I did it again. Well not exactly, as I’ve never driven to Alaska before, let alone solo. This was the first time, but it smacks of past road trips. I didn’t even mean to go - all but pushed over the decision cliff by a car purchase, unexpected vacation time, and limits on what our family could sensibly do with the time.

The hatching of the plan

November 14, 2021: Just an ordinary day in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Nov 15: Buy a little manual 2-door 2002 Toyota Echo as a second car. It’s great on gas, and has no back seat (I have the seat but it is full of second-hand smoke so it will not be invited into the car for quite a while). My other vehicle is a bulky Honda Pilot SUV. No plans to drive anywhere.

Nov 22: It’s a Monday, the first day of a two-week vacation. I’m not sure what to do, as I only recently found out I had two weeks off instead of one. My family wants to remain in the city, but I have nothing planned so I hatch the idea of driving north by myself.

Just how north? My first thought was to go to the Northwest Territories because the capital is only 18 hours away and I’ve never been there. However, NWT is behaving like a special snowflake and refusing entry to non-residents. The other possibility was Yukon Territory, which is a triangular territory between its three neighbours: Northwest Territories to the east, British Columbia to the south, and Alaska to the west. Yukon’s capital Whitehorse is 24 hours from Calgary but Yukon is open to visitors, so I figured that was a fine destination.

Naturally I chose the Echo for the trip because that would make the trip more challenging and more significant if I succeeded. Plus, both vehicles are painted white, so there’s really no difference anyway. One of many crazy aspects of this trip is that I had no clue how the car acted on the highway, how much gas it burned, nor how reliable it was. What could possibly go wrong? I had two entire weeks to get into trouble and get out again.

Road trip supplies?

• Water, food, and clothing
• Tools and car fluids
• Shovel and sand/salt mixture
• Pre-downloaded maps on Google Maps
• Two 25L (6.6 gal) portable gas cans

There was a seller on Kijiji who had a Spot 3 GPS with a satellite alert subscription for sending out an SOS to my contacts regardless of how remote my location got. I did go to their house intending to buy it but I only had $80 on me and they wanted $85 and like heck I was going to round up to $90, so I departed without it.

The routing of the route

The first part of the drive was relatively pedestrian, just going through the rolling hills of Alberta, zig-zagging as I went, north for a while then west, then north, then west, all the way until I was beyond Edmonton and on Highway 43 which runs from Edmonton up to Grande Prairie and Dawson Creek.

Dawson Creek is officially the start of the Alaska Highway, a famous WW2-era road opened to the public in 1948 which winds through the Rocky Mountains past Fort Nelson and Whitehorse into Alaska where it terminates at Delta Junction. 1966 kilometers of the highway are in Canada and I rolled over every one of them.

Awaybound:

• Calgary to Dawson Creek: 850 km
• Dawson Creek to Whitehorse: 1400 km

Border run:

• Whitehorse to Alaska border: 480 km

Homebound:

• Whitehorse to top of Hwy 37: 420 km
• Hwy 37 to Kitwanga: 720 km
• Kitwanga to Calgary: 1270 km

The only wrinkle in this smooth there-and-back is the scenic glacier flight I wanted to do at the Burwash Airport 3 hours beyond Whitehorse where I was staying, so that increased the total hours I traveled by 6.

The driving of the road

As fantastic as the international border was as a destination, this time the journey really was the meat of the trip, more so than other drives I’ve done. This is because of the winter weather that meant I almost never got to relax and watch the mile markers flick past.

I set out at about 1pm on Monday, punching through strong dust-heavy crosswinds on the highway. I was quickly impressed by the range I could get out of a tank of gas, and slept 5 or 6 hours later at a roadside rest stop. It was -15 C that night, the coldest I’ve ever seen while overnighting in a car.

