On Top of the World Highway

The Yukon: Cold lakes, hot sun and towering mountain ranges. This is an RV setting at its best

Aug 15, 2009

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Special to the Star

WHITEHORSE–On the third morning of a week-long RV trip, we left the tranquil setting of Kluane National Park, in the Yukon, the day's itinerary in hand: Beaver Creek, then on to Chicken, Alaska.The route was laid out, and seemed simple enough. There are few major arteries in this part of the world, and even fewer highway signs; you keep going until you get there.

I'd been told that Chicken was unique. Even the customs guard at the Alaska border told me to make sure to get my sons T-shirts at the famous Chicken outpost. I nodded kindly, still not understanding that you should obtain proof that you'd actually made it to Chicken.

As the Alaska Highway snaked around Kluane park, mountains sprung into our view at each turn of the road. "Which one is that?" asked my driving partner, Melissa, indicating to her camera so I could get some shots as she drove.

"I dunno. The book doesn't tell you," I responded. I had four maps open on my lap, each taking various tumbles as the road broke for construction. There were road maps, itinerary maps, tourist guide maps and maps from placemats wherever we'd had lunch. The maps that supplied the most detail were usually the furthest from scale.

"I think we're only an inch away from Beaver Creek," I told her.

"Where's Mount Logan? Is that Mount Logan?" she asked. I peered through the windshield at a towering, snow covered beauty.

"Oh yeah, that must be," I said firmly. I scrambled through my maps and guidebooks. It wasn't. Mount Logan is almost 6,000 metres high. You'd think I'd be able to see it from my house, the way Sarah Palin can see Russia from hers.

As we headed to the Alaska border, roadwork grew increasingly crazy. We'd been warned of large dips in the road. Dipping a 24-foot motorhome is kind of like riding a fishing boat over the wake of a huge outboard – there's no perfect speed or technique, short of crawling to a stop and gingerly stepping through it. With other traffic behind, that's not much of an option, so Melissa and I worked out a system: I would scream "dip," and she would race to battle stations for whatever broke next.

Little did we know what lay ahead. Upon entering Alaska Highway 5, we could stop worrying about broken pavement. There was no pavement. I thought we'd taken a wrong turn, but our Yukon Tourism guide was bolting ahead of us in his Jeep, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were driving our living room.

But it was on this road to Chicken that we finally saw the devastation that had only been hinted at in the Yukon. The spruce beetle, the force most destructive to mature forests in western North America, has left this part of Alaska eerily desolate.

Stand after stand of darkened tree trunks, stripped of vegetation. This shell of a landscape looks like it leaked from the pen of Dr. Seuss, trees bending over curiously like question marks. At some points, not even the trunks remain. With record high temperatures set during our visit, it was hard not to consider the vast implications of fire in this tinderbox.

"How far to Chicken?" I asked Melissa, now bobbling maps on her lap.

"An inch. Home stretch," she replied confidently.

With that, we crested a peak, and beheld the narrow, bumpy dirt road before us. We could see it twisting far up the next mountain. That 100 kilometres took us more than four hours.

In the best of circumstances, you drive a motorhome like any big truck; if you don't, it will drive you.

But on a washboard path in dusty conditions in unfamiliar territory, you wrestle the wheel to keep it straight, and you don't take your eyes off the road for a second.

When we finally pulled into Chicken, my forearms looked like Popeye's. Chicken has a population of 37. I think they were all there to greet us on the porch of the gift store/saloon/café. Washrooms are a set of outhouses at the side called the Chicken Poop. As a present for making it through, the owner, Susan, handed me a tiny plastic chicken. This talisman of extreme travel accomplishment became my most treasured souvenir.

The road out of Chicken, back to the Canadian border, was much like the road in. Low-lying streams revealed men still panning for gold, some living out of what looked like original prospector's shacks.

By now I'd rechristened this road the Darwin Highway. There are few guardrails, fewer curve signs, and the occasional speed sign. Higher and higher we climbed, the roadbed dropping away on first one side, then the other. Washouts on the shoulders encouraged me to stick to the middle; bullet holes in road signs encouraged me to keep moving.

It was after 7 p.m., the sun just starting to descend, when we saw the border. We were now officially on the Top of the World Highway, one of Canada's most glorious places. The fact that glory extends to Canadians paving the road is no small bonus, either.

Spiralling down from the top of the world, alone except for the dust we were kicking up, I watched the sun redden and glow still surreally high in the evening sky. I could smell forest fires burning and see the haze they sent out. It wasn't the first time I'd considered the immense power of nature on this trip, and the tiny niche that humans can only pretend to carve into it.

A relatively smooth road can make you a little giddy after hours of jolting. The fridge no longer flew open every 20 minutes, lulling Melissa and me into complacency as we headed for Dawson City, hopefully in time for dinner. She cranked up the iPod, and we met with the setting sun around every bend.

A Yukon summer evening plays tricks. It was still light out at 11 p.m. when we pulled into the hotel (yes, a hotel –a welcome break from the RV, if only to regroup and sort out the laundry). After quick showers, we headed out the door, turning into the tourists we usually make fun of under our breath.

Dance-hall girls, gambling, gold nuggets and buildings straight from a Western set: Dawson City wakes you up just when you think you're ready for bed. The plan was to stay the following night in an RV camp, which gave our bodies a day to catch up from the intense driving. I love driving; , but factoring in fractured roads has taught me to slot in recovery time. We'd be heading down to Whitehorse on the last leg of the trip, and while the road was decent, we wanted to do the whole 535 km in one go.

Dawson City is a town with a population of 1,823 – every one of them a character – and some lovely restaurants, attractions and bars. So of course, we ended up two nights at the proudest dive in town. It has a name (the Westminster) but everyone calls it The Pit. Great band, bad drinks, suspect upholstery – it's everything you'd want in a bar.

Our final day of travel dawned as sunny as the previous five. We decided it would be smart to pack breakfast and lunch to avoid stopping – in this part of the world, there are no fast-food chains or drive-thrus. Towns string themselves out with little warning, and while the roadside rest areas are immaculate, they consist of nothing more than two clapboard outhouses, and a view.

The road to Whitehorse is simple. You'd have to be stupid to get lost.

Making excellent time, we passed a rather new bridge spanning a wide river.

"Wow. That looks new," said Melissa. "Should we be on it?"

"Nope. No signs, must be connecting another part of the Yukon," I said confidently. Yeah. It was connecting Whitehorse.

After another half-hour, we came to a crossroads. We had become accustomed to little signage, but this was literally a right-or-left decision, and the word Whitehorse was nowhere. We pulled into a small tourist information booth.

A lady came to greet us. "Where you girls headed?" she asked.

"Whitehorse," I said.

"Oh, you need to go back to the bridge. You're the fourth group this week. ... darned foliage keeps growing over the sign," she said with a sigh. "Where you coming from?" she asked.

"Dawson City," I started.

"Oh! Well, I hope you went to The Pit," she said.

So yes, you can get lost, even with few road choices. You can miss signs, even when there are only two. And you can meet the most amazing people who put you right, wish you well, and send you on your way.

Lorraine Sommerfeld's trip was subsidized by Go RVing and Yukon Tourism.

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Toronto Star