Just Around The Bend Episode III Touring the Continent: Crossing the Great North

JUST AROUND THE BEND

Episode III

The mountains from Colorado to Idaho were
awesome and a different experience for us. Hot
days turned into cold nights. Where our sleeping
bags were welcomed. These mountains lend
themselves to smaller cities, hardworking,
hands-on, layback people. We won’t forget how
clear that became with one visit to a doctor’s
office where the waiting room was filled with
patients whose major problems were cuts,
bruises, and broken bones. We were use to
internal injuries, like colds, measles, or some
disease, not external injuries.

There was the Zoo to end all zoos. When we
arrived in Yellowstone we had high hopes of
seeing all the large animals that live in North
America. We did that, but we also learned that
they were pretty smart, and would easily come
into our camp, eat our food, and if not harm us,
scare the hell out of us.

We thought by the time we had reached Canada
that we had a pretty good grasp on our camping.
How we would be able to travel, and take good
care of ourselves. We had traveled parts of the
Santa Fe, Oregon and the Lewis and Clarke
Trails. We had visited western museums that
helped us understand our country and bring it
alive. We are an aggressive bunch.
We were in pretty good shape to go further
north. It would be more of the same, only with




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less people and more animals. Boy! Were our
expectations off the mark.

The most pronounced difference became clear as
we crossed the border. What we found in
Canada was not as affluent, didn’t have the
abundance or industry that we do, and for sure
isn’t as flashy. The diversity of our countries isn’t
just our people, but all those things that would
change our histories. It was the climate; the
mountains, forests, lakes and plains, the weather,
and the environment. All in all we found a
country that’s economy was strong, and it’s
people were pleasant.
Entering Canada the mountains grew around us.
The forests surrounded us. At the foot of these
steep 12,000 foot forests were green glacier lakes
and rivers. Of all the places Banff, in the bottom
of a beautiful bowl, was so inviting, and
welcoming. Elk wandered the streets, and Big
Horn Sheep the highways.

The border we crossed was more than two
countries, it was into a different world. Into a
wilderness. Into the Great Northwest.

We found that camping was easy for us.
Campgrounds were clean, and open, our sites
were flat and we were above all welcomed.

Canadians kept their campgrounds in good
shape. Winter and spring weather was treated
like part of the natural occurrance of time. As
summer arrived it was time to clean up, including
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all the camps. They never left a messy place
behind.

Snow has held us up from time to time, and
we’ve even been stuck in it. But, the roads and
highways we encountered along the way were
something else. We’d driven hundreds of miles
on ‘highways’ that were a little more than one
lane. They had to be dragged from time to time
to keep them open, but the most surprising were
the ones marked ‘CLOSED’ until winter. We
never drove those, yet always wondered what
they would be like. There were some roads they
called gravel. We stayed as far away from them
as we could, because the gravel they talked about
was cut stone, as sharp as a razor. And even the
paved roads were interesting with pot holes and
rolling swells. The latter were the worst because
we thought they were good, drive them at 50
mph with a sickening, nauseating result, from
riding up and down.

We were lucky not to have a breakdown and
were concerned that we had so little food with
us. Our impression was there would be long
distances between gas stations, and even further
between groceries. That turned out to be
partially true. Had we needed help the distances
between services would have been pretty far.
However, because of our van, not a trailer or RV,
any garage could help us. So even though we
didn’t need help it was there. We got gas at every
opportunity.
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When on the ALCAN Highway there was lots of
traffic. Tourism has led to a population
explosion along the road, with fresh vegetables
and fruit at every stop. We are forever thankful
for their canned cherry preserves. The best
anywhere.
It was a myth that we would be the only ones,
and that we’d need to fill our gas tank as often as
possible, and get groceries often.

We saw very little of First Nation people. It
seemed they stayed away from us tourists. We
did get an idea of their separate laws and ways
from different Alaskans and Rangers. In
Anchorage we stopped at a souvenir shop that
sold many items that we’re not otherwise
available. One was a mammoth’s tusk.
Our plains picnic at the Bercholds was an
experience that we will never forget. They, First
Nation were so kind and giving to us. We really
had a great time.

They say that scratching the ground in the far
north would take the earth years to repair itself.
We therefore were careful not to tear up the
countryside. But, when we neared Dawson City
in the Yukon we realized how this land had been
man handled, by the Gold Rushers one hundred
years ago. We saw and climbed upon the gold
dreadge’ ‘worms’. Yet, the pictures that showed
the barren hills. Where every tree had been cut
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down, not one was left standing, gave us an
entirely different sense of what happen here in
the Yukon.

For all our travels nothing came close to the
Yukon for it’s wildness and history of the last
frontier. We were further away from everyone,
more remote and yet all around us was the
history and scars of men and women who dared
search for their dream.
It was hard to imagine that a state or province
could hold as few people as 60,000. Yet the
Northwest Territory was the largest political land
mass in North America. We suppose they
counted them. Even so imagine how we felt
when outside of the second largest town, Hay
River, population 14,000, it was called the
‘Boonies’. We drove through the ‘Boonies’ yet
called the 300 mile, little dirt road The Laird
Highway.

Every mile across the Canadian Shield brought us
closer to another way of life. One that was more
familiar to us. That we had grown up in and
loved. A busy congested United States and it’s
East Coast.

This has been such an adventure. We will
probably consider where and how we’d like to
travel, in the future.





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APPENDIX
MAPS

CANADA



















































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THE GREAT NORTHWEST



















































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BRITISH COLUMBIA AND ALBERTA

















































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ALASKA AND THE YKON





















































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SASKATCHEWAN


















































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MANITOBA






















































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WESTERN ONTARIO


















































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Ontario, Western New York and Pennsylvania


















































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U.S. EAST COAST
































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