Thursday 1 September 2005 - WHERE'S THE JUICE?
From Lake Laberge to Haines Junction YT
MORNING: Arise fairly early and regretfully roll away from "the marge of Lake Labarge" (sic). A wonderful play of light on the lake last night, shifting colors and shadows, faces in the sky, paintings in the distance. This morning we say goodbye to the German priest Kristof who is anxious to hop over and take our campsite. Maureen notes that his thin sharp face is straight from a 15th century etching. He says that Lufthansa flies nonstop from Frankfurt to Whitehorse and Fairbanks in this season, thus the many German tourists hereabouts. Others were in this very campground, chattering away in the night. Maureen says we were surrounded by them. Circle the wagons, folks.
We return to the Alaska Highway, backtracking south on the Klondike Highway to the edge of Whitehorse, then aiming west towards Haines Junction and Destruction Bay on the edge of Kluane (clew-AW-nee) National Park and Reserve of Canada (full name). The country we drove through just two days ago, then just turning color, is now much brighter and more intense. Some bright reds even, topping off the oranges-yellows-greens. A glorious palette, just as frothy as if splattered on unbelievable motel-room paintings. And a churning chaos of clouds stomping over the rocky eastern mountains like a herd of stampeding elephants, only not so gray.
Driving west from the fringes of Whitehorse, we pass and cross the Takhini River and the exposed bed of ancient glacial Lake Champagne, gone with the end of the last ice age. We traverse immense sand dunes; the guidebooks say they're dust resulting from glacial scouring of the rocks, very fine and easily wind-borne. The mountains around us get higher and darker, topped with snowfields, not just termination dust. And 'way up ahead now we can see the outskirts of the mighty St Elias Range, peaks 12,000 to 20,000 feet high; at the moment, hooded with white curds of clouds. The forests here have less color than back in the Yukon River area, and the RV battery charging system is still malfunctioning. Bother. I *do* hope there's a repair shop in Haines Junction.
ROADWORK: Like Montana, Yukon seems to have but two seasons: ten months of deep winter, and two months of road construction. We've encountered numerous road projects, some short and sweet, some extending for kilometer after kilometer with the asphalt scraped away, the roadway being widened and re-rocked and hopefully eventually re-paved, but for now just a stew of rocks and swirling dust. The signs rightfully warn of EXTREME DUST HAZARDS.
...but we pass that, and now we're in the lee of the St Elias Mtns, looking rather as if we're approaching the east front of the High Sierras only more so. Great hulking beasts looming up into the occluded atmosphere. Along the road are signs offering various services in Haines Junction: flights over the glaciers, dogsled tours, smoked salmon. And the cheapest gas til Alaska! Cheaper than Whitehorse, fer sure.
Meanwhile, hurricane Katrina, having wiped out a large portion of US gas and oil production, is driving petrol prices even higher. We just heard an announcement that the standard Yukon price is going up to $1.20 per liter of regular. There are omens that stateside prices may not be far behind. So much for economic recovery.
AFTERNOON: Into Haines Junction. Aha, an RV repair shop! The busy proprietor says he can't look at us until late afternoon; try the other two shops in town. The next guy says he doesn't do auto electric, and rolls down his door. At the third, the tall thin bearded balding fellow with a German accent says it's definitely the alternator, he can get one in by Saturday morning, and it'll be expensive; but if we don't do it, more serious damage could result. Bother. So we'll be parked in a bare lot (with power) here for a couple days. We daren't walk around — the place swarms with little mosquitoes. There's a nice view of craggy snowy mountains from our window. Make the most of it, eh?
NOTE: Chris at BJ's in Watson Lake was apparently unable to diagnose our real problem; he said the alternator was good. The guys at Fireweed RV in Whitehorse were apparently too lazy to try to diagnose our problem. We are unimpressed (to say the least) with them. Well, now you know who to avoid on your next trip up the Alaska Highway.
Meanwhile, the tall thin ranger-interpreter at the Kluane NP Visitors Center speaking familiarly with German tourists recommended this cheap RV parking lot, pointed out places we can walk and see, and said that Martin, our mechanic, was honest. But she might be his wife.
