“USA 🇺🇸 Canada 🇨🇦 ~Scenic Drive from Dawson City Yukon to Haines Alaska”

• August 5, 2023
• By Pen
• 0 Comment

When we departed Dawson City, the next morning, after our fun, but short, stop, I was once again thinking about the roads. I had read some reports from other RVers on how awful the section through Stewart Crossing and Pelly Crossing would be, due to construction, so we were underway by 7AM.

We have encountered a lot of terrible roads and roads with construction this summer, but it has been doable, if going very slow. I honestly can’t imagine the roads being worse than what we’ve already experience over the last few months, getting to Alaska and being IN Alaska, but I guess we will find out.

Dawson City to Stewart Crossing
Construction:
3 h
111 miles

⬆️ There is definitely some major road damage and  construction to contend with on this stretch, but it was all flat, and not too bad. Just slow going, mostly, and some soft mud that splattered around. There is a pilot car involved.

Stewart Crossing To Pelly Crossing:
4.5 h
44 miles

⬆️ This stretch of construction was about as bad as Top Of The World, but way shorter of a distance, thank goodness. It was very washboarded, which is impossible to go around, like the majority of potholes we run into. We were crawling along and it was quite dusty, again, too.

⬆️ HOW I WISH IT WAS 46 MINUTES!

I have come to the conclusion that those traveling up from the lower 48, into Alaska via TOTW, who are going from Pelly Crossing to Dawson City; it may just be the first bad road experienced on their journey, just like for us, coming up the AlCan and hitting up our first major bad road. This can come as quite a shock; the bad roads, but after awhile it becomes a necessary part of visiting Alaska, by vehicle.

Having driven, and experienced the AlCan, Top Of The World and nearly all or parts of all the road systems IN Alaska; todays construction, while not great, was still better and shorter (in the long run) than anything we’ve been up against, yet.

I would say: if time is a concern, leave TOTW out as a crossing option. The Alcan, in my opinion is the better of the two routes and has the shorter bad road to contend with; though a six or seven hour travel day there, did not feel short at the time, on the rufff part of Destruction Bay to Tok.

Leaving from Tok, on State Hwy 2 is a good road, but the road turned bad quite quickly, after turning off that Tok Highway, for Hwy 5, and the road continued to be in bad shape through Chicken on the Taylor Highway, TOTW, Dawson City, and down to Carmacks (where the pavement finally improved) on the Klondike Highway.
Total Miles: 406 miles

⬆️ Blue route
10.5 hours 

By the time we reached Carmacks, from Pelly, I relaxed a bit. The roads were once again, pretty good. There was the occasional pothole and tough (repaired) spots, but mostly good. Most importantly, we got a break from all the construction!

We turned off of the Klondike Highway, to Alaska 1, just after Whitehorse, and from there, we headed for Haines Junction. This turn-off had us on the old Alaskan Highway for awhile.

One can go straight on the Klondike Highway and head through Carcross, BUT, to get to Haines from Skagway, it would require taking a ferry. We made no such reservations for that, so we will drive to Haines….and later do a walk-on ferry to Skagway for a few days, which I did arrange. In some cases, ferries can speed things up, but the unloading process, via a huge elevator for vehicles and RV’s (one at a time) can be a very slow, causing any gains on time to be erased.

By the time we found a pull-off for the night, we had been at it for 10.5 hours, since leaving Dawson City. We took three breaks, total, throughout the day, including a fuel stop, and just kept at it. We both really wanted to put the worst of these roads behind us, for good (hopefully). We are beyond tired of them, after this adventure.

Just Sayin

We found a pullout place between the turn-off of the Klondike Highway and Haines Junction. We warmed up dinner, then settled in for the evening.

10.5 hours

I know, one day, when we look back on our summer; RVing in Alaska, we will recall all the fun parts, and not so much the hard parts. We have done and seen so much, and every bit has been quite special. For now, it’s just too fresh, yet. The highs have been incredibly high, but the lows have been terribly low.
I am confident, Time will sort it all out.

In our case, we had five solid weeks of day and night rain with low clouds and zero views. (huge bonus of driving Alaska are the views). Secondly, Jonah broke down and had to be towed four times! (we had her restored prior, and it took a year) we are unhappy customers with our restoration guy who obviously did shoddy work, for a lot of our money, but that’s on-going drama I won’t get into right now.

We live a very big life, and always jump in with both feet. Fortunately for us, we planned a whole summer in Alaska and not four weeks, or less. We adapted through the unplanned breakdowns and managed to salvage every excursion I arranged. We missed out on some side trip scenic drives, when our Bug was in the shop, though; but the rain would have hampered that, anyway.

Anywho….

