Homer Bound:

An Account of My Solo Travels to Homer, Alaska in a 1966 VW Westy Named Clara

September/October, 2009

Page 7: Teslin, Kluane Lake, the U.S. Border, and (almost) to Tok

Of late, fewer of the small towns and outposts at which I stopped for fuel were equipped with "at-the-pump" payment capabilities. Many were those that required face-to-face contact with the proprietors within their establishments. I will admit to having had small flare-ups of annoyance at this inconvenience, but soon grew to appreciate the simple pleasures of stepping out of my little bus world of road and trees and passing cars and semi-random flowing thought processes not unlike those of meditation. These fleeting reminders that I was not alone helped put a personable face on Canada.

Inside one such place of purveyance in Teslin, located just past the bridge leading to the village from the south, I told the pleasant-mannered man behind the counter that he should know I thought his town to be most fair - the prettiest town by far that I had seen on this trip. Although I could tell by his response he'd heard that one before, I recognized his genuine appreciation at hearing it again. He also did not deny it, telling me that he loved his home, and that I should see it from the top of the ridge. I was tempted, but did not backtrack to see the little settlement on Teslin Lake from the vantage point I had passed unwittingly in the dark.

It was the bridge that got me. Having woken to the realization that I had slept through my alarm was not too upsetting, but my angst dwindled to nothing after I craned my head to see the view through the rear window. A rich stain of cobalt suffused the sky, with the most delicate of clouds in pinkish wisps heralding the first rays of the sun. Below this lay the village of Teslin, elegantly poised on the water's edge with the multiple-truss spans of the metal-decked bridge set like an invitation over the reflective waves.

I had a quick breakfast at the rest stop just south of the bridge, and then crossed over it, rather enjoying the narrowness of the roadway as well as the metal plates that caused a bump and a clang every time I passed from one to the next. At the fuel station, where I had encountered the warmth of both the locals and the heated interior of the restaurant/store, I also learned that squeegees do not work correctly when the temperature is at or below freezing. In fact, the water froze to the edge and to the squeegee as I was using it! I got the windscreens clean enough for government work, and set out for another day of driving the Alcan through the Yukon territory.

My path was a lonely one, but not an unhappy one. I had plenty on my mind, and lots to look forward to. The road was generally all mine to enjoy. The land had flattened out a bit, and I was again traveling toward mountains in the distance, but there were more undulations to the highway, and the increased sparseness of tree growth made for better glimpses of the rivers and mountains I was driving by. Some of it looked volcanic, and other parts looked like ancient upheavals. I was driving through territory that fulfilled my expectations of what Canada in general would be like: Vast open spaces, rivers and lakes, mountains and rocky hills. In some of my thinking, though, I was continually incorrect, despite the fact that I looked at the map fairly frequently. I was, in my mind, "driving through the Yukon", but in reality, I was driving through a slice of the lower one-sixth of the Yukon. This place is really, really big!

Before too long -what's "too long?" - I arrived at the outskirts of Whitehorse. I spied some really large rocks on top of other rocks ... you know, like you see here and there alongside roads and creeks, just bigger. I fueled up the bus, and needing to stock up on foodstuffs for my own sustenance, I took the turn off the highway to go into Whitehorse proper. The first thing that caught my eye as I descended toward the town was a big boat.

Big boat indeed! Two-hundred and ten feet of impeccably-restored sternwheeler perched on a permanent foundation next to the Yukon River, the S.S. Klondike blew my mind. What a feat of restoration! Pity it was Sunday, and the opportunity to tour the old steamer did not present itself, so I made do with a walk around the perimeter and a peek into a couple windows. Someone really loved this old vessel, and reading the placards and displays in the kiosk that was in the park just emphasized this. Seeing photographs of the Klondike wrecked on a reef and swamped brought to my imagination the supreme effort it must have taken to restore and preserve such a relic. I wondered if anyone had considered re-launching - wouldn't that be something!

In town, I had a horrible experience shopping for food in a food store that was so big and crowded that it put WalMart to shame, despite the fact that there was one of those just across the way. I was happy that I could replenish my supply of fruit (the organic apples I found were amazing) and I bought bread, cheese, lettuce, and carrots. After I finally escaped, and was headed back through Whitehorse, I saw old buildings and some possibilities of coolness, but did not linger, yearning as I was for the sanity, solace, solitude, and sanctity of the open road. Just as I was about to leave the last bit of civilization behind me, I got a call from Mike Wood, an experienced Shasta Snow Trip Newt who had taken this same trip in his bus the summer before. Unlike my journey, he had the added responsibility of returning home to Phoenix, Arizona, whereas my bus had only to make it to Homer from Northern California. His story can be found here: Mike Wood's Alcan Adventure. We talked for some time, during which I realized that I should have taken the Cassiar Highway, and then he bid me good luck, offering the same admonishment that Paul did: "Watch out for those frost heaves!"