The local general store is also the bank (window open 1-4 weekday afternoons), Internet access point (two coin-op terminals), Post Canada agent, supplier of groceries and hardware and fishing gear (at incredible stratospheric prices), a fast-food outlet, and probably has a casino and brewery and bakery in the basement too. Haines Junction consists mainly of fuel stops and rapid accommodations, some with nice mountain views. Bet it gets cold here in the winter. We'd rather live elsewhere, eh? Who migrates to towns like this?
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Friday 2 Sept 2005 - FORCED LAYOVER, HAINES JCT
Waiting For The Electrician Or Someone Like Him
The subtitle above refers to a classic Firesign Theatre comedy album. Don't worry if you don't get it. You can sit here in the waiting room, or you can wait here in the sitting room. Heh heh.
So we're not actually waiting for the electrician, just for the new alternator. $350 plus labor plus incidentals. Ouch. The alternative is to try to run without an alternator, until the old one seizes up and breaks the serpentine (master drive) belt and causes more damage. Right. So here we are, sitting in a cheap RV parking lot with a nice view during the day and a nearby truck sitting in place, running its diesel engine all night. Will we get any sleep? Right.
We hang around the RV almost all day, not daring to drive, not daring to walk through the skit-swarms, just gazing out the windows as clouds slowly lift to reveal snowier peaks. Read, compute (organize pictures), doze, await escape. This has been a journey of many escapes. Such is not a lot of fun, especially when expensive. Bother.
Friday 2 Sept 2005 - MAUREEN'S REPORT
Ric is shedding. Not a few head hairs, but piles of hair and skin like a very large hairy sasquatch in summer. A replacement for Jake the very hairy shedding Golden Retriever. They are equally cute and fuzzy and friendly. Though Jake never made my dinner.
Well, plop me in a trailer park with a BIG view of the St. Elias mountains on the edge of Yukon and Alaska. For only $16.50 Canadian a night we have a million dollar view, my hairy shedding husband and I. Not a bad spot to be stuck waiting for a new alternator for the old C class RV. And it is getting worn. Probably has little or no resale value.. with gas at $3 or more a gallon in the states. Maybe we could sell it in Mexico... where gas prices are state controlled and the lack of winterization wouldn't matter one tortilla.
The urge to go north to Alaska is strong... a huge magnet pulling me to the places of my youth where anything was possible and everything was beautiful. Where everything was strange and new. I want to see and feel it all again. The radio station tuned to strange new names ...Chugach , Talkeetna, Kenai, Eagle River. The fridge full of fresh salmon and only five bucks till pay day,(well maybe not the broke part). When the mountains filled the tiny kitchen window with their grandeur and possibility and no restaurateur in downtown Anchorage knew how to make an ice cream soda. When the biggest building was the Captain Crook hotel and the city was just shoveling off the earthquake mud of 1966. When all the land between 4th avenue and the train station at the bottom of the hill had shivered like chocolate pudding and swallowed the buildings. When people climbed out second story windows now made ground level... and aftershocks rocked my world..
In Anchorage, I lived in a Second Street efficiency unit made cheap by the fear factor on the edge of destruction. Big and comfortable though diminished in value by the Bible-thumping landlords wanting to save everyone from the beast. Quick, hurry, get inside before they know we are home or... put on that happy face and let it roll over you for a break in rent. That is not what I miss.
I miss the wide open spaces, the chance to invent myself everyday. To make friends from around the world. To fish the lakes and hike the streams, to see the animals, the Grizzly at the edge of a creek, to hide from a mother moose's protection of her calf,to zoom through the wide world-without-end valleys of color and wildlife and mountains and sky. To be young and new.
That was another life, when waiting in a snow storm for the bus to town was de riguer in winter and a bug appetizer in summer. Even the smells were different then crisp and clean, evergreen and water. I am waiting for them now.
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Saturday 3 Sept 2005 - AWAITING ANOTHER LAYOVER
Haines Junction to a nameless lake near Kluane NP
Bright and early, Martin installs the new alternator. $436 including labor and the charging system still doesn't work. The AMP light is on, meaning the starter battery ain't being charged. Martin applies the Ford Computer-Code Reader but says it tells him nothing, he can't get far enough into the computer. Go to the Ford dealer in Whitehorse, he says. His garage and motel bear FOR SALE signs. We feel discouraged.
