sidetracks

so we said goodbye to the yukon territory and the alaska highway, and took highway 37 south into british columbia. we also thought we'd said goodbye to alaska, but not quite - more on that later. was nice to be back in canada, we'd gotten quite used to kilometers, washrooms, and loonies :)



the coolest part about RVing it is the total flexibility of it. for example, when presented with a view too nice to take in in passing, we can stop, break out the camp chairs, and have a cup of tea. like here.



so i am not quite as on top of everything as i should be - i have this silly idea that if you spell labor day with a 'u', it should be in may. as canada actually observes it the same way we do, we missed out on some shopping opportunities in whitehorse (most notably the quilt shop and the yukon brewery.)

also, it turns out google maps has a really distorted idea of how long the cassier highway should take to drive. apparently it thinks you'll average about 30kph! the road is in fact not paved, but is mostly a seal-coated gravel that rides about as well. we passed the place google suggested would take us all day to get to, well before lunch. so we took a side trip. went glacier hunting, which took us (briefly) back to alaska.



if you ever come this way you MUST take the road to stewart. it is a short trip (on a good road) down a glacial valley, and the scenery is just spectacular. there is a huge glacier that calves into a lake at the halfway point (the actual set for the cabin in "Insomnia", if you ever saw it), and dozens of waterfalls that put yosemite to shame.



at the end of the valley you reach stewart, a canadian town of reasonable size. hyder is a tiny alaskan town that faces stewart across the canal. the road continues around the end and joins the two. you can tell you've crossed the border in two ways. one is the canadian customs station on the south side of the road. (none on the american side - apparently they just don't care.) the other is that canada actually spends money on road maintenence.



anyway, five miles into AK is a great spot for watching black bears fish for spawning salmon. we saw a lot of salmon, but no bears - ok tho, we saw plenty on the roadside the last two days. and if you have the stamina to follow this road for another 20 miles you can see another huge glacier, in my opinion well worth the bumpity bumpity :)