North...to Alaska! Part 2. The Kenai Peninsula and back through Canada.

On the drive to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula.

 

The Blue Ice at Williwaw CG

After meeting up with our friend Frank at Talkeetna, we continued south. We drove down Highway 1, stopping at Wasilla for groceries at Fred Meyers, then passed through Anchorage and continued to Portage Glacier Road, which leads to Whittier. A few miles down that road we found the campground we were looking for, Williwaw USFS CG, which sits beneath a glacier of "blue ice".

After setting up camp, we went for a short hike on a nearby trail which followed a stream. Rounding a bend, we came face to face with a juvenile moose munching on grass! We took a few photos and then discretely turned around and left him to his foraging!

An encounter on a walk near our campground!

We were very impressed with the beauty and peacefulness of this campground and planned to return to it on our way back from Homer.

We now continued down the Kenai to Homer Spit. We camped for two nights hare, at a private campground which was okay, mothing spectacular, but there was laundry and shower facilities there. We enjoyed a nice dinner at Patty's and visited a couple of breweries.

Looking down at Homer Spit.

We spent a bit of time observing the commercial fishing activity just off our beach. 

Salmon fishing off Homer Spit.

We left Homer and headed across the peninsula to Seward. We actually camped a bit outside of Seward and then drove into town to look around and to find a boat tour. The weather was excellent and the water was calm so we had no trouble. We saw a couple of humpback whales and a pod of smallish orcas. We also viewed otters, eagles and even a few puffins, so it was a pretty successful boat ride. After the tour we had some fish and chips at a local brewpub. 

On the water, leaving Seward, AK.

After Seward, we decided to spend the weekend back at Williwaw and beat the crowds. We drove into Anchorage to get the oil changed on the Tacoma and did some shopping at Fred Meyers and Walmart. The next day we visited the  Begich Boggs visitors center at Portage Lake. There were some tiny remnants of ice bobbing around there!

The tiny ice bergs of Portage Lake.

Here's a closeup!

After going to the visitors center, we returned to camp and walked along a trail which runs beside the creek. We spotted a large group of salmon lurking in the creek! They weren't moving anywhere, indeed, when we checked on them the next day, they were still at the same spot!

The salmon at Williwaw!

We also took a short drive to Hope, it's a cute little place and you can get WIFI at the little library.

At this point, we were feeling the effects of the colds we had both caught. We decided to take a couple more days off and stay at Williwaw to recover. After a days rest we took a short day trip to Girdwood where we could get water from the fire station there. The station was next door to the library where we were able to use the WIFI. Picked up some soup for dinner and gassed up.

After a short nap we visited Byron Glacier Trailhead in our quest to view as many glaciers as we could! While hiking we noticed people collecting orangish berries which they called salmon berries. We tried one but they seemed quite tart. Maybe the one I tried was not ripe.

On Byron Glacier trail.

We left Williwaw in the rain after a 5 day stay! We stopped at Anchorage's Fred Meyers for supplies and gas, continued through Palmer and made it to King Mountain CG for the night. It was wet and cool so we didn't do much at King Mountain, actually, it doesn't look like there was too much to do anyway!

We've decided to pass through Glennallen and turn north for Tok. It was sunny the next morning and we enjoyed the scenery as we drove by the Matanuska Glacier. This was the largest glacier we had encountered, it's huge!

Matanuska Glacier

We proceeded to Glennallen and had lunch at the library's parking lot. We got gas at the junction of  Highway 1 and Highway 4, the "Hub of Alaska". Turning north, the two highways run together for a short way, then split with Highway 1 going on the Tok. We followed Highway 1 but stopped at Grizzly Lake CG because we wanted to visit the nearby Wrangell-St. Elias Nat'l Park, a park we had never even heard of before!

Grizzly Lake CG was actually pretty nice and reasonably priced with electric hookups and included showers. The campground's dog came by for a visit and stayed a while. This is where we ended July, we had now been on the road for over a month, since June 24th!

The campground host at Grizzly Lake!

We spent the first of  August visiting Wrangell-St. Elias NP. Took a short hike and drove around a bit. This is a gigantic park but we only scratched the surface. It would be worth another visit someday.

We then took the short drive back to Tok and stayed at the same RV park, (Tundra) that we did on the way out. Did a little shopping and hit Fast Eddies for dinner.

We had a long drive the next day, from Tok to Lake Creek Provincial Park. Getting through Canadian customs was a breeze but the roads were pretty bad in Yukon, lots of  gravel and chunky pavement.  Lake Creek had plenty of spots available. 

Campsite at Lake Creek.

We now drove to Haines Junction. At the start, the roads were, again, horrible but by the time we got to Destruction Bay we found that the construction we had encountered going up was now complete and the roads were excellent! So we made very good time going to Haines Junction. From there we turned south and stopped at Kathleen Lake, a very nice provincial park.

At Kathleen Lake.

The drive on the Haines Highway had great scenery. We quickly made it to Haines and then through to Chilkoot Lake CG where we planned to stop for a couple of days to spot bears.

