Northwest Canada

Our trip is coming to a close. We’ve spent the last 10 days winding down through the Inside Passage of Southeast Alaska’s ferry route and driving through the beautiful province of British Colombia.

While still in Alaska we spent several days visiting Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan. The ferry system is a pretty affordable and comfortable way to travel one way. However, since the islands are very spread out, you’re at the mercy of the ferry schedule. While these cities were interesting and had much to offer, the weather was cold and rainy every day, a great deterrent to hiking or gallery hopping. Again, we spent a few afternoons getting to know the local bartenders.

Our visit to BC has been breathtaking. We opted to take the Sea to Sky highway through Whistler for a brief stop over in the 2010 Winter Olympics ski resort. We arrived in Whistler in the late afternoon and checked in at the one and only camp ground. Full. No place else to stay other than the top notch resort hotels. Since the state wide mountain bike championship was in town, the whole resort village was filled with over a thousand young mountain bikers and their groupies. It was wall to wall grunge hipsters. We had a quick dinner then found a Wal-Mart for a night on Uncle Walton. For those of you not in the know, Wal-Mart allows RVers to park in their lot overnight. It's very convenient for the big rigs, but for us in little Vanna, not so much (unless it's a 24 hour Wal-Mart and the bathroom is accessible, if you get my drift)

We made it to Vancouver by mid morning. I was really ready to bypass Vancouver and head home early, but Chuck was insistent that Vancouver and the Island were not to be missed. After more than a month of rain and cool/ cold weather, Vancouver was Shangri-la in the sunshine. Blue skies and a warm sun put a perma smile on both Chuck’s and my face.

Natives in the Bulkley valley, salmon fishing, using the same methods their anscestors used.

Gorgeous countryside in the Bulkley Valley in central BC, Canada

Gorgeous flowers all over Vancouver. We loved Stanley Park!

The first time in over 2 months that I've had any part of my arms exposed to sunlight!

Stanley Park walkway is a breathtaking 10 mile walk around the pensula.

Port Renfew on Vancouver Island. We saw a whale 30 ft from the shore just after this photo was taken.

Long Beach, near Tofino on Vancouver Island. Miles and miles of wide sandy beaches. Hugely popular with surfers.

Cathedral Grove. The trees in this forest are 800 years old.

Chilhoot Trail

Glacier view from one of our ferry rides.

My view on the ferry. The other passengers are in the inside passenger decks. Since it was raining, folks opted to stay indoors. We actually slept on the "Solarium" deck. It was pretty comfortable with our camping pads, sleeping bags and pillows. However, we did spring for a cabin on the next overnight ferry.

Captain Scabby taking a nap on the ferry.

While in Haines we went to a popular salmon spawning river to try and catch grizzlies fishing. We only found lots of Eagles fishing.

Totom poles in Sitka. Most of the totom poles on this trail were brought here from Prince of Whales Island south of Sitka. The totom poles carved in Sitka were all destroyed by the Russians during their ownership of Alaska.

This glacier flows almost to downtown Juneau.

On the train after our Chilcoot Trail hike, headed back to Skagway.

The last day of the Chilcoot Trail hike. I'm actually holding Frankie up. He was having a really hard time walking on the 3rd day. We still feel guilty!

The last part of the trail was a long sandy hike. We walked over every terrain on this hike, however the fine sand was still a surprise.

Captain Scabby sitting on the porch of the warming shelter at our 2nd campsite. Retirement suits him!

View on Chilcoot Trail. The sunshine signifies we're in Canada.

Frankie and Chuck have just made the summit. I climbed these boulders on all-fours just like Frankie.

Artifacts left over from the Klondike Gold Rush. The goldrushers ditched all unnessessary equipment in order to make the pass. The whole trail is a walking museum.

Frankie has no interest in continuing the hike on the 3rd day. This photo was taken shortly after getting sick in our tent. We alternately laughed and cried watching Frankie try to walk on the 3rd day.

With Vanna finally cured of her water ills, we are free to explore Southeast Alaska. Chuck can finally relax and drive, without fear of having to crawl under the van again. We head for Skagway for the trail head of the famous Chilhoot Trail. More than 22,000 men and women passed over this trail within the span of 2 years. This was the last great adventure of the 19th century. Overall, 33,000 urbanized men would sell everything they owned for the hope of finding their fortune in gold, or at least find adventure in the Last Frontier. We look forward to the historical aspect of the trail, convinced it will be a walk in the park, especially for our seasoned Sherpa Dog, Frankie.

We first spend a relaxing day in Skagway, one of the few cities in SE Alaska accessible by roads. Skagway has been terrifically preserved as a gold rush town. At the turn of the 19th century, leaders of the community recognized the historical significance of the gold rush, as well as correctly predicting the new railroad’s ability to take tourists into the interior of the mountains.

The Chilhoot Trail is notable also for its diversity of geography. We hiked through rain forest, steep boulders, deep snow banks, rocky rivers, alpine lakes, and sand dunes. The trail is also littered with artifacts left behind by the minors. Unnecessary or heavy gear bought by the minors was quickly abandoned. We saw heavy stoves, huge pots, mining equipment, shovels, sleds, and lots of shoes. We broke up our 33 mile hike into three days. Our second day was our difficult one, where we climbed the summit of Chilhoot Pass, then hiked an additional 10 miles to our next camp, for a total of 14.5 miles. The climb to the summit is a steep scramble over boulders. It’s often extremely foggy at this point, so most hikers, including us, use abandoned cables from the old tramway as guides to the top. Most of the way I was on all-fours because it was so steep. Due to the fog at the summit we weren’t able to look back and enjoy our success. We were wet, tired and hungry, but the ranger shelter at the summit was filled to capacity with other tired climbers, so we labored on for 7 more miles till the next shelter. Many of those miles were snow covered and steep. One wrong move and you would slide down the mountain into glacier fed Crater Lake. And since it was still so foggy, it would have been a slide to oblivion! Once the snow cleared, we had miles of rocks and streams to cross. Frankie, our fearless Sherpa Dog was beginning to reach his capacity. His three-footed limp started around mile 12 of our second day, which attracted many shows of sympathy from other hikers. Our 3rd day of hiking was a beautiful up and down trail through gorgeous alpine lakes, and then a long finish over sand dunes left behind by glaciers. It would have been uneventful if it wasn’t for Frankie. He began his morning by vomiting in our tent then limping to his water bowl for a small sip of water before tumbling to the ground. It was painful to watch him, especially since we had 7 miles to hike. Our hike to the train was a slow death march, with Frankie lying down every 25-50 feet during the last mile on the sand dunes. Chuck watched for vultures in the sky.