Burwash Landing, Yukon, Canada
Along Kluane Lake
“It’s not the destination it is the
journey”
“roads were made for journeys, not destinations”
The road is the journey
What we discover here is that there
are several spots we go to and spend some time – but all the roads which leads
us there are so amazing, that the scenic driving is more than half of the fun
of the trip. We drove so many amazing roads – it is unbelievable. The next two days will involve a lot of
driving as we head towards Valdez. So we leave with beautiful sunshine and yes
there are a lot of beautiful places (even we are on the road for so long we don’t
have enough time)
I may should mention that there are
not that many vehicles on the roads here and I would guess half of them are
RV’s.
Along Kluane Lake
Our journey started out with driving
along the Kluane Lake: first stop at the Congdon Creek TP: here we only cleaned
our windows and disposed of the garbage. Next stop was at a little cute display
on the side of the road – which looked super cool: when Gine read is was a
memorial to a first nations, who was living in the area, he often said “Follow
your dreams, be kind and always remember to enjoy every day of your life” –
we will try to do this.
Entering Burwash Landing: Gine said we
should visit the Museum – lucky for Paul the Museum is closed – so Gine checked
out the display nearby which talked about the forest fire which happened in this
area.
- In 1999 in June, Garbage was burned at a community dump and the wind carried the embers to a nearby forest and started a blaze. Even it was soon under control strong winds drove it out of control and towards the community, 88 got evacuated the rest 100 residents battled the fire – they could protect most of the buildings with the help of firefighters from all over the province
- At times winds of 50km /h drove the flames 50m high in the air: there are so strong winds here as the sun-warmed air from the valley rises the cold air from the ice field flows down in the valley and increases in speed: this is a katabic wind and are especially strong during periods of high pressure
- And yes, we are already aware that fire is a natural cycle to renew boreal forest it enriches the soil reduced beetle infestation and promotes germination of trees and shrubs
lets not forget on our trip along
here, we have a lot of great views towards the St. Elias mountains as well on
our trip we saw a lot of burned forests in different stages of growing back.
Once we stop at a viewpoint to the
Kluane River – and can overlook that huge valley – imagine we only see a tiny
part of the Yukon.
You can get sea sick on the roads here
And now the road gets interesting as
it is kind of wavy – you have nearly the feeling you can get sea sick. Totally
weird we wonder if this is from the real cold weather they have here. We still
have some great views on mountains and forest – I mean lots and lots of forest
– I can’t even imagine on how much forest is here and how much we drove
through. I may should mention that the trees here are very skinny. What’s cool
is all the pink and yellow flowers along the road and the skinny trees.
- As per The Alaskan Highway book is one of the most challenging because of the frost heaves, they are caused by the permafrost, deep underground which freezes and thaws unevenly, it creates unexpected dips and rises in the road surfaces
- And in Beaver Creek we learned more about the challenges they face here: road construction results in permafrost degratdation and if the permafrost thaws the highway cracks and deteriorates. They did extensive research to reduce permafrost thawing under the highways
We stopped at the Reflection Lake,
which is a super gorgeous and the mountains mirror in the lake – everyone is
different and every stop and corner is super cool – it is amazing on what we
all see.
Historic vehicles from the Alaska Highway??
As we continue on Gine said we will stop
at the Yukon lodge they have a historic Vehicle display and as we drove by we already could see them – Gine asks, and yes
we can park and look at them. They are super cool old and rusty – an ambulance,
several trucks we have fun checking them all out.
Soon after we came by a huge river the
Dujek River, we see more forest and more lakes – and there are no more big
mountains here.
Last town in the Yukon: Beaver Creek
- It is the most westerly community in Canada and the last stop before entering Alaska (it is further west than Vancouver)
- In summer the population doubles to 200 – wow!!! By the way the NWMP established a post here in 1913 (because the found gold in a river), the town itself got established in 1950
- We also learned that thousands of years ago they had some gigantic volcano eruptions here and the white ashes are still below the surface here in nearly the whole territory – sometimes still several cm thich, this gives several rivers their murky colors.
- We are in the Border town – when the US bought Alaska, the 141st meridian was already the border
This is the last town before the
Border (yes, the Canadian Border Station is in 3 km). We have internet and can
do some last checking – also we discovered it is always good to ask and then
you get the road map to your next destination with all important view points,
parking lots, things to do and gas station. Here they had some nice displays of
first nations moccasins as well as a super cool collection of dried flowers a
lady who lived here collected them a long time ago: now we can learn more about
all the plants we see here (by the way we got also some booklets about all the
Yukon flowers, so we can always check them out)
We could fill up the water and they
said there is a free dumping station but no possibility to clean the hose – now
that is stupid, so we decided not to dump
This town also had a super weird
looking little church – a one of a kind.
2025-05-22