Today was planned primarily as a driving day. We are headed to Haines Alaska, and there really is not much between us and there. Along the way we ran into a German couple we had camped next to last night. We were stuck waiting for a pilot car when we realized they were in front of us. We followed them thru the border crossing back into Canada and ended up at the visitors center in Beaver Creek. Ton and the wife Anna ran in to use the internet, while the husband Hubert and I tried to carry on a conversation about trucks and Volkswagens. When we went in Ton, Anna and the two ladies at the visitors center were gushing over pictures of Anna’s two week old grandchild.
Today we covered only about 200 miles, but it took about 6 hard hours of driving. There is one section of the road around Beaver Creek where the tundra has always wrecked havoc with the road. The tundra melts because of the heat generated by the road, and engineers have tried multiple ways to stop it, so far unsuccessfully. There has even been talk of going back to gravel for that section as it generates less heat and thus less frost heaves.
I want to end the day by praising the Yukon tourism board. The visitor centers every where are just fantastic. The people manning them are uniformly well informed and friendly. The internet is always strong, and they recognize that travelers up here need a place to connect, so they have seating areas for internet users. Because of this we stop in nearly every town’s visitors center. The other thing that Yukon does well are their Territorial Parks. They are not fancy but they are well laid out and clean, and best of all cost only $12 per night.