Greetings from the Alcan!

After a few long days on the road, we’ve made it to Whitehorse, Yukon. We’re making great time, so we’re taking an extra day here to check out the local sites and sounds before we hunker down in Fairbanks for the winter.

Our initial departure was delayed when my darling husband spilled a five gallon bucket of exterior paint in our garage while the movers loaded up our goods to ship to Alaska. It took several hours to clean up, adding to the moving-day chaos.

The first night we only made it a few hours north to Bellingham, where some criminal tried to steal the wheels off of our trailer. Thankfully, they were only successful in taking our dust caps which we expediently replaced. However, those dust caps fell off as we drove off from the parts store in Blaine. We resigned ourselves to life without dust caps and forged onward.  

We crossed through the Canadian border after playing 20 Questions with the Customs Agent and the road trip began to solidify.

Thinking it would be fun to drive through scenic Whistler to get to Prince George, we took the Western Access Route. We didn’t have a topographical map, or else we would have known that this route has tons of elevation gains and losses, switchbacks, and a couple of one-way bridges.  It was an unnecessarily long journey that the Milepost had only touched on. For obvious reasons, they seemed to recommend a different route, circumventing Vancouver and Whistler.

For anyone familiar with North Country Travel, you’ll know the Milepost is the road trip bible. Our copy has already been well worn, and the included map has faded at the creases. It’s had plenty of use.

Isaac and I are both very proud of how Margot has been such an adaptable and patient baby. The dog even seems to be handling the trip well, although he’s obviously under a bit of stress. He’s an exceptional indoor dog who isn’t used to riding in the sunny cargo area of a Subaru for hours on end. That still doesn’t excuse his behavior when he broke into his dog treats and ate all of them. Those were supposed to last the entire trip and they disappeared on the first day. Shameful.

While writing this post I’ve been taking periodic breaks to admire the view from our fourth floor room in an historic hotel in downtown Whitehorse. I’m also pretty smitten by their responsive wireless internet, a luxury unavailable at our previous lodgings.

Admiring the twinkling city lights under the vast Northern sky, I can easily recall the beauty of the sawtooth mountains, turquoise lakes, and vibrant autumn forests over the course of the 1,000+ miles we traversed to get to this point.

Western Canada has such immense character. Reindeer and Bison compose the pedestrian traffic on The Alcan and the further North we’ve journeyed, the thicker the Canadian accents have become. Charm abounds.

Friendly locals have repeatedly caught us off guard; for me, I suppose growing up in California has jaded me on trusting strangers, an approach I’ve continually felt guilty about during our travels through the region. Everyone has been so courteous and helpful so far.

My hard-working husband will be very excited to sleep in while we’re in Whitehorse; he’s manned the wheel the entire trip without a single complaint. If we can find him some local fudge tomorrow, the longevity of the trip will be well worth it.

For more real-time updates on our travels, follow me on instagram. And if you dare to travel The Alcan, be sure to check out the Milepost on Amazon! [amz-related-products search_index=’All’ keywords=’The Milepost’ unit=’list’]