This Canadian $6 per gallon diesel is killing us:

Heading South from Fort Nelson, we stopped in the town of Taylor to spectate a sand sculpture contest in progress:

The sand is packed into a wedding cake-like arrangement of forms.  The artist then sculpts the tightly packed sand, removing levels of forms as he or she goes:

I don’t know why we do this, but they are funny:

Continuing South, we diverted off the AlCan to drive a section of the original Alaska Highway that crosses the original World War II era Kiskatinaw Bridge, the only curved and banked wooden trestle bridge in Western Canada:

We arrived in Dawson Creek in the afternoon.  Dawson Creek is “Mile Zero” of the Alaska Highway.  Most folks start here, but for us this is the end of the AlCan:

The old grain silo is now an art gallery:

The vistor center has a history museum and a natural history museum in it:

Gotta love the R/C float plane:

Tonight we are overnighting at the Walmart of Dawson Creek, BC.  See the trip map for details.

We’ve seen plenty of black bears (and one grizzly) on the side of the road, but today as we drove from Watson Lake to Fort Nelson, this was the first one where I was able to pull over and take a couple photos:

A bit farther on we passed a number of Wood Bison:

Then still further up the road, we had to stop for some Stone Sheep crossing the road:

We had lunch at an overlook at Muncho Lake:

Copper oxides brought down by glaciers into the lake saturate the water and give it a blue-green hue:

Just when we thought we were through with Alaskan megafauna, we passed a caribou running along the road:

We arrived at the town of Fort Nelson, and were told at the visitor center that the IGA grocery store allows overnight parking, so we drove over and set up there for the night.  Since sunset wasn’t until 9:45pm, I went for an evening ride. 

About 20 minutes out of town, I encountered a bear on the road.  I waited for it to cross the road, then spoke to it as I rode by him.  We watched each other as I continued down the road.

Eventually, I reached a bridge over the Fort Nelson River:

On the way back, I passed three more bears, thankfully with a fence between me and them.  The fence had gaps at the bottom, so I didn’t stop to photograph them, hence the blur:

It was a great ride!  See the trip map for today’s drive.

Today we got off to late start in Whitehorse.  We did some work on the RV, then headed out in the late afternoon and drove East to Teslin.  We’re camped tonight in an empty lot next to the gas station under an oppressive sky:

See the trip map for driving details.

This morning, we stopped at the visitor center at Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. The visitor center has on display a cache structure. It would be filled with food, tools, and other things need to survive the winter so that if the main cabin burned down, the trapper would still have what he needed to survive through the winter:

The view from the visitor center on to the refuge:

Driving East, we crossed into Canada without incident and continued driving until we reached Haines Junction. On the way, we passed a grizzly grazing on the side of the road as well as another pair of bears running along the rosd a while later. We also wound our way around the shore of Kluane Lake, which had emerald green water. Quite the view of the St. Elias mountains from Haines Junction:

Unfortunately, there was a good bit of road construction and some of the road was dirt, so our truck is dirty again:

Tonight, we are overnighting in a grocery store parking lot in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. See the trip map for driving details.