But there's no use going anywhere for repairs until after the Labor Day holiday. So we'll park by this nameless lake over the weekend, watch the countryside (colorful trees crawling up hillsides to the east beyond the far shore; dramatic rugged cloud-shrouded mountains looming to the west) and try to have fun. How?
This is rapidly becoming our worst journey since the last Alaska trip (1999) — see my Northern Exposure I notes for the grim details. We haven't even reached Alaska yet and don't know if we will. Damn. Are our northern travels cursed? Of course not. Curses don't work. It's just the friggin' finger of fate flummoxing us, right?
Meanwhile, I felt the urge to emit write another essay musing involving travel, WE ARE WHAT WE: Defined and Haunted are We. Read it if you dare. See what happens when I have too much free time?
DOGS & LOGS & FROGS etc: A longish (-in-the-tooth) flatbed stakeside truck carrying 1/3 load of firewood and two big black hairy dogs noses up to the lake in front of our parked-parallel-to-the-shore RV. Two guys in jeans and tees and woods-jackets get out. The moustachio'd guy heads into the bush to pee. The bouncy Alsatian mixes jump down and dash to the water. The smooth-faced guy picks up a six-foot-long tree branch from the shore, throws it into the water. The dogs give chase and haul it back.
Mr Moustachio returns from his urgency, grabs a 12x18 inch sawed log from the truck's stockpile and heaves it far into the lake, after a few feints. Both dogs leap in. One stops after the first jump, takes a couple drinks, waits for the other to retrieve the heavy log. As Busy nears the shore, Lazy jumps to tussle over the prize. Moustachio throws the log back in, the dogs behave as before. The action repeats several times. Between throws, both Busy and Lazy shake themselves well, their long wet fur promoting point-source rainstorms which never quite extinguish Moustachio's cigarette. A good time is had by all.
Finally, Moustachio taps the back of the truck with his hand. Busy drags the log over, throws it and himself into the truck. Moustachio moves the log forward but Busy still wants to haul it around, dragging his load near the precipice, only letting go when the truck starts moving away. And a-homewards they go.
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Sunday 4 September 2005 - LAYOVER: A DAY OF REST
A nameless lake near Kluane National Park of Canada
A good day to spend parked ten feet from this flat lake ringed by infinite inconsequential forests. A good day to lay about and read as the wind rattles our coach, ducks hunt mercilessly, odd drivers stop to drain their dogs and/or sniff the invisible air. A good day to write ARE WE THERE YET? Destinations and How to Attain Them. A brief stroll to survey the immense snowy heights behind us, and that's about all.
Yesterday at the we-have-everything general store in Haines Junction, the ATM was still down and we swooned at produce prices. Five-dollar celo bags: five pounds of potatoes or ten pounds of carrots. We took the latter. At checkout, customers behind us marveled over the bag of carrots: how BIG, how CANADIAN they are! I've never before had anyone admire my purchased carrots. Go figure.
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Monday 5 September 2005 - LABOR DAY! TAKE OFF!
There's No Escape From Haines Junction, Yukon
MORNING: We leave our lakeside aerie, journey back to Haines Junction. When we first got there the other day I thought I detected a very weak WiFi signal but we sniffed all over town today and couldn't find any, so net access and updates will just have to wait a little longer. We rolled southward on the long 140-mile run to Haines, Alaska, dipping through forests of tall poplars gone to color, mostly shades of green and yellow, some reds. To the west, the front ranges of the Kluane, jagged and snow-encrusted, looking like a monochrome negative image of sharks' teeth after a kill.
Haines and Skagway sit on different ears at the head of Lynn Canal, the longest fjord in North America. So we won't actually get much of an ocean view from either. Juneau and Douglas sit at the Lynn's mouth like crusty coldsores. Skagway is actually at the head; Haines sits on a peninsula across the way with no land communications except maybe mountain goats.
At Haines Junction we crossed the Dezadeash River and Trail; further south is the large Dezadeash Lake which is pure glacial melt. Any ducks and grebes there are wearing wetsuits or electric socks, or they're riding pontoons and keeping their feet out of the water.
TELLING STORIES: We ride past the immensity of the forest, every tree its own color and shape, the birches and poplars and aspens and a few conifers. Each tree tells a story of its microclimate and soil; many of these stories are very similar. In LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, Mark Twain writes as a riverboat pilot that every ripple on the big river told its own story of what dangers lurked beneath.
