Yukon & Alaska:
August 26 to September 1
(First stop, Grand Prairie then on to Fort Nelson before getting on the Alaska Highway. Watson Lake,
3 nights in Whitehorse and then Dawson City, YT make up week number 1 of the journey.)
Click on the photo for each day to view that day's photos.
Day 1 - August 26, 2026
Day 1 is in the books. As usual, we turned a 6.5-hour drive to Grande Prairie into an 11-hour drive. We decided to drive a back route (go figure) and head west to Nordegg, then north on the Forestry Trunk Road, Highway 40. A couple hundred miles of gravel. Very pretty but also very long. We just took a few shots of the scenery and then saw several Big Horn Sheep. A couple had some of the biggest racks I have ever seen. I get a headache just thinking about what they do with them.
Big Horn Ram
Day 2 - August 27, 2026
Day 2 was a drive from Grande Prairie to Fort Nelson. Our first stop was in Dawson Creek to where we got a couple shots at Milepost 0 of the Alaska Highway. Then on to an old, closed section of the highway and the closed Kiskatinaw Bridge. Quite photogenic. Then on to Fort Nelson. Not much along the way except the remains of a huge wildfire. And then, the closer we got to Fort Nelson, the smokier it got. So smoky that visibility was down to 100 yards in places and we were worried that there was a fire very close and we might get turned around. But we made it and were told the fire is hundreds of miles away. So, we went to the Fort Nelson Heritage museum. Loads of old cars and equipment. An old engine caught my eye, and I realized it was a V-12. I figured it must be from an early 30’s Cadillac. Wrong! A photo uploaded to Google which says it is a Rolls Royce Merlin engine. Depending on year it produced somewhere between 1,040 hp and 1,700 hp and may have come from a Supermarine Spitfire or Hawker Hurricane, WW II fighters. This is possible as there was apparently a base in the area during the war.
The Alaska Highway - Milepost Zero
Day 3 - August 28, 2026
Today was a long but beautiful drive from Fort Nelson to Watson Lake, YT. The day started out gray and still a little smoky. But as the day went on the smoke cleared and so did the weather. The scenery is gorgeous and we were also fortunate to see several groups of bison, a cow moose, a large black bear and a silver fox. Unfortunately, I wasn’t set up for a fast-moving fox, so the shot isn’t great, but I managed that just before he headed into the forest. There were several stretches of the remains of forest fires. Along the way we stopped at the Tetsa River Lodge and had a fantastic cinnamon bun. We also took a short but rough road to the Smith River Falls. Watson Lake has a place called “signpost” where people from all over the world put up signs showing where they are from. This is about a city block square and there are thousands of signs. Tomorrow we are off to Whitehorse.
The Alaska Highway
Day 4 - August 29, 2026
A shorter day on the road today, just six hours. Again, we started with showers, fog and cool and again the weather improved as the day went along. The scenery is gorgeous and there are a few fall colours starting to appear. I was shooting a scene when a Tundra Swan swam into the scene, then took off. A beautiful sight to see. Just in front of me when shooting the swan were the remains of an old bridge. Likely from the original highway, back in 1942. Speaking of bridges, there are many, many rivers and streams, therefore many bridges. The long one shown here is over the Teslin River. We are now in Whitehorse for a couple days.
Teslin River Bridge
Day 5 - August 30, 2026
Our first day in Whitehorse was a quiet one. I usually don’t like to shoot at a zoo or Wildlife Reserve but today I made an exception. Mostly because I wanted to shoot a caribou and we were told they are still high up in the mountains. The Reserve was interesting and I shot more than you see here but nothing special. After the tour there, we just wandered around old downtown Whitehorse. Whitehorse has evolved a lot in the last twenty years from what I expected (rough, old, northern town) into a modern city and all that goes with that. Development everywhere, traffic, homelessness and big box stores. Not as pretty as it once was (so I was told). But we found old downtown, walked around, had dinner and called it a day.
Old Downtown Whitehorse
Day 6 - August 31, 2026
Another day looking around Whitehorse and a visit to the MacBride Museum. It contains so many memorabilia about the Yukon that you could spend days here. Including the cabin of Sam McGee. A quick stop at the old paddle wheeler “The Klondike” which is being restored as a museum. It will never see the water again, but it is good they are saving it. Then we took a drive up to Miles Canyon where Verna walked across the suspension bridge over the Yukon River which, for someone that does not like heights, is a feat. The river is simply gorgeous. Lots of water and the colour is amazing. A few float planes and a Red Fox that wouldn’t look at me because he had his (her?) eye on a bird that was soon caught. Tomorrow, we are off to Dawson City.
Yukon River
Day 7 - September 1, 2026
The first week in in the books. A beautiful drive from Whitehorse to Dawson City today. The weather was… weird. Cool, cloudy, rainy then sun then rain then, finally it turned sunny and warm. But on the upside, the scenery is beautiful. The Yukon River is huge! I put up the drone for the first couple shots (Fox Lake, not the river) but the highway runs along the Yukon River for most of the way. We didn’t see any wildlife except a pair of Trumpeter Swans. Lots of construction along the way, turning a 6-hour drive into 8 but enjoyable, nonetheless. Some Yukon (tourist?) humour on a pair of outhouses, a stop at the entrance to the Dempster Highway, then the highlight of the day. Mama Moose and two calves standing in the water of a pond. A couple shots of American Widgeons (ducks) and one of our hotel in Dawson City. This place looks cool, but we’ll check it out more tomorrow.
Mama Moose and her babies