On Tuesday I quickly reached Dawson Creek by mid-morning but immediately after leaving the town to the west I encountered extremely slippery road conditions that were so bad I saw two semi-trailers in the ditch and found myself tobogganing along the road with precious little influence over the direction. Going up even slight hills caused the tires to slip & I had to pull over extremely carefully to let other traffic pass me. I couldn’t help fearing that these conditions would be typical for the remainder of the drive, but thankfully after an hour things got significantly better and I kept on trucking. After passing Fort Nelson I lost cell service but thought I’d find more by night. However, by the time I pulled over at sunset just a little ways before Toad River I had not seen a glimmer of service. I napped for a half hour but got woken up by hunger and the cold, and the frustration of not having any Internet made me decide to push on through the night to Muncho Lake. That didn’t work - after driving slowly for over an hour through mountain passes to Muncho Lake, I still had no cell service, nor at Liard River (another hour). I persisted yet another hour until finally a tiny place called Fireside made me call it quits and park in the freezing -15 C air again and eat a can of beans before trying to sleep all night long.

Wednesday morning I started driving well before sunrise, and kept going until reaching Whitehorse in the early afternoon. Along the way I saw incredible views, mesmerizing ice rainbows, blowing snow on the road that made optical illusions, and animals large and small. Whitehorse seemed like a pleasantly interesting place, and I grabbed some food and collected my thoughts about what I’d do for the next couple days. The main problem was that the sun wasn’t rising until after 10:30am and it set about 4:30pm, leaving precious little daylight. The Alaska border was 5+ hours to the northwest so it wouldn’t be possible to make it there and back in a single day unless I started closer to it. Conveniently I found a beautiful Airbnb 90 mins west of Whitehorse which would reduce the total border roundtrip for Thursday to 8 hours, which still didn’t fit in daylight but at least was a lot better than 11. I quickly booked the Airbnb and left town, reaching the address (right off of the highway) in twilight. Their laneway was over 1 km long, covered by deep snow, and the plucky Echo ploughed through. The house was worth the laneway though, I must say - a brand new homebuilt log house with a super comfortable and relaxing lower level for guests and two picture windows with a clear view of the nearby mountains. The host had some suggestions for hiking trails in the area and told me about a scenic glacier flight I could get at Burwash Airport midway to the border.

Waking up early on Thursday and getting on the road at 8 (almost 3 hours before sunrise, remember) was the plan and that’s what I did. There was a snowstorm and it only got worse as I went on, especially after turning right at Haines Junction to go north. At first you could see four tire ruts on the road but after a while people got shy about using the whole width and shared the middle rut so you could only see three, and then further along…only two. Yes I kid you not, the highway dropped to a single lane and the visibility was so poor that I felt I was in a tiny snow globe. Often I had no idea if the darkness to my left and right was level ground or a steep drop into a lake. Eventually the sun dispelled the darkness and the snow ceased, and as I got within 30 km of the border, I passed the customs and immigration building just outside Beaver Creek. Why it’s so far, I can’t say, but I am thinking maybe it’s because of the Beaver Creek airport. This final stretch of road was in rough shape. The temperature was also frigid, sitting at about -30 C. Reaching the border, and approaching slowly and recording myself with GPS in case there was a dispute about whether I crossed or not, I popped out of the car briefly to snap a couple photos and then turned around for the first time on the entire trip. I quipped to myself that I’d successfully made it to Alaska but it wouldn’t count for much unless I got home in one piece. On the 5 hour drive back to Whitehorse I stopped in at the Burbank Airport to ask Rocking Star Adventures about scenic flights and they said I could join one the next day. I slept in a small Airbnb.

Friday was a bit of a maverick. Intending to get back to the airport for about noon meant I’d be leaving around 9am so I woke up early, only to be called at 9 with the news that the flight was postponed a day due to poor weather. Well okay then, so I used the opportunity to explore the city of Whitehorse, which bills itself The Wilderness City, population 25,000. I rather liked it. Maybe it was just the right size, or it had a good balance of chain stores and unique shops. Or maybe snow is the makeup that makes any place look beautiful. It’s situated in a valley so everywhere you go there’s a great place to take photos.

Thankfully Saturday was not a repeat of Friday, and I made it out to the airport on time for the spectacular 75-minute flight at high altitudes beside mountains and above glaciers. Incredibly, the other two passengers on the flight live practically next door to where I used to live in Ottawa until just this summer. What a world. I got back to Whitehorse after dark, bought pizza (1/2 Hawaiian and 1/2 Mediterranean), and called it a night.

