Nearly 3,000km of road stretches between northern Alberta and Anchorage, Alaska.
I recently completed this trek with a couple of friends and captured some of the incredible scenery along the way. This is an area of the country that I’ve wanted to see since moving to High Level and couldn’t have been more excited to finally make happen.
I’m also a sucker for anything involving gooolldd!!!!!
Hearing stories from within the community of the beauty surrounding northern British Columbia and the Yukon Territories gave me no choice but to force this onto my bucket list.
It’s one I’d highly recommend for any adventurer not afraid of a little endurance driving.
The drive through the mountains north of Fort Nelson is stunning. After leaving High Level for Grande Prairie on September 8, 2017, we started making our way north and immediately noticed that the farther we drove, the more it began looking like fall. We were watching the season change right before our eyes.
Pictures could never entirely capture the vastness of the landscape. Even though we were driving for at least eight hours a day, it hardly felt like work.
The views are beyond memorable. Wild bison herds roam the sides of the highways, along with goats, moose and a few bears.
Virtually every turn presents something unique.
We stopped for the night in Muncho Lake – a quiet mountain town in northern BC – before venturing off to Whitehorse the next day.
One thing that surprised me was how the mountains kept becoming redder the farther we ventured into the Yukon. That was another pleasant surprise.
We ended up at an off-grid cabin just south of Whitehorse, where over 30 dogs were kept on site for sledding tours in the winter.
On the drive back to the main highway, I came across maybe my most memorable image in the north to date. A lynx leapt out of the bushes on my passenger side, wrestling a bird. As I slammed on the brakes and pulled out my camera, it became startled and ran back into the bushes before I could snap a picture.
It looked like the bird’s lucky day.
Crossing the international border into Alaska was another memorable experience. The U.S. border guard thoroughly searched my entire vehicle and didn’t seem too impressed by any of my answers, reluctantly letting me through after about 20 minutes of interrogation.
Not exactly a “Welcome to Alaska” moment.
In Anchorage, we made an acquaintance in “Downtown Bobby Brown,” who hadn’t eaten in two days and was happy to share a slice in the street with his new Canadian amigos. He told us about how dangerous the city was (which was nothing but pleasant to us), how he was worried about an influx of Russians and Somalians, how he had no qualms about standing traffic and how he visited Canada one time despite having been convicted for armed robbery.
Anchorage itself has a military presence and feel, similar to Yellowknife although much bigger at 300,000 people, yet it still shares that small-town vibe.
My only regret was not staying longer in the Yukon, which is a place I’ll definitely be visiting again in the coming years.
Have you made the trip out to Yukon and Alaska? Feel free to contact me if you know any must-see places along the way.