adventure guide to the alaska highway

[...]... vehicle for the journey The second part (Chapters 4-6) covers the approaches to the Alaska Highway, the highway itself, and the scenic alternate route north – the Cassiar Highway In short, it gets you into the far North Roads are described south to north, unless otherwise noted Locations for the Alaska Highway are given by the old mile markers Over the years, as the highway as been changed, these mile... ceased to be entirely accurate, although they are close to the actual distances The old markers do, however, still exist, and they are the way businesses locate themselves The last section (Chapters 7-16) details the roads that lead off the Alaska Highway These are presented in the order in which they appear if you’re traveling the highway south to north These roads are also described according to the. .. defined by the IN THIS CHAPTER chains of mountains that line the land: to the north lie the Cassiar n The Gold Rushes n Climate and the Omineca Mountains; to the southn The Landscape east, the Columbia Mountains; and to the n The Aurora Borealis east, the Coast Mountains and the mighty n The Cultures Rockies These mountains divide the provn Wildlife ince into sections of plateaus and valleys, rich n Other... easier for the US to annex British Columbia and the Yukon The US attitude toward its new territory might be best summed up by the first building erected in the new lands: a ten-pin alley, in Sitka, to keep the troops from mutinying But when gold was discovered, the tune quickly changed Stampeders on their way to the Yukon went through Alaska, turning Skagway and Haines into thriving towns And when the gold... along the Fraser Canyon to the beaches at Nome When the Klondike strike was made, setting off the largest stampede, a nearby strike at Circle had pretty much been played out and miners there were moving deeper into the territory By the time the 30,000 hopefuls arrived from the US, miners from other rushes nearby already had most of the Klondike staked out As you drive the Alaska Highway, you’ll pass the. .. travel in the state Mountains made overland travel an ordeal until the opening of the Alaska Highway, so the state turned to water routes for its transportation The Yukon River fed most of the state; the Copper River brought ores from the rich Kennecott mines; and Southeast Alaska, home of the state capital of Juneau, was supplied by ships that threaded their way through the channels and straits of the coastal... you’re going to love However, let’s admit to a couple biases right up front: you go to the North to see the wild, to be outside, to see the best that nature has to offer You don’t go up there to eat or sleep at the exact same places you can find at home Chain stores, in all their many permutations, make for mediocre experiences We believe that you get the best trip when you deal with the people who... left to wilderness The rivers of the province are no less impressive than the mountains The largest of them, the Fraser, is 850 miles long and is fed by the Nechako, Quesnel, Chilcotin, and Thompson rivers The Kootenay flows down to the Columbia River in Washington state, and westward to the Pacific, weaving a tortuous path between mountain ranges More than a quarter of a billion birds stop along the. .. of birds nest in the Tetlin Wildlife Refuge alone, right on the path of the highway The modern Alaska Highway is a trip without hardship Towns are mostly tiny – some that look like big cities on the map are little more than crossroads – but frequent enough to keep you supplied with all the necessities Campsites are among the best in the world There are no language problems along the highway, only two... was not only the first to cross the continent, he was one of the greatest explorers the North has ever seen; after dipping his toes in the Pacific Ocean, he headed north, following what is now the Mackenzie River system to the Great Slave Lake and eventually to the coast of the Arctic Ocean He wasn’t really looking for what he found; he kept hearing stories about a big The Land & Its People The Land & . 288 n The Richardson Highway to Valdez xii n Adventure Guide to the Alaska Highway The Richardson Highway 291 The Denali Highway 291 The Richardson, continued 294 Copper Center 295 The Edgerton Highway. 89 Metric Conversion 89 The Beauty of the Wild 90 n The History of the Highway A Highway Is Born 91 A Tough Road to Build 92 A Road in Use 96 n Approaches to the Highway The Western Approach 99 North. 321 n North from Fairbanks The Pipeline 323 The Dalton Highway 324 North from Fairbanks 328 The Steese Highway 328 The Elliott Highway 331 A Narrow Road to the Deep North: The Dalton Highway 332 North