More of the unprepossessing landscape slid by, yet always, mostly in the distance, rows of mountains hid their heads in the thickening clouds that veiled the sky in their greyness. It was beautiful, no doubt, but there was simply so much of it, seemingly unchanging, that it was easy to make the mistake of thinking that it was boring. But it was only the frost heaves that kept me occupied. At first, most of them were quite mild. I could generally see them coming, and the most severe occurrences were marked with little orange flags on wires poked into the ground just prior to the bumps. They were few and far between for the most part, but I did manage to bottom out the shocks a few times!

I passed over a small river and saw, as I did so, another bridge parallelling the one I just used. I had to turn back and check this out! Constructed completely of lodgepole logs, with a basic triangular truss, the Canyon Creek Bridge was deemed unworthy of motorized travel by the caption on the information sign reading "This bridge does not meet current highway codes." Right. No surprise there! However, I sure would have liked a photo of my bus on it.

Speaking of surprises, I couldn't help but wondering how far I would have gotten on this trip without the benefit of the renowned periodical "The Milepost." Seemed that before my trip, everyone I talked to that knew Alaska and the Alcan told me that I needed the Milepost, and without it I would be lost and stranded. Well, I bought one, paying thirty-some dollars for it, only to find that it was basically a tour guide for the inexperienced traveler and patron of lodging, tour, and dining establishments. Yeah, sure, there was some good info in there, but most of it is just advertisements for restaurants, lodges, tour trains, planes, and guide services, and other silly things that you just don't need if you have a Volkswagen. The basic rules of the Alcan are much cheaper: Keep your tank above half-full, make sure you have good supplies for just in case, and don't drive modern junk that breaks. Right. At any rate, if you do want The Milepost for the backroads info, make sure to buy a used copy ... it's much cheaper. Wanna buy ours?

Another half-hour got me to Haines Junction. My route angled once again to the north, as I had been heading mainly west before. A long ascent was made all the more tiresome due to the fact that I was looking for a place to stop and have a bite to eat, being that it was after three, and I was determined to find a decent spot with a view of some sort. So I crested the pass, and started down the other side, and that was when I saw the first other split-screen VW on the entire trip so far. Unfortunately, it was on a Uhaul auto transport being towed by a twenty-six-foot Uhaul truck, heading south. The people in the truck gave me a big wave, and I waved back, but we didn't stop. Soon thereafter I found my spot: A little road giving me access to a grassy expanse on which I attempted to duplicate the effect of a particular photo that Kevin McLeod submitted some time ago, showing his bus overlooking a stretch of highway that went on forever and then some. I did not succeed with the photo because the road twisted out of sight, but I did succeed in having lunch, which fortified my flagging energy. I then spent some time picking pokey grass seed things out of my socks and putting on my snow pants and another sweater in an effort to keep myself from chilling any further. Just as I was about to leave, another giant Uhaul truck sped by, this time going north. The weird thing was that it too was towing a vehicle on an auto transport: an old beetle! What are the chances of seeing two Uhauls heading opposite directions pass within the scope of little more than a half-hour, and both of them towing old Volkswagens, only a few miles apart, on a stretch of highway thousands of miles long? Boggling, I say!

I had not long to travel before I came to the second Uhaul parked in a pullout. I swooped in to say hello. It was a nice young couple and their kid, on their move from Alabama, I think, heading toward a new life in Fairbanks. I told him he had a nice beetle (a '65) and declined his offer to trade VW's. He had a good engine in there, but problems with the wiring. He was really looking forward to running the original-paint red bug, which was going to have been their honeymoon car, but for problems with the previous engine. Hopefully his new wifey would favor the little car with a little more love once she got to experience it on the road, instead of stealing her husband's time and attention!

Shortly after I left the bug people, (bug people?) Kluane Lake hove into view. I cannot possibly express how beautiful and otherworldly this place was! If you sold flight tickets for shuttle trips to the newfound lake on Mars, and brought people here, you'd stand a good chance of not getting sued for fraud, as long as you made sure they didn't see the highway or the blue sky! Maybe give them tinted goggles they had to wear for the blue sky problem. There was the benefit of approaching the huge lake from the south and curving around the western edge. The mountains surrounding framed the scene, and the sun's light fell in swathes across the mirror-like waters, deeply tinted from below the surface with unnameable minerals - I could very nearly say that it glowed from within, but that might be pushing it. I tend to try to avoid comparing the worthiness of places, mostly because it is simply unfair, being so relative, but I can honestly say that I felt this lake and environs to be more strikingly beautiful and more interesting than the famed Mono Lake, which is similar in grandness and bizarre setting. Call me crass if you will, but I'll stand by that statement, at least for myself. You can go hang out at Mono Lake if you like, I'll take Kluane.

