I am sitting at the camp fire, watching the flames eating slowly up the wood. Recent rainfalls made it all wet, so the fire is rather hesitating. Doesn’t matter, the camp ground is in the midst of a spruce forest and the meat is still frozen, so let’s take it easy.
What a day it has been, since we arrived here!
This morning we left Sourdough Recreational Camp Ground at rather rainy conditions. Nothing to see in the further distance, if there were mountains surrounding us they were covered in clouds and fog.
Our plan was to reach at least Tok and thus make quite some miles. The morning didn’t bring to many surprises and so at the end we decided to have coffee at the next “town” called Paxson, supposed to be at the crossroads of Richardson and Denali highways. Hm, town. What we discovered was a large wooden kind of lodge – no, not a timber lodge, it looked more like being completely made up of plywood. A bus just pulled in before us and deployed its load of passengers for the usual break stuff: pee, coffee and snacks. Folks, now I know where clichés come from! It was perfect – picture the scene: rainy weather, two dozen bus passengers streaming into the “café”, the inside completely covered in plywood, table tops made of “resopal”. Long queues in front of the loo’s, the gent’s lavatory even being without a lock. Behind the bar: a hydrogen-blond elder lady, marketing whatever they had there at the lodge/café/grocery store. The patron, also elderly and well Budweiser-fed, taking care of coffee orders. And in the kitchen, the compulsory black cook/waiter. Not long and one of the locals came in: jeans, checkered cotton shirt, body warmer, baseball cap and taking along his insulated coffee mug. Wow, I always believed such scenes to be exaggerated – folks, they are not! It’s just a real life description! What a start into this day 🙂
The next few hours on the road made this day even more worthwile. Still rainy the wind came from behind and pushed us up due north. However the fog seemed to rise a bit, sometimes granting us a short glance to the mountains. Every now and then the meandering street closed up with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Seeing it that close, in its “natural environment” just made me realize what kind of a technical wonder it is, creeping underneath the soil and then again on its thermo-insulated piles, like a giant, silvery worm with millions of legs. The other impression there: mountains coming out of the mist, covered with fresh snow, probably from the same source as our rain.
And then, shortly after each other, we came across these wonderful sceneries: A wide open valley to our left, flanked by giant snow-topped mountains. In the middle the valley’s creator, a raging stream. And at the other side wide plains covered with bushes, forests and sometimes kind of prairie. The valley is said to be home of some of the 1,200 bisons living here, the recovered results of small herd of them being transplanted from Montana. They would have made the scene a dream-come-true, but somehow they had deciced not to show up on this rainy day. And then another wish came true – the one for nice weather. The rain became less, the sun made it’s way through the clouds and began shining on first isolated patches, making the place even more marvellous. Imagine a log house here, sitting on the porch, watching the scene – what a contemplation that must be!
Next spot: the Trans-Alaska Pipeline diving into the ground right next to the street. A must-stop! The sound of the pipeline: a humming noise, stemming from the wind caressing the heatpipes. The pipeline as descrived: an endless silver band, stretching to the horizon, winding left and right in its wonderful surroundings.
And again wide open plains, bushland and trees, growing their branches close to the stem. The permafrost underground is still frozen in depths from 60 cm to 3 meters and below. Not much soil the vegetation can grow into.
Coming down from the Alaska Range on Richardson we finally reached Delta Junction, originally a construction camp that developed into a small town of its own, maybe supported by the nearby army fort.
We made our way from there on the famous “Alcan Highway”, the Alaska-Canada Highway. I can’t remember of any other street continuing endlessly straight ahead – I believe it was at least an hour without the need to operate the steering wheel a single time.
And then, finally, Tok. Rumours have it that the town originated also as a construction camp, called “Tokyo camp” and in the war time being renamed / shortened to Tok, since Americans and Japanese weren’t the closest friends at that time. Local history tells different: The US Army Corps of engineers constructing the street had a mascot called “Tok”. And when they finally managed to finish this section of the highway, the unanimously decided to call the place after their mascot. Fact is, Tok is Alaska’s dog musher capital – here live the folks who bread sleigh dogs and run races with them. First person who welcomes me at the local visitor centre is a small, cute puppy, Golden Retriever kind of type. One of the sort whom you immediately would like to take with you. I haven’t completely left the RV the little fellow is right by my side and accompanies me everywhere I go from now on – at least until we leave the visitor centre again. All too soon it is good bye again from this little friend.
Whatever. We found our spot for the night here at Tundra RV park, a camp ground with lots of space in a very green forest. And that’s where this story started.