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