Tuesday, August 16th, 2022
Moon Lake Recreation Area, Alaska
Pilot doesn't want to leave the lake.
I don't blame him. We've done a good deal of sitting on our asses in the car these last couple weeks, and as much as I love the journey by road, I'm regretting packing it all in so tightly. But we've got an itinerary to stick to, at least for now. If we don't follow it we won't have enough time on that daunting road to get all the way to the Arctic Ocean. If we don't follow it I might chicken out, and, as much as I am terrified of this next step, I am twice that in curious.
It doesn't take long to connect to the Taylor Highway. From there we will pass through Chicken and on to the Top of the World Highway, which will take us to Dawson City and, ultimately, the Dempster Highway. Tonight's destination is the Tombstone Mountain Campground, Yukon, at the beginning of that 400 mile dirt road that goes all the way north.
At least that's the plan.
We get to Chicken in less than two hours. Chicken, Alaska, has a souvenir shop and an RV campground, a cafe, bar, and a salmon bake. People live here, in this tiny town, but there's no quaint little community with houses and mailboxes and paved roads. You can't see any houses from downtown. Chicken, Alaska, is the real Alaska.
I go into the souvenir shop to poke around. Collect more souvenirs than I can afford and take my finds and my credit card to the counter. A robust and northerly woman at the register asks where I am headed. I tell her my itinerary for the day. The fact that I'm going to take a ferry across the Yukon River hasn't really sunk in, in spite of my having checked this morning to see if it was operating. Turns out, the woman tells me, it isn't operating. She got a call not half an hour ago. The ferry is missing some important part. At present it can only take human passengers across. No cars.
I thank her for the information. Decide I want to drive up there myself to check it out. Maybe it will be fixed by the time I get there. Maybe she got the wrong information.
The road toward the border crossing is unpaved and narrow and winding. Slow-going for a destination that I won't actually reach. An excessive expenditure of valuable time. Frustrated, I accept the truth and turn around.
It's going to take me two days to get to the Dempster Highway.
Everything happens for a reason, I tell myself, though I'm not sure I believe it. I allow myself to brood and grumble, then bring myself back into the present.
There is a sweetness to Taylor Highway, with its multicolored patchwork of repavings from, I assume, whatever gravel was available at the time. It makes me appreciate the people here, they way they live with a focus on necessity and not wasting valuable resources. Life in wild Alaska, I imagine, keeps a person as present as any monastery-bound monk.
It takes less than an hour for Taylor Highway to deliver me and Pilot and our little Orange Landship back to Highway 1. The Alaska Highway. We drive and drive and drive. I don't think about much.
Shortly before the crossing back into Yukon, we hit some road construction, with a much-welcomed long delay. Pilot and I get out to stretch our legs, appreciate the surrounding beauty, and examine dead dragonflies.
The edge of the road drops down into the valley. Along it are chunks of asphalt from a previous repaving. I stoop down and pick up a piece. Weigh it in my hand against the thoughts and emotions it brings up. I think of the dream my 18-year-old self had to one day drive this highway. Of all the years of turmoil and abuse and change and hard work it took to finally be bold enough, free enough, to make that dream come true. Is this piece of gravelly asphalt as old as that dream?
I slip the piece of Alaska Highway into my pocket.
We cross back into Canada and continue our backtrack as far as I can get us before the fatigue sets in.
Under all these clear skies, the scenery is brand new.
We pass Kluane Lake, where we'd stayed almost two weeks ago. I get out for another break. Pilot and I run along the shore for a few minutes. It's different today than it was when we were last here. The wind churns the lake into frothy, minty peaks. Waves crash against the shore like waves of a small sea. It's exhilarating. And cold. Fall is coming.
Pilot doesn't want to leave. Again. But we have to keep going. I've been driving for over 8 hours and I need to find a place to stop for the night. I would stay here but it's not close enough to our destination. That and I have a weird prickly feeling about the surroundings that I can't explain.
Half a mile down the road the prickly feeling explains itself as I pull up behind a dozen tourists who have stopped to ogle a grizzly bear on the beach. She's headed in the direction of where Pilot and I had been playing minutes before. Awestruck, I leap out of the car. I mount my camera on its gigantic zoom lens, and, in low light with shaky hands, snag a few blurry and obscured shots of grizzly ass.
Around the corner the ducks laugh at me.
I drive on. I continue until the navigation ETA to Tombstone Mountain drops under 8 hours. I find a rest stop outside of Haines Junction. I don't make dinner, just eat enough snacks to satisfy my hunger. I've been eating like this all day. My belly doesn't approve. It and my anxieties over driving a 400 mile dirt road into the wilderness keep my exhausted mind awake.
The rain comes back. It pounds hard on the roof of the car. Cars pull into the rest area, their headlights illuminating the cabin of my tiniest RV. I want to feel annoyance to pair with my anxiety, but the presence of other humans brings comfort.
Pilot snuggles in tight against my belly and sighs. I pull the covers over my head and wait for sleep.
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