Destruction Bay is the tiny settlement on the shores of Kluane Lake; I believe its population was something like forty-three. I passed it, and into the lands beyond, my bus bucking like a proverbial bronco on the frost heaves. These had risen in number and intensity to make for some radical rides. Some were fun, others somewhat scary. It was difficult to tell one from the other, and my efforts to keep my speed up, I made a few mistakes, generally causing interesting scraping and clunking sounds to emanate from the bus. Some of these interruptions in the otherwise smooth surface of the road were not so uniform, making the asphalt look like petrified waves from a large bay after a tanker spill. The diagonal and random jags and fissures were punctuated by wicked protuberances often spaced perfectly for maximum upheaval. To see approaching vehicles negotiating these road rapids was especially amusing, more so when they were big, bouncy RV's. Teetering and tottering down the road, they looked as though they should probably have been pulled over for inebriation. The vehicles that is, not the drivers, who were helpless!

It was about this time that I developed a worry. My transmission had been holding together just fine, missing pin and all, but at some point that early evening there began a subliminal growl which eventually made itself known to my consciousness, separating itself from the roar of the wind and normal engine and road noise. I stopped at a rest area by a lake just off the road, and checked all exterior straps and rigging to make sure it wasn't one of those silly vibrations that once had me actually take a truck into the local garage to have the transmission checked only to find out it was a strap on the roof rack. Long time ago. Really. Years. Anyway, I was hoping for an obvious fix, but alas, I found none. When I got back on the road, the sound was gone for awhile, but returned shortly. I knew, deep down, that this noise was akin to the one that preluded the demise of the transaxle I ran in Bart for four years before hearing such, and although it was driveable for two or three years past that, it wasn't pleasant, and fraught with concern. Not the way I like to live.

Later, when the thrumming rumble was really starting to bug me, I pulled off onto a very nice little paved peninsula with an expansive view. Perfectly level and dry, it would do just fine to allow me to check my transmission oil. I figured that I should at least answer one of the many questions I had concerning that indispensable hunk of gears and goo that was part of what made my steed go, and it would be better done while it was still light, and not too cold. This is where I noted the stout cabover RV based on a Toyota Landcruiser, and took one lame photo of it to further the quest I was given by the Wagonmaster of the website www.rollingheads.org, which was to keep an eye out for cool and unusual rigs for his site. This particular truck looked as if it could take on anything, and the camper component looked well-built and intelligently designed. The oil level in the transaxle was fine, so I put my tools away, having used them for the first time this trip, and continued on toward Beaver Creek, the last town I would see this side of the Yukon/Alaska border.

After filling at Beaver Creek, and passing through the Canadian Customs station, which did not require me to stop, I sped on into the cold windy evening. The sun was setting over the muskeg, with the trees and clouds reflecting in the smooth surface of the waters laying like quicksilver over the surface of much of the land. I stopped, hoping for some decent sunset shots, and when I was out across the road from the bus, freezing my fingers off on the camera, I heard a curious honking, and saw several swans winging their way to the west. Beautiful! I jumped back into the bus, anticipating a short drive to the American Customs, where I was sure I would be thoroughly questioned and searched for that contraband fruit or some other wickedness, but I was astonished at having to drive a good twenty minutes or so before I got there! I suppose those thick lines on the map are drawn to scale or something.

Having been told that the American officials were much more likely to be a bunch of authoritative knuckleheads than the Canadians, who were actually quite nice, I was prepared for the worst. However, I was the only vehicle there, and while the officials were thorough and proper, it was very apparent to me that they were very happy that my papers were all in order, and that I didn't seem to be hiding anything. I think the secret of a hassle-free border crossing into Alaska is two-fold: Do it at night in the off-season, and do it when the wind is wickedly sneaking through every chink in the armor of your vehicle and through every weak spot in your insulative layers. Who could blame them for delaying my progress for only five minutes? Would YOU want to be out there in the frigid wind, going through the belongings of some freak in a Volkswagen? I think they were happier with their booth window closed, and the hot coffee at hand. I mean really, if you were going to smuggle drugs, guns, bombs, or alien body parts, wouldn't it perhaps be better to use a Hummer or a typical RV as part of your disguise, right? What smuggler in their right mind would use a VW Transporter? Or is it this double-thinking why you always see elderly ladies being frisked at the airport and weirdos like me with pockets and bags full of cameras and batteries and microphones pass through with ease? At any rate, they passed me through after asking the required questions, double-checking me by slipping in the question "Do you have any pets?" twice. Apparently I passed the test, and was free to go. The "knuckleheads" weren't so bad after all, and wished me safe journey. How nice, eh?

Now it was time for yet another lengthy search for a camping spot with cell reception. I drove through and over hills I could not see, and were it not for the cold sapping what warmth remained out of my body, I might have enjoyed the ride. When I crossed over the Alaskan border, I had also crossed the time zone border, but apparently the Time Being was busy elsewhere, and no questions were asked. An hour-and-a-half later, just after I could see the red lights of the towers in the distance and started getting reliable indications of reception from the phone, I came to a little road on the right which I impulsively took. This led shortly to a grand pit, probably a Department of Transportation gravel quarry by the looks of it, and gladly shut off the bus, tending without delay to my call to Michele and the devouring of dinner.

And so ended my sixth day on the road. What a way to spend fourteen hours!

Next: Homer Bound Trip Report: Page Eight


Gene Cornelius
mizamook@geemail dot com



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