Alaska Summer

I am able to write today as I am in the Sedro Woolley library and have a good enough connection to get a post done. After leaving Telkwa British Columbia, we worked our way east.  Our first stop was at Fort St. James, an old Hudson Bay Trading Post site. Fort St. James Trading Post  The town is small but in a magnificent setting on Stuart Lake.  We camped in a Provincial Park for two nights along the lake and spent a day in town seeing the old trading post as it has been mostly reconstructed.  It was pretty fascinating to tour the buildings and listen to or read about the life in the trading post in the early 1800's.  Initially, the traders were very dependent on the local tribes for securing the pelts and learning the travel routes as well as extremely dependent on them for food sources.  As a result, the interaction grew into a mutually beneficial endeavor though as the fort became the center of Hudson Bay's focus in the western Canada area, missionaries arrived and bas

In Hyder, we were between salmon runs for bear watching.  There were still salmon in the river and we did see some black bears trying their luck but it was a pretty quiet evening based on the record for the previous week.  We broke camp on Friday morning and made our way to New Aiyansh (like ain't with an sh on the end.)  We drove down the Cassiar Highway until we reached FS 113 which went over to the town in 30 miles instead of following the Cassiar and then route 16 to Terrace and back up to New Aiyansh.  Not much traffic on the forest service road.  We saw one car behind us for about a mile and only had one truck pass us going the other way.  Pretty quiet trip that saved us about 200 miles. When we got to New Aiyansh, we looked up the campground and found it in a wooded area in the middle of the lava field that had buried a native village of about 2000 people in the early 1700's.  It is amazing to me that it still looks the way it does today, some 300 years later. The a

It has been almost a week since I have had an internet connection that is capable of loading pictures so will try to get this out this evening.  I know most of you will not see it until day 83. After leaving Valdez, we traveled north to Tok, pronounced with a long o.  We had an over night there and managed to get the truck and camper washed and some groceries acquired before leaving in the morning.  We decided to travel the Taylor highway to Chicken and then on over the Top of The World highway to Dawson City.  From just short of Chicken and all the way past the border, the road was gravel and it was raining and misting.  Made my wash job look really good.  Fortunately, it was mostly a light rain to heavy mist so views were not impacted other than lack of sunshine.  The fall colors were spectacular. Top of The World view We had more than 100 miles of this type of view.  Most of it was above tree line, 3000 feet, and unobstructed.  We met very few cars and only got passed by a cou