NOTE: Before reading this blog, I highly recommend you first read The Dempster Highway Experience by MFI published August 27, 2024. Her blog helps put this one in proper perspective. We departed Eagle Plains mid morning, and almost immediately it started raining. This made for slow cautious driving and hampered my picture taking. Twenty-one miles…
NOTE: Before reading this blog, I highly recommend you first read The Dempster Highway Experience by MFI published August 27, 2024. Her blog helps put this one in proper perspective. Our next leg was 109 miles to Eagle Plains (population 8-9 depending) and a 1-night stay at “an oasis in the wilderness” according to The…
MFI has done all the driving since we began our RV adventure in September 2019. It was her choice, since she readily admitted to being a lousy passenger, and she credited me with being a better navigator. That being the case, she endured much more stress from driving than me (sitting, as I did, in…
Part One – Getting Ready “It was a dark and stormy night”. This is most accurate way to set the mood for this part of our adventure. .Once we decided we really intended to go to the Artic Ocean, we began prepping in earnest. As RV-ers, it’s necessary to plot the route, plan the stops,…
Our final stop, before driving the Dempster Highway north to the Arctic Ocean, was Dawson City, YT (population 1,557). From Tok, we drove a short distance on the Alaska Highway (AK 2), turned onto the Taylor Highway (AK 5) to Jack Wade, AK, then proceeded onto the Top of the World Highway, which ended at the…
Before leaving Red Eagle Lodge, Richard Denny mentioned several times that the Tok Cutoff Highway (AK 1) had shifted 17 feet during the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake. He told us the exact mile marker, so we wouldn’t miss it, and sure enough, it was eactly where he had indicated. Truthfully, the shift didn’t appear to…
The distance from Anchorage to Tok was simply too far to squeeze into a day’s drive. According to RV Trip Wizard, our only interim-stop option was Red Eagle Lodge in Chistochina (population 60). This lodge was a throw back to Alaska’s roadhouse system, when in the late 19th early 20th centuries entrepeneurs built them to…
To get to the Arctic Ocean, we needed to drive 654 miles across the Alaskan interior, cross back into Canada, and reach Dawson City, YK for final preparations. The travel plan for Alaska included 3-nights in Anchorage, 3-nights in Chistochina, and 3-nights in Tok. Step one was getting back to Anchorage, by far Alaska’s biggest…
Our drive to Soldotna (population 4,719) was only 94 miles west toward Cook’s Inlet. We passed through some of the best fishing areas in Alaska along the Russian and Kenai Rivers. As we drove past the confluence of the two rivers on our left, I was describing to MFI and Hanna my view of 10…
The Harding Icefield was an ice cap sitting atop the Kenai (Key’-nigh) Mountains, which formed Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula 80 miles due south of Anchorage on the Gulf of Alaska. This ice cap was the largest of the four remaining icefields lying solely in the United States, and covered 700 square miles, or 1,100 square miles…
