After camping at a pretty crappy campground in northern Alberta, we backtracked some kilometers to the nearby concrete stripmall town, Grande Prairie, to buy a new power adapter converter thingy. Upon discovering that the Canadian gadget supplier “Future Store” wouldn’t open for another hour (this was astounding – getting the early worm is not this group’s normal M.O.) we grudgingly patronized the local Wal-Mart, and got the hell out of there. Yukon ho!
The starting point of the Alaska Highway is the town of Dawson Creek, British Columbia. James Van Der Beek was nowhere to be found, but it was a good spot to pause to eat tuna sandwiches and Costco tub o’ cashews off the hood of the car as we refueled.
The Alaska Highway was frantically completed in 8 months during World War II, amidst fears of a Japanese invasion through Alaska. To make it more difficult to potentially ambush and bomb Allied supply trucks, unnatural bends in the road were constructed across much of the relatively flat BC and Yukon areas. The resulting highway now winds through the dramatic Rocky Mountains and frozen tundra, punctuated by semi-periodic human outposts and numerous caribou, goat and bison crossings.
Baby bison!
We stopped for the night at Muncho Lake in the Yukon, near the northern tip of the Rockies.
The lake and surrounding peaks were absolutely astounding under the full moon. Music plays when I look up at these snowcapped giants, towering blue and stoic. Here, where the scale of the land zooms out dramatically, where the pale sky threatens to overwhelm its tiny observers below, that sense of natural awe and personal insignificance becomes acute.
I went to bed cold, tired, and happy.
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