And now according to what CBC news we hear, New Orleans lies greatly destroyed with the Mississippi River pouring, hurricane Katrina having swept away the embankments and levees and defenses. Every ripple tells a story. I just read an account by Nik Cohn (SOLJAS in GRANTA #76) about Rap culture in New Orleans a couple years ago, and the picture he draws of the community is horrific, even without catastrophic hurricanes. He tells of slummified city center partly tarted-up for tourists, surrounded by immense housing projects sequestering the black underclass with no prospects for work or survival other than dealing or rapping, and dying in the process.
I'm reminded of descriptions of Paris and Marseilles and their ring-cities of Le Corbusier hells, projects wherein are stuffed the Arab immigrant underclass, where no French law dare set foot. These entire dysfunctional communities are separate spheres from the world outside. And I wonder, do solutions exist to these toxic puzzles? Have such pathological segregated realms ever been healthily re-integrated into a body politic? What lessons are to be learned, and from where?
Did I mention the wind? It's been cold and gusty. The ambient temp ain't bad, maybe 50°f or more, but with the windchill — ay yi yi! Sacre bleu! Trees are all wobbling around in the mini-tempest. Even from a distance, the surface of Dezadeash Lake is visibly choppy, covered with whitecaps. We're driving into clouds but not really a storm system. I hope.
We shoot through this gnarly valley, insignificant beneath the looming rocky massifs, down to what the map shows as the last hamlet before the international border, Klukshu Village. We thread our way thru stubby colorful trees to a cluster of a couple dozen log cabins, all well-chinked against the winds. We were enticed here by signs offering GIFT SHOPS - TEA AND BANNOCK - 1ST NATION STORYTELLERS - MUSEUM and we arrive and both establishments are closed. Duh, it's Labor Day. Damn. We're too bummed even to stop for some photography.
GOING DEAD: A few miles past Klukshu Village we pull into a nice hideaway by a river for lunch and a stretch; after which, the RV engine won't turn over. Dead batteries, kaput, that's all folks. And we are NOT in sight of the highway. I raise the hood and drag out the jumper cables. We ponder a bit, don our bright yellow and orange jackets, and trudge up to the highway to flag down a car for a jump.
One car goes by, whoooosh. Next is a car pulling a trailer and we don't even try. And now, two cars coming from the south, from Haines. We wave and they both slow down. I explain to the Cougar's young military-looking driver (car packed with personal gear) that we're juiceless, can we get a jump? He says sure, and both cars go down that twisty road 100 yards to where we're stranded behind the trees. By the time I walk down there the two drivers have sized up the situation, connected the jumper cables and are just waiting for me to get there to turn the key.
Ah, it's a couple soldiers rotating up from CONUS to Richardson AFB in Anchorage. Here's a sergeant who spent five years at Ft Bragg, and his colleague from the Dominican Republic via New York City and Monterey, California. Alaska will be a new experience, eh? We chatted a bit, thanked them profusely, and everyone drove off.
We think it prudent to return immediately to Whitehorse, to see if the Ford dealer there can resolve our problems. So, north we go, away from Ketchikan. We roll slowly through Klukshu Village for some photos to prove we've been there. And a bit further north, the battery voltage drops off-scale; the analog speedometer and digital odometer both shut off, not enough juice for radio or lights or anything. Will we even be able to make it to Whitehorse? We don't smell burning insulation anymore; hopefully we can at least get back to Haines Junction.
Did I mention that the situation sucks? It does.
EVENING: So we're back in Haines Junction at the same sparse FasGas RV parking lot, plugged in to main power. Maureen had an idea, so I pulled the starter battery out and shoved it back in the coach next to the RV batteries, connected by jumper cables. The onboard charger (operational when we're plugged in) will hopefully pump enough current into the starter battery that we won't need a jump to get going in the morning, right?
Nothing much to do later. Maureen is going nutz with boredom. So we stroll into town; it's too cold for mosquitoes now. We poke into the quonset-hut church ("Most Photographed Church In The Yukon!") and stare at the ugliest town monument we've ever seen, a huge pine-green cupcake topped with effigies of local lifeforms. Who thought this up? No, don't tell me, please. When can we get away from this crap?
