Day 7 - Epic Al-Can Odyssey

Day 7 – Teslin to Ft. Nelson
496 Miles

When we checked out of the motel in the morning, we were told to be especially careful of a couple specific areas of the Alaskan Highway that is rife with wildlife.

We were glad for the warning but had been on guard for moose standing in the road, or black bear ready to attack since we left Anchorage.

We were assured that the bear didn't attack,

If there was a moose (or elk or caribou) standing in the road, we just needed to slow down and be ready to navigate around it if it moved. Kind of like when there are deer near the road at home.

With that advice we headed off – and when we arrived in Muncho Lake Provincial Park, were thrilled to see plenty of bear,

caribou,

 and wood bison along the way.

The Alaskan Highway snakes in between Yukon and British Columbia several times, so we had a lot of opportunities to get our BC province picture.

We thought the construction was over and done with, but later in the afternoon, we realized it wasn't.

There were stretches of highway that were covered with fresh gravel that kicked up plenty of dust. Some areas had water trucks going full force, watering down the road. Others just let the wind, sweeping off the prairies to kick up as much dirt and grime as it wanted.

Our stop for the night was Fort Nelson. When we arrived, I walked into the motel and was greeted by “so you came from up North, aye?”.

I smiled and said yes, and that it had been quite a day, the whole time wondering how he knew where we’d come from.

Then Sean walked in after parking the bike.

The mystery was solved as I looked in the mirror and saw the same amount of dirt caked on my face as he had.

We had to laugh, and understood why the people we stopped and asked for directions looked at us so oddly. And we were happy to know that apparently there wasn't as much construction going on to the south.

Day 6 - Epic Al-Can Odyssey

Day 6 - Tok to Teslin
505 miles

Getting into Canada was our main priority of the day. We reached the boarder in good time and stopped to get our official Alaskan

and Yukon photos.

Just a little history, until the 1980s, the Alaskan Highway was only partially paved and completely desolate. Travelers routinely brought extra wheels for the motorcycles and cars, and gas cans filled with fuel just to get them through the northern part of Canada.  We went expecting a nice paved highway, perfect for spotting wildlife and gazing at the scenery.

It was all that. OK, part of it was all that. The first 143 miles of the Alaskan highway in Canada, though, were under construction. Under very serious construction.

As Minnesotans, we can safely say that we know potholes. I don’t know many other metro areas that have a toll-free number and website JUST for reporting potholes. Especially after a nasty winter like we just had, we feel like the pothole capital of the world.

Uh, no.

We don’t hold a candle to the Yukon Territory’s craters in the roads.

Thus the construction.

In all fairness, this road will be amazing when they are done. Straight and smooth and wide. Until then, it was 143 miles of torture.

We went from mud.

To gravel, to pavement riddled with potholes.

To a couples miles of perfect and smooth, to a dead stop that lasted more than half an hour.

We learned to dread this sign.

And this sign.

And this sign.

Finally after 5 hours of kidney killing, spleen tossing, vertebrae crunching riding, we emerged the construction zone, just happy to be alive.

We stopped immediately in Destruction Bay for lunch and a rest and were lucky enough to run into a member of the Royal Canadian Mountain Patrol.

OK, so not what I imagined from my childhood, but he was gracious enough to let us get a picture with an authentic Mountie in the Yukon, and fortunately this was the only run-in with the RCMP that we had.

At lunch we added up the miles until we reached Teslin, our destination for the day and groaned when the miles added up to about 9 more hours. We were considering changing out plans and stopping somewhere sooner, then making up the extra miles the next until, when we realized that the Canadian part of our map was in kilometers!!

We only had about 4.5 more hours to go. Easy peasy.

We were able to relax a little once we discovered we were closer to our next stop and enjoyed watching other motorcyclists, car travelers and even bicycles come off the road, all looking tired and stressed from navigating the treacherous 143 miles from Alaska. We smiled at those people going North, that hadn't hit the construction yet… Just wait, dear friends.

The rest of the day’s ride was non-eventful. We rolled into Teslin at a decent time and relaxed, storing up energy for the next day’s ride.

Day 5 - Epic Al-Can Odyssey

Day 5 – Seward to Tok
451 miles

Too soon it was time to make our way up the Alaskan Highway towards Canada and the long ride home.

We knew that if we didn't do anything but ride for the remainder of the trip...

...it would have been one of the more memorable adventures we’d had. Of course, there was a lot more to the rest of the journey besides riding.

Our destination that day was Tok, Alaska, the Sled Dog Capital of Alaska, and a very nice little town.

Our motel for the evening even featured a pen of – you guessed it – sled dog puppies!