The next two days were spent just bumming around, in and out of town. It was a pretty cool place to spend a vacation. I woke up late, took photos, walked around downtown in circles, drove around in circles too, discovered just how quickly the terrain became inhospitable just outside city limits, and found that even McDonalds has a bouncer these days. I slept in the car so I didn’t have to spend on an Airbnb. The nights were really cold but I bought a sleeping bag that helped slightly.

On Monday night I thought I’d get on the road early, and drove about 4 hours through a snowstorm back towards the junction with Highway 37. Along the way I came across a car that had slid off the road, possibly because of the whiteout that happened every time vehicles passed. A couple other motorists (two semis and a pickup) also stopped and we shovelled the snow away from around and under the SUV, but it wasn’t able to climb up the ditch until a pickup truck used a chain to tow it. The driver of the SUV was very embarrassed and kept telling us how he’d lived in Alaska for 29 years and he’d never gone off the road. I parked at a rest stop for the night.

Waking early and driving a little ways further to the top of Hwy 37 (aka Stewart-Cassiar Highway, aka Dease Lake Highway, aka Stikine Highway), I knew I was in for a day with spotty cell coverage and difficult driving, partially because of a past family road trip in Sept 2000 when I was a kid and our trip journal describes the day like this, using humour to cover up the crazy experience:

This was our day awaking to snow. We drove 2 hours to Dease Lake in the pouring rain, we had showers in a Motel, breakfast at Betty’s, and did laundry. Bought supplies at the supermarket we drove in steady rain along a very bad road. It was muddy, slippery, steep, and scary road. Next, the out-of-chassis coolant pipes that went to the rear auxiliary heater developed wicked ruptures due to severe oxidation. Daddy made a temporary fix and a couple from Washington gave us some water and antifreeze. Further down the road Daddy helped that family change their flat tire. In exchange they gave us an Alaskan salmon and a raincoat. We now travelled in the dark and experienced more heating hose problem, but were out of water. Daddy had to fill our jugs from a Mountain falls. We were very cold in the van. THEN we entered numerous avalanche areas. We drove nonstop until eleven pm. Exhausted, we camped at a gas station in Kitwanga. It was very mild.

I unwittingly replicated that day nearly exactly, doing about 3 hours to Dease Lake and arriving shaking and exhausted in Kitwanga at 5:15pm where I bought and devoured fish and chips with soup and cherry pie at a gas station that I wonder may have been the same one my family paused at. Throughout the day I never got a chance to breathe. The snowy road required non-stop attention. I missed one crucial turn at the Meziadin Junction gas station, but thankfully I noticed after just 30 km that I was moving towards the BC coast instead of continuing south. In my defense the turn was poorly signed for how important it was. Oh, and I never saw any hint of cell service all day until a couple minutes before I pulled into Kitwanga. To top the day off, I had a hard time finding a simple place to park overnight, driving over an hour before I finally found a subpar rest stop with a sign saying no overnight parking. I couldn’t have cared less what it wanted, and went to sleep despite the damp chilly weather.

Wednesday. I intended to relax and enjoy the drive, sleep one more night in the car, then get home the following day. Meaning, split the 12 or 13 hours into two days. That didn’t work out though, as I was hungry so I pushed on for half the day to Prince George, and finally ate. It was at that point I realized that I was only 8 hours from home, so if I just gave myself one more push I could make it back that night. As I said before, what could possibly go wrong? Oh let me tell you. I entered Jasper National Park (and therefore Alberta and Mountain Time too) near sunset and the snow was falling on a road that was annoyingly busy, both meaning I couldn’t use my high beams much. In the town of Jasper itself, I turned right onto the Icefields Parkway that leads south to Banff, and immediately everything got even worse. The snow falling was light but the night was pitch black and the road was rutted and winding. I knew I had 280 km of it until the next turn, and another 190 after that to reach home. This was another stretch of high-focus driving, and I only saw another car every 30 minutes. Whenever that happened, I’m sure we were both asking ourselves the same thing - what on earth is that guy doing out here?

