June 19, 2025 - Driving to Alaska
Whitehorse to Tok, Alaska
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P11
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Haines Junction. Going straight puts you on Highway 3 and a long drive south down to Haines. We'll be making a right on Highway One -- the Alaska Highway -- heading northwest towards Tok, Alaska.
Haines is a small town on a peninsula between the Chilkoot and Chilkat Inlets. It's about ten miles south of Skagway as the crow flies, or by boat, but a long round about way by road.
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| About to pass some cylists on the Alaska Highway. |
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| We cross the southern part of big Kluane Lake, then arrive at the Thechàl Dhâl Visitor Centre. |
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P25
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From the visitor's center deck, looking northwest at massive Sheep Mountain.
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| Looking southwest at a flat valley. I remember this area well from my Alaska flight last August. If you continue heading southwest, you'll encounter a massive glacier which is part of Kluane National Park. I'd like to fly there someday. |
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| Looking northeast; you can see the southern end of Kluane Lake in the distance. |
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Looking at Sheep Mountain.
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| For one of these guys. |
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| I guess the Dall Sheep aren't out today. |
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| In this excellent map of Kluane National park, you can see the massive glacier to the west of where we are at the Visitor Center. |
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A satellite picture of Kluane National Park.
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| A Ranger at the Visitor Center had mentioned that there had been a Mama Grizzly Bear sighting on the Alaska Highway to the north. Sure enough, about ten miles up the highway we ran into the Mama and her three cubs. |
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The bears showed no interest in the passing cars.
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Amazing.
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This was one of the highlights of the entire trip.
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| Continuing on along the west side of long Kluane Lake while looking at the majestic mountains to the west. |
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| We finally left the lake and entered a long valley which took us all the way to the Alaska-Canada border. |
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Approaching a construction area where the asphalt turned to gravel.
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| We stopped to stretch our legs at Pickhandle Lake. |
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Looking out over Pickhandle Lake.
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| Crossing the White River. I remembered this area well from my Alaska flight. |
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| We passed through the Canadian village of Beaver Creek, which has a gravel runway airport and the Canadian border services station. Continuing on, we soon saw the Alaskan border sign. |
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Yay, back in the USA!
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| The actual border line. No fence. Not yet, anyways. You used to not need a passport to pass between Canada and the U.S. But not you do. |
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| For your information. |
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We passed through the U.S. border security without any trouble -- better have your passports though -- and then we were in Alaska. Sorry, no pictures; it's best not to take pictures at the border crossing station.
Later on after crossing into Alaska I took this picture. The Alaska Highway sticks to the high ground. Here we are looking out over all the muskeg (wetlands).
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This rest area had a replica cache tower; a storehouse on stilts. On stilts to protect the contents from the critters.
By frontier code, in emergencies, strangers could open a cache or cabin but were expected to replenish all supplies used.
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| And then we were in the little crossroad town of Tok, Alaska, our destination for tonight. We had an excellent dinner -- perhaps the best one of the trip so far -- at Fast Eddy's Restaurant which is across the street (Alaska Highway) from the Tok Airport. |
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| We stayed a little ways out of town at this B&B which was very nice. |
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