rains as it does a LOT, you are just stuck wherever you are when it happens...you aren't going anywhere! The mosquitos are every bit as bad there as they are on the North Slope of Alaska. What an amazing experience! I was helping him dig an outhouse hole in the gravel on his land and we unearthed a gorgeous jadeite splitting wedge! So cool.....these folks were doing the real deal....I had lived for several years in western Oregon without electricity and used hand tools for everything including my silversmithing business and I thought we were quite able....these people had literally nothing and were developing a farm where you had to carry a shotgun to the outhouse because of the high population of bear. Tough folks and they had four little kids to boot! I made their wedding rings for them in 1977 and I still have a piece of the brain-tanned moose hide she traded me for them...she learned how from a Tahltan woman.

I like your little cabin. Nice and tidy and just the right size for cabin.
Brian

 

[Marc]

Great write up guys. Although my trip to Alaska is still a year or two away, my desire and enthusiasm continues to grow ever stronger after reading post's like yours.

Thanks,

Marc

 

[Brian]

Alaska....

I think that the Cap'n will agree...It is an awesome place and one of the few places in North America where you can still experience true wilderness. I think that is true for northern Canada as well....I have a real fondness for that land. I was hurt by a falling snag on a wildfire in northern BC in 1978 and the aftermath of that is what disabled me and caused an early retirement eventually but I love northern Canada and Canadians dearly and I think very fondly of that fire camp and those who were there with me. What an experience! Those were the days they hired one and all to work a fire. My current wife has worked in the emergency services and wildland fire business for the last 20 years and they do it real different now. Much safer but very specialized and tons of training. We just happened to be traveling up the Cassiar our second time when we heard about a fire near Atlin, B.C. and we went there and I got hired right away....after I was hurt and brought back from hospital in Whitehorse by float plane, my wife went out as a cook in a spike camp and I stayed in our camp in Atlin and watched the kids! You never knew what you find on a trip up to AK.

Brian

 

[craig333]

Interesting in 1978 they were still hiring like that up there. I started with CDF in '78 and it was nothing like that.

 

[captainkettel]

Brian is absolutely correct, Alaska is truly the Last Frontier! I've been going to Alaska for close to 20 years. I first drove up in 1995. My little 1979 4X4 Subaru wagon made that trip. It has changed some, but for the true wilderness experience it can't be beat. You can be fishing on a river and look up and see a bear fishing with you or watch a huge bald eagle soar out of the clear blue sky and snag a fish. The mountains are everywhere. Yet downtown Anchorage is just like any big city with it's traffic and people. When I go to Alaska I have to just slow down and take it all in. I've been all over the south central part of the state. From Homer to Fox and beyond. It still amazes me. The one thing I see used most for vehicle repair in the entire state is "Duck Tape"! True Alaskans could build a cabin with that stuff! So when you go be sure and bring some along...

 

[Brian]

Alaska...

Nice photos Cap'n.....wow, that calcium chloride residue on your subaru gives me the creeps....car cancer in the making! I hate that stuff.

Craig....CDF was never like that was it....from what I have heard, they have been pretty regulated from Day One. That is CA though, lots of regulations...Alaska and northern Canada is just the opposite...very few regs and rules. I don't know how many old vans have been stuffed in holes in the ground for septic tanks! The downside of that is that it seems to bring out the worst in folks, even the government...they are still finding dumps of toxic waste from the military ( there are several places they will not send firefighters, one is the nerve gas and nuclear waste site at Gerstle River and another is out on the Alaska Peninsula and that one is still a secret as to why they won't)....Having worked in the public lands business in Alaska for many years I observed that the people who treated "Alaska, the land", with respect, were the visitors, esp. from the lower 48. Alaskans were always the worst in regards to trashing a place, and breaking the rules....hard to figure since they live in such a beautiful place. It made me take a look at my old anarchist views....in order for anarchy to be anything but chaos and a degeneration to the lowest common denominator, it takes a huge amount of personal responsibility...now some of my old friends call me Newt Gingrich ...since I favor more regs and more enforcement before there is nothing left. There is good reason that AK is the last frontier....not enough humans to screw it up yet. I better not continue this rant in a forum like this....maybe the "lounge" is a better place for that.
Brian

 

[captainkettel]

Just a quick note. The calcium build up is just the clear coat peeling off the paint! I didn't drive much in the winter in AK so the only real rust is an inherent problem with vintage Subaru's under the front fender mounting plate. They hold moisture and rust out. Hence my repair work with the "Duck Tape".

 

[Brian]

Subaru...

Oh good deal....I am glad to know that you have avoided the dread calcium chloride....although when they wet the northern gravel roads down for grading, the C.C. gets all over your rig....even in the summer. I have done some riding on the haul road in the summer...only as far north as the Arctic Circle and the bike was covered with it. Yuck...
Brian