Whitehorse, Yukon to Jasper, Alberta
1,223 miles took me five days. Because of the fire in Fort Nelson, I got off the Alaska Highway.
Alaska Highway near Fort St. John, British Columbia
According to the CBC, Canadians have filled two airplane hangers in Edmonton with donations.
The news is full of interviews of survivors and firefighters. Yesterday, firefighters described bulldozing houses in Fort Mac that weren't on fire yet in order to create a fire line to protect intact neighborhoods. As the houses collapsed, belongings, like toys and furniture, tumbled out the windows and doors.
To stay out of the way, I took the Cassiar Highway south.
Before the Alaska Highway meets the Cassiar, is one of the most important bird nurseries in the Yukon, the Nisutlin River Delta Wildlife Area.
In the spring, swans, geese, ducks, songbirds, hawks, eagles, and falcons breed here. And in the fall, water levels drop and expose food-rich mudflats for migrating birds.
Nisutlin River from a Tower by the Highway
The Tinglit people have lived in this area forever, although I didn't see anyone. It was windy and rainy too, so this was the only bird I saw.
The only people I saw were five old white men drinking coffee at the gas station at the junction with the Cassiar Highway. One with a big white beard said he and his companion, an even older man with a thick southern accent, were so low on gas that they had waited three hours for the gas station to open. They said the middle section of the Cassiar is terrible, covered in potholes and bears. They saw nine-teen Black Bears and one Grizzly in one day.
24 hour Self Service Gas
Although I had been driving four hours, my gas gauge still read full. Maybe the gauge won't fix itself.
I get about 476 miles on one tank. The Cassiar Highway is 543 miles long.
The Cassiar has burned too. I stopped at Blue Lake, the site of a massive fire.
An immature Bald Eagle is perched in a snag in the center of this photo.
Had it all to myself along with:
Bald Eagle BAEA
Spotted Sandpiper SPSA
Common Loon COLO
Bonapart's Gull BOGU
Say's Phoebe SAPH
Brewer's Blackbird BRBL
Varied Thrush VATH
Pacific Wren PAWR
The best birds of the last five days were the Gray Jays (GRAJ) in camp one night and the Red-breasted Sapsuckers (RBSA, a lifer for me) on another.
As soon as I was within ten feet of my picnic table GRAJs appeared on the branches above to look down and check out my stuff.
GRAJs are confident, friendly, vivacious, year-round residents of the far north.
When I saw the RBSA, I thought, What's a Red-headed Woodpecker doing here? As the season goes on, you'll see that I'm more enthusiastic than skilled.
Red-breasted Woodpecker - photo by Budgora
One day, I came upon a tree across the road and, as I was wondering what to do, a guy in an RV with a chainsaw came along.
Two days on the Cassiar, I counted:
4 Subarus
2 Prius
4 Unident Sedans
1 Smart Car
3 motorcycles
1 bicycle
1 hitch-hiker
All the rest of the vehicles, less than fifty, were trucks, semis, U-hauls, and RVs.
The Cassiar Highway and Cassiar Mountains
I counted vehicles, counted bears (5 Black Bears), dodged potholes, and listened to Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade. He does a whole section on body lice. "...that intimate observer of human evolution, the body louse." Somebody constructed a genealogical tree of the mitochondrial DNA of body lice that has helped decipher when humans started wearing clothes.
I finally found gas in Iskut, BC. The person before me paid $125!
I was tempted to pick up the hitch-hiker at the junction of the Cassiar and the Yellowhead Highway, a young Frenchman with a dog and a puppy, but he was going to Whitehorse, and I realized that if I went all the way back there, I'd be late for work. This has been one hell of a commute.
The Yellowhead Highway, between Prince Rupert and Jasper, is the site of twenty-one murders and disappearances of young women between 1969 and the present.
Billboards with photos of these women line the highway.
I stayed in a busy RV camp in Vanderhoof, BC. A line of six RVs pulled in to register after me, one woman and one dog per RV. It was a "Woman's Group" traveling through Canada together, full of excitement. Nice to talk to friendly people after so many days alone.
Next morning, the woman who owned the park with her husband of 35 years took me aside and said she thought it was fine if a group of middle-aged women with short hair who had lost their husbands wanted to go have an adventure together. When she found out I had never been married and didn't have children she reassured me that there was nothing to be ashamed of in being single. That's a relief.
The Skeena River, north of the Yellowhead Highway, seems to be the boundary of civilization.
