Windshield On The World - 01

As we travel, there are times when a picture pops up and there is not time to stop and take it or getting out of the car is inappropriate. So, sometimes the only picture is through the windshield. Thereby the name "Windshield On The World".

Spending many hours on the roadways leaves you open to delays. We've all been caught by this one. Often this involves waiting for the pilot car to lead you around the construction.

Sometimes the pilot car is not what you were expecting. This mountain sheep lead us for several hundred yards and then tried to take us off-roading (I declined to follow).

Here's a case where the flagger wanted to come over and chat, but I found it inappropriate to get out to talk. Actually I felt it was inappropriate even to leave the window down.

Sometimes a young person (or caribou) wants to cross the street. In most states pedestrians have the right of way, so I stopped.



And then there are times when the scenery is so breathtaking that it is hard to remember to keep you foot on the accelerator. That's been the cause of a lot of our delays while driving through Canada and Alaska.

By the way, these are pictures through my windshield, so the spots are bug splats, not a dirty lens.

Wrangell-St Elias NP

Okay folks, we really went out of our way for you on this one. We went 125 miles one way, including 60 miles of rough gravel road (often max speed was 15 MPH), a short but very bumpy shuttle ride, and a 5+ mile round trip hike to reach the terminus of Root Glacier in Wrangell-St Elias National Park. Total travel time exceeded 13 hours.

This national park if the largest in the 50 states, more than six times bigger than Yellowstone. Four major mountain ranges meet in this park and it holds 9 of the 16 highest peaks in the US. It's twin is in Canada and is called Kluane and when considered as a whole they cover a monumental area and hold possibly thousands of glaciers.

Our hiking path to the glacier took us by this old copper mine at Kennitcott. Closed for 50 or more years, it is still in quite good condition.



We also had to get by this gatekeeper. Her troll husband was not on duty, so we had little trouble. I believe this is a Ptarmigan, kind of a snow chicken. They are white in the winter, to hide in the snow from those that would make a meal of them. She was out walking her chicks, and did put up a bit of a fuss as we barged through her intended path.

We did make it out onto the almost white part of the glacier, but it gets slick there so we did stop in the gray. The gray is called glacial moraine, it is a covering of fine to coarse gravel and occasionally rocks up to the size of small houses that is found on the terminus of most glaciers.

Chicken, Alaska

Today we left Dawson City in the Yukon Territory. This required riding across the Yukon River on the George Black Ferry. I don’t know who George was, but he probably had something to do with ferries, at least that is how I am telling it.

Here’s a passenger’s eye view. Note almost no bugs on the window. That’s only because I just fueled up and cleaned the windows. Otherwise it would be speckled (and became so within a few miles). By the way, a note to those cry babies back in the states that think they have it bad with fuel prices. Canadians pay as much as $1.35 per liter. With the exchange rate being at $1.00 US to $1.05 Canadian and adjusting for liters to gallons, that makes it near $5.00 per gallon. I’ve been thinking about pushing one out of every five miles to get better mileage (but Sharon can’t seem to push her fair portion of 9/10 miles of that mile, so I’ve given the idea up).



Our goal for today is to make Chicken, Alaska. Here we look down on the border crossing into Alaska.





Well, we made it through the border station. The border guard that greeted me was very friendly and we talked about our diesel pickups, while the younger guard got our travel companions and grilled them. Regardless, we both got across.

No more pictures of this day. Unfortunately a recurrence of the plague of problems that have been following me has occurred, only I seem to have passed them over (temporarily I am sure) to our travel companions. One of the brand new tires on their trailer is bald on the inside, with cord showing in spots. We stop so it can be changed. Not 20 minutes later they have a flat on the other side, which shreds. They put the near bald tire back on to replace the shredder and limp on at 10 MPH while I drive ahead to Chicken to find somebody to put a new tire on the rim. Digger, the tire guy, destroys the valve stem while changing the tire and has no spares (for the most common type of rim).

So, I am thinking that Digger is a terrible mechanic and a real loser, but we are bigger ones because it is 90 miles to the next nearest service. But, a ray of luck shows up and the trailer comes limping into Chicken on its bad, but still inflated tire. With constant supervision by his customers (us), Digger is guided through the proper method of changing a tire and all is well with the world. Tomorrow we can resume our journey, more or less through this latest challenge.

Dawson City, Yukon Territory

This is one of the hottest gold rush towns of the late 1890’s. It grew from a spot on the map to a population of over 30,000 when the word of gold discoveries made the news.


Dawson now has a population of 1,700 (+/- ) permanent residents with income split nearly equally between tourism and gold mining. That, of course swells with all the fair weather business owners and their help that come back each summer to help the tourist unload their pockets.