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Tuesday 6 September 2005 - RETREAT TO WHITEHORSE!
Haines Junction to Wolf Creek camp, Yukon
MORNING: Shall I speak of our ignominious retreat to Whitehorse? Naw. Suffice to say that Maureen's idea for charging the starting battery in parallel worked just fine. So now we back in the opposite direction through beautiful countryside with the lovely forests and the lovely hills and mountains and overhanging clouds, yada yada yada.
We hear a bit of CBC (despite their ongoing labor lockout), a program touching on what's still the big news, the aftermath of the Katrina-induced New Orleans catastrophe, and the non-responses of US state and federal governments for so long — asleep-at-the-wheel at best, racist at worst. How many billions were thrown at Homeland Security to establish disaster response and relief plans for American cities, all to no avail? Can other US cities in dire plights expect similar ineptitude? And Mr Bush, like his father, is on vacation during the duration.
Meanwhile the guidebook points out a historic old wooden bridge, the last timber bridge on the Alaska Highway but originating far earlier. We're told to walk upon it, so feel how the play of the timber differs from steel-supported bridges. So we arrive and it's being repaired, roped off, unavailable. Can we try again next time? Will there be a next time?
Across the road, a lumbermill whose billboard bears the slogan, HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT WE SAW? Ha ha ha ha.
LATER: We survived the ride back into Whitehorse, dragged into the Ford dealership, lumbered around back into a service bay. The mechanic found that a wire necessary to keep the alternator going had come loose; a tiny plastic clip had broken. And the serpentine belt was shredding, about to disintegrate. Solution: solder the wire, replace the belt. So for something over $200 MORE we hopefully have the electrical problem solved. Why didn't any of the other bozos working on this notice the loose wire, the frayed belt?
Now we spend the rest of the day throwing money around Whitehorse, resupplying again. Interestingly, many markets in northwestern Canada have coin-operated shopping carts. You shove in a quarter or a loonie (dollar), the cart is yours to use until you re-slot the cart and retrieve your coin. One thus has a financial incentive to return the cart, not just leave it somewhere out in the parking lot. Thus we don't see strong but weak-minded kids pushing long stacks of carts back to the store. That doesn't happen here, except at WalMart.
In an industrial district of Whitehorse, next to an embroidery shop, a Yamaha cycle shop, and a gymnasium, is the retail outlet of Yukon Explosives, the one-stop shop for bombers and pyromaniacs.
EVENING finds us once again at Wolf Creek campground. I don't even like this kind of campground, buried beneath thick conifers; but it's convenient and out of the wind. We shall ponder the question for tomorrow: Ketchikan or catch-a-rest? Yah, we'll probably lay over here tomorrow, take a nature trail, read a lot, the usual. Yawn.
Shall I whine again about how all the car-repair expenses are ruining our trip, limiting our range, wearing us out? Naw. Guess I'll answer some email.
* To Caroline in Bisbee: Sure you can use our front-porch chairs, as long as the house isn't rented.
* To Tracy in Little Rock: Yes, it is indeed possible to have a vale of vapor; behold any fuming politico.
* To Bobbie back home: We're glad to hear it's cooled off there; we're pretty cool here too.
* To Marsha in Tucson: Everything is so far apart up here, like beyond Bisbee only much more so.
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Wednesday 7 September 2005 - WOLF CREEK LAYOVER
Wolf Creek campground outside Whitehorse, YT
We lay around all day, resting up, reading etc. I write THE LIMITS TO TRAVEL: And Just How Far Can We Go? and finish reading THE END OF SCIENCE wherein the author ad-hominem-denigrates many renowned scientists while pursuing his fantastic obsession. Unless it's all a joke, as he says at the end. Whatever. But I'm also prompted to write TRAVEL AND PHYSICS: Applying Modern Physics to Your Journeys, a whole set of mini-guides. STOP ME BEFORE I READ AGAIN!!
We stroll the 2-mile nature trail through spruce-lodgepole-poplar forests past a high overlook of the Yukon River and a beaver-jammed creekbed. Many blown-over spruces, they have a very shallow root system. Guess we won't plant many around our house. The forest floor is soft with sphagnum moss and hairy ferns and old humus. The air is cool and damp. Yes, more rain, like just about every other day we've had in Canada. Will we go to Skagway tomorrow?
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