Portrait of a Roadtrip Part 7: Into Alaska

Into Alaska

        Before I begin today's blog in earnest, I think it's a good time to begin to reflect on the trip as a whole, just as I did on this day, crossing the Alaskan border. Plenty of people visit Alaska, in fact wherever we went in the state, we found other people with similar aims to ourselves. We found backpackers, motorcyclists, retired couples and young students. Sometimes we encountered crowds and in many places we were the only visitors in days or weeks. It was around this time that something began to become rather clear in my mind, although Alaska is a well visited location, not many people (in fact nobody that we met in the seven weeks of traveling) did it the way we were doing it.

 
Many people seemed to tour up in their RVs, often taking ferries and thus bypassing the hardest and longest drives. There seemed to be a good deal of tourists who would fly to Anchorage and then rent vehicles in order to tour the local area or perhaps even the south coast. Of course there is the ferry, the quick and easy for your standard American overweight tourist to wobble onshore, buy cruise ship owned jewelry and claim they’ve seen Alaska.

However, in all our travels we did not meet one other person who had driven from the mainland states, camped in a tent and ventured into the cities and backcountry alike. I don't mean this in a smug way, rather it was a strange realization that the best way to see Alaska is also the option least taken. 

The vast majority of campsites along the Alaskan Highway cost under $10, are spacious and beautiful and yet on any given night we would either have them to ourselves or share with one or two other hardy campers.

It occurred to me on this day, as we crossed over into Alaska and looked back on our first two weeks of travel, that we should document this trip and someday find a way to show other people how hitting the road with a backpack and some camping gear can really change the way you go traveling.

     
      So, on July 16th, just over two weeks since we left Chicago, some 4,130 miles down the road, we found ourselves on the Top of the World' highway, bumping along at a timid pace toward the Alaskan border. After an initial 60 mile stint the road assumed its normal posture, unpaved, upturned and rock laden. Despite this, the drive was extremely enjoyable with breathtaking views on both sides of the road. The highways name was extremely apt, we truly felt like we were on top of the world.

The top of the world highway begins shortly after the River Crossing at Dawson. After a few hours of driving you arrive at the United States’ most northerly border crossing. Over the years I've crossed many US borders, usually between Canada and the southern mainland states, not once have I crossed without feeling anxious or strangely, and without reason, guilty. On this occasion we were greeted by a solitary officer whose accommodation, a small wooden hut, was literally a stone's throw from his border office. He was pleasant and even offered us the chance to stamp our passports inside.

It was actually quite a special moment and I hadn't expected to feel so happy or relieved as I did. Two weeks of constant traveling on extremely poor roads through beautiful, but desolate landscapes had made this the crescendo of a bumpy two week pilgrimage.

We took a few moments to look around and take photos. The air was fresh and our adrenaline was pumping, at the time I couldn't have told you why, but everything felt different.

        As we continued along the ‘Top of the World’ highway we began to descend through the mountains. The first town we encountered on the way was the town of Chicken. Whether this is official or not, chicken must be the smallest town on any US map. It consists of a shop, cafe and the post office. How on earth a post office was built to supply mail to one person is anyone's guess but here it proudly sits. The gift store is actually quite cool, tacky T-shirts and mugs line the walls as well as a multitude of ‘Top of the World Highway’ merchandise. 

     After we grabbed a coffee and recovered from the general awe of the place, we pushed on, eventually reaching the bottom of the mountains and our first paved, clean and crisp Alaskan Highway.

We sped through the town of Toc, tempting as it was to stop we had our location for the evening in mind, a cabin a couple of hours north in the Chena Springs area.

The cabin was one that we had booked online months before, it's what the US parks service call a wilderness cabin. Essentially it's an empty log cabin with no amenities, just a roof, a log burner and a beautiful location. We arrived with plenty of time to spare and made a nice meal that evening using the camping stove and some supplies we had left from the last shop we’d done a few days earlier in Whitehorse. Despite the strange amount of bees and wasps that were making it a personal mission to destroy my happiness, we managed to have a wonderful evening before retiring to our sleeping pads inside.

        We were so far north now that the sun, despite dropping below the horizon, never quite dropped far enough for darkness to prevail. Instead, after around 11.30 at night, the forest became a strange eerie environment like something out of a Grimm fairytale. To my amazement we discovered that there was also no lock on the cabin door, and despite having slept in a tent for the last few weeks, I found quite it quite unnerving.

This night was perhaps the most restless night I had on the entire road trip. Throughout the night various animals scurried across the roof of the cabin providing all kinds of unsettling noises. However, nothing could have prepared me for the clear and distinct sound, at 2.30am, of wood being chopped outside in the woodshed.
        I sat up in bed, eagerly awaiting a second noise. After a number of seconds it did not disappoint, another loud bang from the left of the cabin and the follow-up tumbling sounds of wood hitting the floor. I jumped up and headed for the window in a state of panic wondering how to tackle a strange person chopping wood in the middle of the night in a desolate forest, but as I glanced outside I saw nothing.      
        Grabbing the bear spray I headed outside and did a circle of the cabin. In the eerie midnight light I could see everything quite clearly, there was no man, no animal, and the woodshed door seemed to be closed. Eventually I fell asleep but never found a source of the wood chopping.
       Over the next few weeks we would have bear encounters, animals scratching at our tent in the night and wolves tracking us in the backcountry, but that night was by far my most restless.

Here is a couple of videos which nicely bring you up to date with where we are on the trip so far:

Part 1

Part 2

Come back next week to keep up with the journey. Make sure you share this blog with anyone you think might enjoy a crazy road trip adventure! 

Keep traveling.