Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Yukon and starting to mosey on southward.

Haines Junction and Area

On our last post, we had just rolled into Haines Junction, Yukon.  This is a community of about 800 residents that has evolved from a construction camp for the building of the Alaska Highway, into a vibrant, slightly eclectic, and clearly northern town.  It is situated at the junction of the Alaska and Haines highways, and is the gateway to stunning Kluane National Park.  It is at km 1632 on the Alaska Highway.

Because of the National Park connection, a lot of retired Park Wardens that I worked or trained with still live here, so there was lots of visiting and catching up to do.  Most of the guys get together for coffee once a week.

 

I spent the best part of a week in and around the area, exploring on foot and bicycle.

There is a very large modern information and cultural center at the edge of town. 

(photos taken from Google Streetview) 

One thing you notice, traveling in the north, is the amazing variety and types of vehicles you see.  While trucks and RV's dominate the highway traffic, many of them are towing boats, trailers, quads, and have all sorts of miscellaneous gear strapped all over.  Clearly, some people are moving north, for the season, at least, and many others just want to have every toy they own along for the trip.  Some have extra spare tires, extra fuel cans, surf boards, fishing poles, you name it!

This pickup, spotting in Haines Junction looked like it was loaded down, and then some. 



We spent a couple days exploring along the highway north of town.

We spent one night on the shore of Sulphur Lake, in the company of a nice Kiwi rv couple.  He couldn't believe it when I told him that this lake was likely covered in ice only about  6 weeks previous!
Later in the evening, this little class B pulled in and parked right between us!

 Watched a couple of moose swim across the lake in the morning.

We toured on northward along the shoreline of Kluane Lake, as far as Destruction Bay.





Overnight camp spot along the edge of Kluane Lake.



Not really sure this sign was really required!

  

Whitehorse again

After about a week in the Haines Junction area, it was time to head back towards Whitehorse.

An old girlfriend and I found this spot on the Takhini river back in 2009, and I stayed there again when passing through in 2017.  Nice to find it still available, and as scenic as ever.

 




As luck would have it, a gal who also worked in fire lookouts near me in Alberta lives nearby, and I finally got to meet her in person!  She's the author of 3 books, and articles in various magazines.  Her writing has been widely published in Canadian Geographic, the Globe and Mail, The Narwhal, and other publications.

I met up with another retired park warden in Whitehorse, then toured Miles Canyon suspension bridge, just out of town.





Carcross  
Next on the slow route towards home was a short detour down to the Carcross area.  It was late in the day, so we continued on southward looking for an overnight spot.  Gave a pass to several mediocre options, and found ourselves back into BC for a ways, before finding an ideal spot on Tutshi Lake!
Re-entered the Yukon on the way back up to Carcross ...
Carcross weather was a bit on the damp side, so didn't stop and was just left with dash cam shots!

We did see the only grizzly of the trip - on the way to Tagish.  He was just laying in the ditch, feeding on greenery, but there was a car stopped, so no photos were taken.  

Sadly, there was a dead moose that had been hit on the road :-(

Bridge over the Tagish river.

 We passed back through Teslin, and almost to Watson Lake again, before turning off southbound on the Cassiar highway for the return leg. Fuel prices were not that extreme at the Junction 37, so topped off the tank at $1.63/litre for diesel, and truck said it now had a range of 969km!  Just a few kilometers to the south it was back into BC.

 

The Cassiar highway is a bit narrower and more winding than the Alaska highway, but it also has less traffic, so we slowed the pace quite a lot.

 This post is getting a bit long, so I think we'll end it here and save the rest of the return trip for the next post!   

WE'LL BE BACK! 

ZZXXXZCCXXXXZ - CAT on the keyboard! (Bailey's contribution)