Chetwynd, B.C.

6/24/17 – Up early and we continue West to Prince George and then North toward Dawson Creek.  Had about 7 hours driving and then stopped at a nice campground in Chetwynd for the night.  We hiked down to the Beaver River, Linda was mad at me because I forgot the bear spray.  I was able to coax her all the way before she beat a hasty retreat back toward the park.  Didn’t see any bear sign. The town of Chetwynd hosts annually the International Chainsaw Carving Chanpionship.  You won’t believe these carvings.   Stayed 2 nights. Here is a link to more pictures and some of the history of the place.  Really amazing for a small town in B.C.  http://www.itsabouttravelling.com/chetwynd-chainsaw-carvings/

6/26/17 – Still working on getting some kilometers behind us, drove all day stopped at Testa River Campground. Power rest with plans to get back on the road tomorrow.  No internet. They can spell WIFI, just don’t have it anywhere. Places that do have it are full of connectivity starved backpackers, motorcyclist and yes RVers.

6/27/17 – Continue power driving. RON (rest overnight) Lake Watson.

Here is a pic of me washing the coach after I did a stupid thing (the only one this year) and left the gas cap at the last fuel stop.  Needless to say it sucked fuel out all down the side of the coach and the jeep.  Not as worried about the dirt, when fuel is 1.15 Canadian per liter!

6/28/17 – Up early and off again. I think I have gained on our schedule and are back on track.  Stopped in Whitehorse and roamed the town. Way larger than I had pictured this place.  Mostly from watching “Ice Road Truckers” which show it as a one horse truck stop. Large vibrant cultured city that was very busy.  Not sure what the event was, but the place was packed.  We lucked out and found a ball park parking lot on the outskirts of the city and drove the jeep in.  Good thing we didn’t take the coach in, there was not a parking spot in the whole place. Made a couple of stops, picked up Subway and back to the coach for a leisurely lunch. We continued on to Haines Junction and stopped at a typical 30amp camp ground for this part of the world.  $30-$35 a night in most of these parks.  The Alaskan Highway is also known as the Veteran’s Highway. So everywhere we go they give us the military discount which most of the time is $5 off.  Same as Good Sam.

This park has a car wash, which is not working, but they let us use their hose to wash the jeep.  Boy was it dirty.  I could not believe how many rocks there were on the running boards and front bumper.  Lost one of the fog lights, but the car cover we bought has saved all the other lights and windshield. The rocks from the road repairs are forced back under the mud guard and up onto the jeep.  I saw a guy with a “Rock Shield” in front of his tow vehicle.  The rocks were bouncing off the shield and onto the back of his motor home.

I will wash the MH tomorrow before we leave. I am shooting to get to TOK Alaska tomorrow and back in the good old USA.  Linda has been keeping her phone off while in Canada due to the roaming charges. I signed up for the $10 a day ATT Canada plan which at lease gives us Phone and SMS without internet. July 1st is Canada Day which celebrates their independence, and I want to be somewhere hunkered down thru the 4th.  We are looking to try and get near to McCarthy which is where the Kennicott copper mine is located.  Here is a link that explains how McCarthy works. http://www.kennicottlodge.com/getting-here/by-road

We will be there or in Valdez for Independence Day.  Did I mention they don’t have fireworks displays up here? The sun does not set so you can’t see them. Pictures soon, I promise.

Here are some of the local wildlife along the way.  This bear ran up to the motor home when I opened the door to get a better shot.  He waited right outside the window for food.  ” A fed bear, is a dead bear” is the local saying.

6/29/17 – Well arrived in TOK and checked into the TOK RV Park.  This is 92 miles into Alaska from the Canadian border and a very nice park.  Plan is tof stay two days, charge our batteries (Linda’s and mine), do some laundry and then head down to McCarthy to checkout the Kennicott Mine.  I went and spoke with the Alaska Fish and Game to get licenses and the gouge on fishing regulations. She handed me a stack of regs on the things you cannot do and the lures you can’t use, and the bait you can and can’t use, and I went home to study.  Oh yea, they don’t sell licenses, she directed me to the gift shop next door and said Linda would have to be with me to sign. Looks like another shopping opportunity!

A minor event I forgot to mention on the way to TOK, it started raining and one of the wiper arm attachment points, on the driver side, came loose. So I took a screw from the passenger side, there are two holding it together, and put it back together and a zip tie and we were back on the road,

Now back to the shopping opportunity, I also had to pick up the machine screws I needed to fix the wiper from the only hardware store in town. They had the parts and back to do the install.  Everything went perfect on the repair, no big deal, until I found this other nut that seemed loose, so I started tightening it and immediately snapped off the stud! Now the wiper system is completely Inop. Found a guy in town that would weld a stud on and back to the park to unhook and bring him the coach.  While they worked on that Linda and I went shopping, mostly Linda, and picked up our licenses. Not cheap, $145 each, but good for the whole state, fresh and salt. Picked up the coach, all fixed and back to the park. Tried to get reservations near McCarthy but everything is booked. (4th of July weekend, duh!) Bad planning on my part, so we decided to stay another day in TOK and get the next step right.  I thought we would push past McCartyh down to Valdez, but everything booked there.  We are going to get up on the 1st of July and head to Chicken AK in the Jeep and see if there is some fishing on the way.  We will come back same day. Since we have to backtrack if we go to McCarthy, a change of plans and we are going to head North to Fairbanks fomorrow and will hit the Kennicott mine on our South bound leg home.

6/30/17 – Headed to Chicken in the Jeep today. Boy are we glad we did not take the “Top of the world” highway. It was by far the roughest road we have seen so far this trip. I have been carrying two 2GAL reserve gas cans on the back of the Jeep. When we got to. Chicken a couple came running up to me and in French tried to explain that I had lost my gas cans on the road and where. Since we don’t speak French, we headed back to try and locate them.  There was a very long (40 minute wait) stoppage on the road due to blasting (I said it was bad), and while we were ther I explained to the flag lady what had happened and she used the radio to call back to the other side to see if they had been turned in. Low and behold someone turned in one of them and it was the one with the locking mechanism. The rough road had sheered off the bolt where it attached to the Jeep.  When I got back to TOK, I went to see the same guy that helped me with the bolt on the windshield wiper.  I also learned something new (happening a lot on this trip), While he was drilling the bolt I noticed the drill was in reverse.  When I mention it, after looking at me funny, he explained this was a reverse bit.  As he drilled, the bit grabbed and backed out the sheared bolt! Amazing, and he didn’t have to use an easy out. Gonna get a set of these. Once that was done, no charge for the work Kohr lesson on drill bits, back to the camp to remount the single gas can I have left. The adventure continues.

So, that was part of the Chicken trip.  There was really nothing in Chicken! A gold mine camp, gas station, cafe, gift shop and a guy hand making knives. Linda did spot the top of what we thought was a dredge while we were at the cafe, so after we ate, we drove over to the site.  Low and behold, a floating dredge way up here on top of this mountain.  It had to be re-assembled here, since there is no river that could have floated it to the top of this mountain (I didn’t think of that while I was there, it came to me later). Very interesting though. It was the Pedro Dredge. Further review finds this dredge did operate in the Chicken Creek.  Here is a link to a very cool story, and they have better pictures.

http://www.chickengold.com/pedro_dredge.html

7/3/17 –  Found out that Eielson Air Force Base has an RV park so we headed over there to check it out and see if we could get in. Stopped at the visitor center which was an outdoor park.