Not having wifi, all I can do each evening, since leaving Chistochina, is process my photos which I can do offline, and stay up on my writing. How I will find the time to catch up on blogging, when I do get wifi, is a mystery, yet to be solved. We are always so busy exploring and adventuring, doing new things to blog about, in current times; playing catch-up is not as much fun.
I would end up trading sleeping for blogging, till I got it all current.

Next day, was another beautiful day, sans smoke haze, still, we departed our boondocking spot, somewhere in the Ibex Valley, and we started out again for Haines, Alaska.

According to the map, we had 329 kilometers to go, which is around 220 miles: four hours by car, and at least five hours by Motorhome; towing, if the roads continued to be decent…. And They Were!

Like Tok and Whitehorse, we also drove through Haines Junction, a second time.

We put in a very hard and long day yesterday, intentionally, so this day would be more tolerable. Todays drive would put us next to the Kluane Mountains, which makes for a breathtaking drive, all the way over a pass. Definitely another fine place to view the scenic beauty, all around us in the Yukon.

We would not see much wildlife, being in the Yukon. For some reason, it was a bit scarce, compared to British Columbia, on the driveshafts, but those ground squirrels were alway on the road. Yes, we brake for all wildlife. We missed them all!
Whew!

Also on this day, we would cross into British Columbia, from the Yukon. Right away I was looking for big game wildlife, since there was so much back in May on our way up. But, we would only just touch in BC, briefly, before crossing back in to Alaska.

When we return to the lower 48, we will have a drive through British Columbia again, and we are looking forward to that.

Had I known about the construction delays and roads, I would have planned a three-day drive for this side trip, but I reserved and arranged, way back in February, when there was still snow on the ground up here; before anybody knew which roads would get construction.

We were so ready for our wonderful ten-night stop in Haines, Alaska; (including two nights of those in Skagway to explore)

Yay, back in Alaska!

Enjoy the Scenic Photos from Our Two Drive-Days From Dawson City, to Cross the Border, Back in to Alaska, to Haines! ⬇️

For those who want to drive to the the Artic Circle, this would be on the Dempster. We chose to fly and were able to go to the furthest, Northern settlement of Barrow (Utqiagvik) where I dipped my toe in the Arctic Ocean, and we walked on the iced up Arctic Ocean, AND best off all, saw two Polar Bears! Epic trip!

In Canada it is kilometres, not miles

The aftermath of yet another fire in Canada. Its why we had smokey haze

Fresh new morning, after Boondocking.  Today, we would make it back to Alaska!

Briefly, we entered British Columbia, before entering Alaska

Back to Miles from Kilometers

By this time, you may notice my photos (especially the sky) looks a little funky. My Nikon was dirty when I started our trip, by no fault of my own. In our travels, through the covid era, we noticed it was very difficult to fine a camera store that cleaned cameras and lenses in-house. In fact, most camera stores were closed. I was running out of time, so I contacted the camera store by our house in California, where we have gone, before. We were in Kingman, Arizona at the time, so I made arrangements to ship my camera and one lens to the camera store in California, and they knew I would pick up in person, on our way through, going north. This gave them about two weeks to get the deed done.

I contacted the store, a few days before arriving in California, to confirm my camera and lens were all ready to go. I got a confirmation that they were ready. I stopped in, paid for the work, and then there was a slight delay in “where my camera and lens were.” WHAT?  Finally, they found my camera and it had the receipt wrapped around the lens.

Unfortunately, the first time I would use my camera, would be after we left California.  Guess what? My camera was still dirty; same with the lens! I couldn’t believe it. I contacted the owner and inquired.  He was so sure that it was cleaned. He got ahold of his “guy,” to confirm that he did.  Now, If I had a clean camera and lens, would I be contacting them, after the fact? So I got my $50 back, but that still left me with a dirty camera set-up.  This means, I spent about 7 minutes on average with every picture I take (primarily with blue sky) to clean up all the dirty spots. On top of this, I am shooting through our big front window on the motorhomes, for travel days. This means there are additional bugs and/or rain, depending not he weather. After a thousand pictures I am beyond burned out.  This camera set-up is best for wildlife because of it’s a zoom. It’s also been great for scenic shots.

Starting today, I will begin using my Fuji Film Camera (mirrorless) which I love, but I don’t have as much reach with it. My Nikon and lens are dirtier now, than when I started, with the kind of adventure we have had this summer, and the cleanup for the processing time in light room, no longer makes sense. I can only do so much to make the sky look good, and now, I’m failing at it. Its got about 100 dirty spots of varying sizes.

I might not get the reach, but my photos will be cleaner and easier to process with my Fuji, because its perfectly clean, especially with my time spent fighting with the internet to get anything uploaded.

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