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Nenana Ice Classic

Wednesday, July 12th, 2006

Just wanted to post this photo from a little town we stopped in called Nenana. The structure I’m standing beside is put on the ice every winter. Everyone in town and from miles around then pays $1 and picks a date and time. Who ever has the time the ice breaks up and the structure goes down river wins the pot. Last year it was $200,000! Worth playing. We were in this town on the 4th of July. They had a parade and all kinds of crazy games. It looked like the whole town participated, it was really cool.

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Arctic Circle

Wednesday, July 12th, 2006

We thought about driving the Dalton Highway all the way to Deadhorse, the northernmost point you can drive to. But it is a 414 mile drive (1 way) on a dirt road that is notorious for causing flat tires. It’s recommended to take 2 spares. Since we only had 1 spare and weren’t sure we wanted to commit to the drive (once you arrive at Deadhorse you can’t even go look at the ocean, that is owned by the oil companies) we just drove to the Arctic Circle instead. It was a fun drive, we saw some interesting things, and didn’t get any flat tires! We also took our gas cans so we avoided having to pay $3.70 at one of the few gas stations along the way.

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There were fields and fields of these wildflowers. They are called fireweed and are the first thing to start growing after the forest burns. In 2004 they had a really bad year for wildfires up here.

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It looked like we were on another planet.

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A cute grizzly we saw along the way.

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The landscape is really weird. The permafrost shoves these huge rocks up out of the ground through freeze/thaw action.

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There we are, at the Circle! Amazingly, there was someone else there to take our photo.

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This is a view of the Brooks Range from our turnaround point.

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Bridge over the mighty Yukon river. This picture was taken at 10:30 at night. See how it looks like maybe 6:30 by the amount of light? It is crazy!

Into AK

Monday, July 10th, 2006
Well, we made it! We had a lot of fun in BC and the Yukon but we wanted to make sure we didn't spend too much time down there and not make it into Alaska. So far it's been great. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bears

Saturday, July 1st, 2006
So we'd seen several bears along the trip, one in Oregon but the rest since we entered Canada. Dave and I even made a bet on how many bears we'd see before we hit the Alaka border. I went low, ... [Continue reading this entry]

Yukon!

Saturday, July 1st, 2006
The Yukon is a cool place, literally. :) It has an interesting history and rugged attitude. The town of Whitehorse with around 25,000 people has 2/3 of the population of the province. Makes the Ozarks sound crowded. :) kluanemegoldpan.jpg[Continue reading this entry]

Kluane National Park and Preserve

Saturday, July 1st, 2006
This national park in the Yukon contains Canada's highest mountains. It was so pretty we had to stop and spend some time hiking around. kluanemtns.jpg A distant view of some of the bigger mountains. kluane.jpg[Continue reading this entry]

Beautiful British Columbia

Saturday, July 1st, 2006
That's what the license plates up here say and it's true. We took a side trip to the twin communities of Stuart, BC and Hyder, AK which are two towns of a few hundered people about 3 miles apart. They ... [Continue reading this entry]