I cannot tell you how bad the road got towards the end, between 80 km from the next turn and 20 km from it. As tiring as the road had been before that, it got ten times worse. The road narrowed to a lane and a half, was covered with a foot or more of snow, had fickle ruts through the snow that would throw the car careening towards a snowbank if I picked the wrong one, and of course steep grades, frequent avalanche area warning signs, and a constant snowfall. There was no sign that a snowplow had been through there in several hours. I could not slow down because I had no guarantee of making it up the next hill. The car was thrown left and right constantly, and sometimes I’d get off track and the car would bog down in the thick snow. Even when I was safely following some previous driver’s path, my car sliced off the top of the snow in between, since I must have been the smallest, lowest car through there. Light slices sounded like ticka-ticka-ticka and heavy slices sounded like shhhhhhhhhhh. Of course, there was no cell service to boot. The determined little Echo kept on pushing through the night, and eventually we emerged on Highway 1 near Lake Louise, then followed it down past Banff and the foothills to Calgary and a warm bed.

The stories of the story

This trip was a success. It could easily have gone the other way - car breakdown, animal collision, slide off road, road closure. The car is 20 years old, has 280,000 km on the odometer, and I bought it for next to nothing. Thank you Toyota and thank you guardian angel.

The car’s tank only holds 45 liters of gas but amazingly that can take it 600-700 km depending on the conditions. I carried 50 liters of spare fuel, more than doubling the total range. This was the first trip I’ve ever taken spare fuel on, and I am now very likely to take some with me on future trips because of the peace of mind that comes from knowing with 100% certainty that I’ll be able to reach the next station. It’s also very freeing to have the ability to pass a gas station by if their prices are high or their pumps aren’t working or there is a lineup. I frequently dumped one can into the tank, and twice I emptied the second can too.

I found that I would much rather drive on a snowy road at night than a bare one. This is because the snow reflects so much light that it’s easier to see it in the distance and also (theoretically) to spot animals because of the higher contrast.

Speaking of animals, I saw many: deer, moose, a wolf, a fox, and even one mouse that dodged my wheels one night. Definitely many elk/caribou, but they look very similar so I don’t know which. The wolf was the most striking, it had crossed the highway and then stopped to look directly at me with squinty eyes as I went past.

The log house had a cat which I was instructed to not allow into the house. It was too fast though, and it got in twice.

Road markings are nonexistent once the road gets that permanent snow cover. From the point I left Fort Nelson going north to the time I reached Kitwanga, I saw precious little of them and that meant the road felt more social, where drivers would use as much road as they wanted unless passing, both sides of the road were used through curves, and and passing could take place anywhere, even on a curve. That particular difference is one I missed after returning south because so often the line becomes dashed too late and reverts to solid too early. There’s actually nothing dangerous about passing on a curve or in hills as long as you’re aware that any moment you may need to abort, and are prepared to.

Something that took me by surprise despite being literally on the map is that Yukon has no access to the Pacific because Alaska descends a huge distance all the way to Prince Rupert. I sort of thought the scenic flight would go over to the coast, but that would not be possible since the coast is in another country.

I normally rely on McDonalds on road trips but this time I tried A&W instead, and found I really like their uncle (or bacon and cheddar) burger. More than once it was my sole meal for a day.

Even though Yukon is very much west of Alberta, it sticks to the same timezone as Alberta. This is partially why the sunrise is so incredibly late.

Distance, time, and cost

The highway distance covered was about 6,400 km.

The ideal time to drive that route is about 69 hours, including the one I wasted on the wrong turn. I actually spent more like 74 hours on the road due to some slower speeds at night and in snow.

The cost was pretty fair, all things considered. The fact I took the Echo instead of the Pilot was great because the Pilot burns twice as much gas.

Gas in Calgary was $1.43/liter, it climbed gradually to $1.55 in Whitehorse, and the worst prices were $1.80 and $1.85 along Hwy 37. I was able to avoid buying gas at those two and held out until Meziadin Junction which was a lot better at $1.60.

The end

I drove an Echo…echo…echo…to the Land of the Midnight Sun.