Most Fun Ever…North of 60

When most people think about going on a road trip, they think of the age old classics like Maine, California or Florida.

Rarely do people wake up and think, “Hey–let’s drive from Vancouver to Whitehorse in a Mazda 3 and hope we don’t die.”

Well, I did.

To contextualize: a really good friend of mine has been living in Whitehorse for the last few years and is now finally moving back to Ontario. Figuring, hey–this could be my only opportunity to see the Yukon and have a tour guide–I volunteer to come up for a visit. I team up with another friend of mine who’s studying in Vancouver, and he suggests we drive. I think, “This is going to be so badass.”

Cut to one month later, to me on a plane to Vancouver:

I have never been to the West coast before. I arrive in Vancouver at 9am. I spend most of the day waiting for my friend who just finished his first year of law school to sleep off his extensive hang over. I tour around Kitsilano Beach, drink some coffee and marvel at the fact that every other store sells sporting apparel.

Finally, he wakes up and we strategize our drive. After spending over two hours using google street view to plot out our drive, we decide that we’re probably going to end up re-living the movie “Deliverance” and begin to regret our decision of DRIVING TO THE BLOODY YUKON.

Ehem. We proceed to get sufficiently drunk and hope not to die in the car the next day.

Day One

We pile up the ol’ Mazda 3 with ample snacks, energy drinks and print outs of our route.

The map says it should take 1 day and 8 hours of driving–we figure, at 120km/h + minimal stops and sleep, we can make it in 24hrs.

First, we load up the driver with a McGangBang: the only thing that fuels him through law school, and now through the drive from hell.

We get onto Mile 1 of the TransCanada highway and make our way towards Prince George. We estimate we’ll get there in about 7 hours. We figure can take a quick break and eventually get to Smithers, BC for the night.

Let me say this: GOOGLE MAPS IS ALWAYS WRONG. It took us over an hour to even get out of Vancouver. Not to mention, that it shows the most “direct” route. Meaning, it did not show the a) severe threats of hitting wildlife, b) construction, nor c) gravel which makes up most of the one-lane-highways-on-the-side-of-a-mountain, which is, most of rural B.C.

It took 9hrs to get to Prince George; considering the aforementioned factors, it’s generally a gong show. We had wanted to drive half of the 2400km to Whitehorse in one night. So, we fuel up in Prince George and continue towards Smithers, now officially two hours behind our original estimate.

We switch onto Mile 16 of the TransCanada and it gets dark. By the time we reach Smithers, it’s 2:30am and none of the motels are open. After witnessing some intense crystal meth exchanges in a 7-11 gas station, we decide to keep going.

Up until this point, there had been a rest stop every 30-50 minutes, so we head towards one. Suddenly, it’s pouring rain, we’re on the side of a cliff and it’s dark as hell–it’s foggy so the moon is completely covered. Recipe for being totally screwed. We’re also surrounded by moose. Giant moose that want to run right into our car, I imagine.

There are no rest stops for another two hours. We finally find one, pull over and sleep in the car. It’s 4:30am.

Day Two

I wake up to the realization that I am in the middle of a Reserve, have had 3 hours of sleep, and have nothing to eat but a variety of cheese-flavoured crackers. This is not the ideal road-trip-situation.

So, we keep driving.

We hit signs saying “North to Alaska” and figure we must be pretty close.

Wrong.

We’re still 12 hours out, and most of the highway is made of gravel.

At one point, we’re nearly hit by a bald eagle.

We pull over, about halfway up the BC-37 (aka the worst highway in history) for a nap; we’re in the middle of a ghost town, and we’ve already officially totally overshot how long we thought it would take us.

We finally arrive in Whitehorse at 8:30pm, way later than we expected.

Needless to say, we meet up with my friend and promptly collapse after eating every fresh vegetable in sight lest we die of the scurvy we no doubt incurred on the drive up.

It took us over 28 hours to get there.

Tomorrow, Alaska.

Day Three

I’ve been through a lot of Canadian cities, though none as unique or as intriguing as Whitehorse. The Yukon territory is an interesting place. Consisting largely of government employees, artists, and First Nations people, the territory comprises a unique population not seen anywhere else in the country.

Admittedly, we were expecting it to look a little like this:

You know…an arctic tundra or some such other nonsense. Instead, the Yukon is beautiful. Trees and mountains as far as you can humanly see; every store or restaurant you could think of, and even a wicked brewery and coffee roaster that are just mind blowing.

Seriously, if you ever want to have the best beer in Canada–hit that up. (Click here to read the Get Er Done Tour Diary when Anna Von went to Whitehorse in 2008)

There are approximately 25,000 people in Whitehorse, with an additional 4-6,000 coming in the summer months for the extensive (largely German) tourist fuelled economy. On our first real day, we went to Skagway, Alaska, since it’s only 1.5 hours outside of Whitehorse.

Alaska looked exactly how I pictured it would. Small, quaint, beautiful. We bummed around the town, which was completely deserted because the cruise ships hadn’t  yet begun to come in. We hiked, saw some waterfalls, and ate the best fish and chips known to human kind at The Skagway Brewing Co.

Day Four

A day dedicated to Whitehorse: we cruised around town, hit up some hot springs and ate at some delicious local favourites.

Emotionally, we had to prepare ourselves for the two-day drive we had back to Vancouver in the morning.

Day Five

After the exciting drive up (read: terrifying) we were recommended to take another route. Though longer, the highways were wider, not made of gravel, and you could easily do 140 km/h without worry.

We drove along the Alaskan Highway through Watson Lake all the way through to Fort Nelson.

This route included way more Provincial Parks, and BISON. Seriously. Like, twice the size of our car just hanging out on the road.

As it gets dark, and we’re in the middle of a Reserve again and there’s 4 feet of snow on either side of the car. I realize that reading Cormac McCarthy books on this trip was a poor choice. If you’ve ever read a Cormac McCarthy book, you’ll understand my sentiment.

Day Six

We barrel through the rest of the drive and return un-Deliveranced, unscathed and unharmed to Vancouver.

We promptly collapse under the weight of how giant Canada actually is.

Most fun ever? Or Most ridiculous trip idea ever? You decide.