There are sections of RVing forums dedicated to Alaskan travels, everything from what to expect at border crossings (easier to get into Canada than back into the USA ) and the conditions along the Al-Can. We never had any intention of making that trip in our RV. If we ever did go, we'd fly. But as I said, this is not on our list of to-do.
The Alaskan Highway is amazing and has so much natural beauty. You drive through the areas of Yukon Territory, Whitehorse, British Columbia, and Dawson Creek, if I remember that correctly. There is a sign post area, which I thought was pretty cool. People from all over who drove the highway posted sign posts from their town or city. At the time, I wondered how did they get those signs...did they steal them from their town! It was a trip of a life time for me. It took us 8 days to get to Anchorage. My husband was in the military and stationed in Alaska.
OK Everybody! Lets meet at Don's house in two weeks! No? Well, I have been to Alaska on a cruise and I visited a friend in Juneau. We both had horses but I could not believe she had one in Alaska or even how she got him there! Turns out, she said, that winters in Juneau are warmer than in Wisconsin. But hay prices were worse.
Hay prices here are terrible, and most Alaskans don't consider Juneau, or really anything in the Southeast, to be part of Alaska, as the climate is so different. The horses could have been trailered and then put on a ferry, or just ferried the whole way from Washington. I don't think the airlines accept adult horses except the minis. Two weeks from now, I will hopefully be elsewhere, but if you can find us....
The sign post forest is at Watson Lake, Yukon, and was begun by workers who worked on the Alcan during WWII. Did you ever visit the hot springs along the way?
I do not recall any hot springs? It doesn't sound familiar. This was in the 70's when we drove the Highway. I do have a picture or two I took of the sign posts in Watson Lake. The quality isn't so good, but I will try and post it.
There are two notable springs along the highway--one is Liard near the Liard River and the other is on the outskirts of Whitehorse. When I last drove it, Liard was very primitive and the one in Whitehorse called Takhini (or it was) was developed.. Much of Yukon Territory has been purchased by the Chinese and Germans so it may have changed since I last went there.
(I think I posted about this before here. ) Family vacation with my parents in August, 1960. Pickup truck with a camper top. This is everything I can remember: 1100 miles of gravel road in Canada from Dawson Creek to the Alaska border. I think it took 3 days just to cross that leg. Only accommodations were overnight parking at rest stops. It is all paved now. I believe the road was built by the Army in the 1940s, so it was very flat country and stayed well clear of any mountains. It was hard to see the mountains in the distance because of the trees along the road. We first went to Fairbanks, just to go as far north as possible. The sun didn't set until about 11 pm, and it never got totally black at night, even in August. Then back south. The road closest to Mt. McKinley was washed out at the time. We took the road to Valdez instead of Anchorage. Maybe a mistake. Valdez was a tiny town then. The salmon were spawning at the time. I remember seeing the red fish dying in a river. But it was an adventure. I would appreciate it much more now that I'm older, and would like to go back. But I'd probably take the drive-on ferry from Washington to Anchorage now, if I could afford it.
As you already know I was there in 1960 for two months. We traveled the entire state and went as far north as the road allowed. The Alaska Highway was all gravel then. I still have a rancher friend that is still ranching at 80 in Alaska. He butchers his own beef and sells it locally cutting out the middle man. He said the days were getting shorter by 7 minutes a day. I can't imagine winters there.
I was also there in July and August 1960. @Nancy Hart If you saw a 10-year-old girl with a bad haircut (her own doing) and old mushed cowboy hat, getting out of a VW van camper wearing a Beeline Gas tee shirt and baggy jeans hiked up to her rib cage and fastened with a belt and the bottom of the jeans tucked in high top heeled hiking boots, then that was me. I might have been drinking a Nehi after robbing my personal funds of $1.25. That was at the furthest north gas station in the USA. I kept that bottle as a souvenir for years. I took it to school to show for my summer vacation. Nehi was 10 cents in Colorado in those days. My dad took a photo of the posted price on the pop case at my request.
I did not know the Yukon territory was purchased by the Chinese and Germans! Here are a few of the pictures I took. I am still looking for my picture of Binky and the other zoo animals. I hope I didn't lose them along the way in all our moves.
The sign post area is at Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. We posted a sign there in the 60's. There are over 80,000 signs there now. Sign Post Forest is a whole park now.
It was partially gravel in the 70's yet too. I remember it being smooth then rough, smooth then rough.
That sure looks different now! I imagine everything on the Highway is different all these years later. I think it is all paved now too, or most of it anyway? After looking at the Sign Post Park picture, I was thinking we might be a little disappointed, if we were to try and drive the AlCan again. It was still wilderness for the most part in the 70's. But now it looks like it has become a little more modernized to suit tourists.
They didn't purchase the territory per se, but now own much of the land within it. The long-term locals say the Germans aren't too bad, but the Chinese are very nasty people to deal with.