At the river there is a "fish weir", a netting is stretched across the river with an opening in the middle which allows the Fish and Wildlife personnel to count fish passing through. Occasionally they will pull a fish out and collect DNA samples. Now this weir funnels the fish into the center and this attracted bears! When the F&W people are gone, bears routinely climb onto the weir and grab salmon. We saw a mother with four cubs in tow here.

Bears on the weir on the Chilkoot River.

Viewing the bears!

Haines is a cruise ship port!

We also visited Haines while here and looked into getting a ferry ride to Skagway. We could only get a ferry if we wanted to wait another 3 days. We didn't, so we decided to drive back to Whitehorse. On re-entering Canada, Canada customs decided to search our trailer. This was the first time we had been searched and the guy really went through it! It must have been quite a workout, too, lifting the mattress and all. 

After that we drove on through Haines Junction and stayed at Pine Lake Junction again. This time there was some sort of event coming up and so there were no first come/ first served sites available. The camp host was very helpful though and helped us get an account online and reserve a site that way!

Our next stop was just past Whitehorse at Caribou CG. a little private site which was a little rough, but the food and entertainment was excellent! They have a sort of permanent food truck that puts out some very nice European food and they even serve German beer! The currywurst was quite good. A lot of the help are foreign students over here on some sort of  work/study program. There was also live entertainment which we enjoyed. The campground also offered showers and laundry which we used. Overall, this was a pleasant change from our usual camping experience.

At this point we decided to forego a side trip to Skagway. I didn't feel like it would be much different from the other coastal towns we had already visited and it would have been a long drive. So we decided to press on to the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. Driving through Teslin we saw a "Check Fuel" sign posted so we decided to go back to town and fill up. We also saw a highway sign which said "Alaska Highway Closed at Big Creek"! (When we stopped at Continental Divide and asked about it, we were told it was had been posted for the fires and should have been turned off!) We finally made it to Big Creek CG for the night.

From Big Creek we followed the AlCan to the junction with Highway 37 just before Watson Lake. We now left the AlCan and were on the Cassiar Highway. Our first night was spent at Kinaskan Lake.

Kinaskan Lake 

We continued down Hwy 37 to just past the junction with Hwy 37A, (Stewart/Hyder road), and stopped at Meziadin Lake Provincial Park. We stayed here for a couple of days while we explored Stewart and Hyder.

The drive to Stewart is a special one with views of glaciers. We stopped to snap photos as we headed to Hyder.

Bear Glacier

Reaching Hyder, we went to the bear viewing site, hoping to spot more bears. The river was filled with spawning salmon! We figured we were sure to see some bears. But we did not see a singe one!

Lots of fish but no bears!

Before heading back to our campground, we had dinner at a Mexican Restaurant in Stewart and the food was great!

 

The next day we returned to Hyder and drove out to possibly our last glacier sighting.

The last glacier we'd see on this trip!

After the glacier spotting we returned to Hyder and had the fish and chips at the "Bus". When I had done my motorcycle trip in 2019, I stopped here for lunch and they were operating from the old schoolbus. They have now moved into a little kitchen adjacent to their house. Still great food, though.

You can still see the bus beside the kitchen!

We now departed Meziadan CG and continued southward. We made it to Tyhee Lake Provincial Park just outside of the town of Smithers. It's a pretty nice park with showers, which is always a plus. We decided to pick up a new battery for the trailer in town. The guys at the store had to charge it up overnight and told us to come by the next morning. We then had dinner at "Telly's" which turned out to be a pretty nice place, even though it didn't look like much from the outside.

We picked up the battery the next day and drove to Fort Fraser CG. Nice flush toilets and sinks! It was raining so we really didn't do much there.

We then drove through Prince George and stopped for some groceries before continuing down to Ten Mile Lake CG near Quesnal. We had a rest day here and I installed the new battery in the Casita. We visited Pinnacles Provincial Park to see the "Hoo Doo" formations. 

Hoo-Doos!

We left Ten Mile Lake and came back to Sunset CG at Green Lake where we had stopped on our way up! No swimming this time, we did notice that temperatures were finally starting to warm! The next day we traveled to Emery Creek. After setting up we took a side trip to Chillawak to visit the Escape Trailer factory and showroom to get a close look at their trailers. Very nice, we may upgrade to one someday. We had dinner and a beer at Old Yale brewery.

While at Emery Creek we noticed some salmon in the river and a few in the creek itself! It was interesting to that the fish reach this spot. They must have been spawning nearby as there were several dead ones in the creek.

In Emery Creek.

Leaving Emery Creek, we suddenly realized that our time in Canada was almost done! We drove through the mountains one last time before reaching Okanagan Lake, and passed through the border at Osoyoos. We passed through customs pretty easily, although we did have to surrender our avocado! We camped at the Veteran's Park campground at Oroville Washington.

Thus ended the Canadian and Alaskan portions of our trip, but we still had a few more site to see before we got home...stay tuned for part 3!

Here's the link to this trip's photos

Our last day in Canada!