Sean knew one of the more colorful mushers had his dog camp in the area, so after getting settled, we walked across the street to a local tavern, and asked the barkeep if he knew the musher, Hugh Neff.

Of course he did. In fact, Hugh was probably doing a presentation across the road with one of his lead dogs. He picked up the phone, called the hotel where Hugh usually makes his appearances, chatted and while and hung up.

“Yup, he’s starting in about 15 minutes.” We quickly settled our tab and promised to be back afterwards.

Hugh’s presentation about his various trials and challenges while dog sledding were fascinating.

His dog, Walter (after Sweetness himself, Walter Payton) was incredibly friendly (probably from all the socialization as a puppy).

Afterward, we chatted with Hugh for a while and mentioned we were going back over to the bar we’d been at early…and would he like to join us? It sounded like a good idea to him, so Sean and I headed across the street, soon to be joined by Hugh and Walter.

We talked all things Iditarod and mushing, and then moved on to a lot of other subjects.

At the end of the evening we felt like we’d made a new friend and learned amazing amounts of information about sled dogging and the people who make up the sled dog community.

Day 4 - Epic Al-Can Odyssey

Day 4 - Seward
23 miles

Finally, we had a sunny, beautifully mild day and we spent it aboard a glacier cruise boat.

The wildlife was amazing – not only did we see sea lions and puffins,

a cousin to the penguins,

bald eagles and porpoises,

we were treated to a couple humpback whales breaching and flapping their tail fins at each other.

We also got an incredible, up-close look at a glacier as massive chunks broke off into the water and made an incredibly thunderous roar.

We were lucky enough to find a nice, quaint Alaskan cabin to stay in while in Seward. It just happened to be adjacent to the rest of the Seavey’s dog camp.

The woods were peaceful and quiet, until doggy feeding time, when the dogs, a half mile away, began to howl and bark. Even that, though was oddly comforting.

We took some time to walk up the road to the camp, and met Danny Seavey and spent some time talking all things mushing.

Dinner the night before was so wonderful that we decided to do it again.

and the food was just as good as the previous evening. 

Day 3 - Epic Al-Can Odyssey

Day 3 - Denali to Seward

386 miles

We headed back south early in the morning, leaving Denali and Mt. McKinley to the hikers and campers. 

I honestly never realized it could get this cold in July – we woke up to 29 degrees  - but at least it wasn’t raining…yet.

Our first top was Girdwood, Alaska, just south of Anchorage for what we supposed would be the highlight of our trip: sled dogging on a glacier.  At Girdwood we suited up in rain suits and wished we always had somewhere warm and dry to put rain gear on, instead of by the side of the road in a torrential downpour.

We hopped a helicopter ride into the mountains. Can’t say I was very excited about riding in a helicopter, and admittedly it was a whole different feeling than riding in an airplane, but it was kind of fun.

The ride was short, 

only about 15 minutes before they landed and deposited us on a glacier in the …. Range.  This snowy dog camp belonged to sled dogging legends, the Seavey family. They rotate dogs throughout the summer so the whole herd got to spend time on the snow.

We were met by Pete, a professional musher, who gave us a great overview of the camp.

And we got to play with tiny puppies that didn’t even have their eyes open yet!

Then…

…Sean’s dreams came true when we got to ride in a sled with some of the Seavey’s top dogs pulling us over the glacial snow and ice. I was in front but could hear Sean’s joyful laughter as we sped along.

We stopped to give the dogs a break, which gave us a chance to really talk with Pete about the dogs, the camps and the Iditarod.

He reinforced that the dogs really do all the work, all the musher has to do is give them directions and hold on. Tight.

With that, Sean got to give the command to start them up again. “Go Dogs”

While we were waiting for our turn on the sled, we chatted with Molly, a nice young woman who was working at the camp for the summer.

We asked her where she was from originally and she told us “Minnesota”. Wow, us too! Where? “Oh, a little Minneapolis suburb.” Really? Us too! Where? “Savage?” No way. US TOO!!

And that’s how we met Molly the Musher from Savage, Minnesota on a glacier, accessible only by helicopter, in Alaska.

This trip ended all too soon as the helicopter came back to get us and take us back to the valley.

We continued down the coast of the Kenai Peninsula toward Seward, basking in our most recent adventure. We didn't even mind the on and off again rain that clouded the landscape.

Though we did arrive in Seward, cold and wet. We warmed up quickly after a local recommended a great restaurant that the wealth of tourists usually passed by.

Neither of us are really fish eaters, but we do like to try the local fare wherever we are, so we had the halibut and chips.

The fish was amazing, fresh, just lightly battered and fried. It was so wonderful we went back the next night for more.