North to Alaska: Happy Canada Day!

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We decided to celebrate Canada Day in Whitehorse before heading off to Skagway. We started with a sourdough pancake breakfast at Shipyards Park, where Liam devoured his pancake. A woman came by and offered them stickers—“I’m cute and Canadian”—which they proudly wore for the rest of the day. We also found Canadian flags that they waved whenever possible.

The big event was the Canada Day parade. We found a parking spot on Main Street and sat in the bed of the truck. The boys were most impressed by the Mounties and the bagpipers. A woman standing next to us gave the boys some candy that fell near us and a kid in one float worked very hard to get candy to our boys. It ended up on top of the cab. I was most impressed when the car drove by carrying the Mayor of Whitehorse. It was the woman who gave the boys stickers! I wish we would have known; we would have asked for a picture with her.

After picking up the camper, we were off on the South Klondike Highway. This was absolutely the prettiest drive we’ve done so far. We drove by many lakes, rivers, and could actually see the mountains. We even saw another black bear, but were going too fast with a following semi to take any photos. I wasn’t terribly fond of the last 12 miles (with an 11% downgrade), but we’d do it again. We even stopped at the “Welcome to Alaska” sign. When we got there, we were alone, but a car with 5 people stopped shortly after. Jeff took their photo for them, after which 30+ people arrived. As we prepared to leave, we caught the original five taking photos of each other with our camper as their background. I can’t believe we’re the biggest camper they’ve ever seen, but it was funny.

I wanted to see Klondike Nat’l Historical Park, but it wasn’t exactly what I expected. Skagway is basically the park, because the NPS owns many of the buildings and leases them out. There were also many more people in this tiny little town than we have seen the entire rest of our vacation thus far. It was absolutely crazy. Four cruise ships will do that to you. We made fun of all the people carrying 2-3 huge shopping bags, but went into the Alaska Shirt Company to find hats for $1.99, coats for $9.99. We walked out with 2 bags of our own. As we were finishing supper at Skagway Fish Company (again, quite yummy), the boys were able to watch one of the cruise ships departing, which they seemed to enjoy.

Jeff and I started traveling together in 1999 with a crazy week-long road trip to Gettysburg, Philadelphia, DC, and Niagara. Today, we entered our fiftieth state together. I will eventually do a scrapbook of the fifty states, including a photo of us, the state capitol, and whatever else we’ve done there. By the end of this trip, we will only be missing a picture in Boston, Honolulu, and New Jersey. We are so fortunate to have ample vacation time, health, and boys who let us travel without driving us completely insane. The boys, by the way, have each seen 49.

Tomorrow we are doing an Alaska Fjordlines tour to Juneau and celebrating Liam’s birthday. We won’t get back until late, so I may not post again until Thursday.


Conversation of the Day:

L: It’s green! (looking at Windy Arm)
M: Can you tell me why the lake is green?
L: Because the trees are doing their reflections. But if it is windy and stormy and bubbly you can’t see the reflection.

License Plates Noticed: BC, YK, CT, AK, CA, AZ, AR, QB, AB, FL, ME, MI, TX

High Temperature: 67o (Skagway, AK)
Low Temperature: 45o (US-Canada border)


Miles: 126.3

Total Time on the Road: 3:00

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