The town is beautifully restored and all new buildings have to be built to look like they would have in the early 1900’s. It is fairly authentic down to Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling and Dance Hall. Here a tourist can lose his money at the tables or to the girls (except now the girls take your money as admission to the show). Sorry, this isn’t a picture of Gerties place, I guess I got so distracted by the girls that I forgot to take any pictures.

I did remember to take a picture in the “locals bar”. Slightly left of center there had been a local Indian sitting, but just before I took the picture he ducked out of sight (by falling out of his chair). The bartender had cut him off about 10 minutes earlier, seems as thought the bartender was a little late. The bartender then came over our table and said that tourists were welcome to come in and drink, but put the camera away. Seems as though this spot was the locals haven from the shutter clickin’ tourists.

Yukon gold is all placer gold, that is it is found as dust, flakes, or small nuggets in the gravel of stream beds. This is the kind of gold that the old miners used to pan for starting with the discovery of gold in 1897. When commercial (corporate) mining entered into the fray they used dredges like old number 4 here.

Dredging was a fascinating way to go for the gold, but it did scar the earth by leaving piles of rubble in its wake. You see this monster followed a stream bed by floating in a pond if its own making. It did this by eating up the ground in front of it, filtering out the loose gold, and then spitting the rocks out behind it. In this manner, it could move up a stream bed for miles, a few feet a day.

Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

I am finding that it is going to be impossible to keep up with postings to this blog. It is often several days between spots with Wifi and in the intervening period I been to several sights and taken 100 or more pictures. So for the foreseeable future, I am just going to hit the highest of the high spots. There is so much to see and not enough time to pass it along.

The Klondike II was the largest vessel to ever to steam the Canadian portion of the Yukon River. She was launched at Whitehorse in 1937 to replace the original SS Klondike which had sunk in 1936. The Yukon River is wide but not normally deep so the superstructure had been salvaged and used in the building of the II.



As was her predecessor, the II was a wood burnin’ (piled on the right) and beer haulin’ (stacked on the left) boat that served the mining towns along the Yukon River. The downriver trip from Whitehorse to Dawson City took about one day while the upriver return took 4 or 5. This may seem backwards if you are looking at a map since Dawson City is North of Whiotehorse, but the Yukon River runs Northerly.



Here we seen the Chief Engineer standing by the telegraph from the bridge. Well, that’s where he would have stood if the ship was still in use, however, this nice Historic Sites guide was standing in. Don’t the Canadians pick cute guides, so far most have been like this.




Dinner at the Captains table was by invitation, and from the first class list only. Second class stayed below decks with the cargo, even though their passage cost them as much as a months wages.

Chetwynd, British Columbia

Here’s a story from the Chetwynd International Chainsaw Competition (June 7 thru 10). The people, places, and activities are real, but the story is being made up by me (Warren). I say a good story of half truths is better that a bad story of all truths anytime…

Hi, I am Jarrette Dahl. I am on my way to Soldotna, Alaska where I will spend the summer working as a chainsaw carver. I planned my route from my home in Dawson, Minnesota to allow for attending this chainsaw carving competition. I guess it is pretty exclusive because it is by invitation only and limited to 12 competitors.

I am 21 years old, but I have found my passion in life. Well, I guess two passions, chainsaw carving and my girlfriend. She’s why I was a half hour late to the start and everyone else got a head start. No worries though, because I carve really fast and was ahead of the others in an hour. As a matter of fact I quit an hour early the first day, you know, I had to see my girlfriend.

I started the second day on time, but by lunch I was so far ahead of the others that I disappeared for a couple of hours. Had to go see my girlfriend, you know. As a matter of fact, she came back with me and helped. Then we left an hour before the others at the end of the day, you know, we had things to do, after all I am only 21.





This competition is fun. A lot of people gather in front of my area. I guess they like to watch me work because I am so fast. You know, one of the other competitors is 74 years old, I don’t know how he even lifts his chainsaw.









Well, the competition is over and this Japanese fellow won and walked away with $5,000 and a new chainsaw. Warren had picked him to win and me to be second, but I didn’t even get in the top three. Warren was shocked, but my girl friend will make it all right, besides I did get $1,000 in appearance money.

Here’s the second (left) and third place sculptures.






Hey catch ya later, and keep the trigger side in your hand and the sharp side in the wood.

Warren’s chainsaw artist friend,

Jarrette

PS There was a quick carve competition while the judges rated our sculptures. We had one hour. I carved two pieces and was started on my third. Most of the other guys didn’t even get their first piece completed. I got over $500 each for them at the auction after the show. All the pieces we carved for the main competition belong to the town (contest rules). So, stop in Chetwynd sometime and look at mine and the more than 60 other chainsaw sculptures on display from this and previous competitions.

Prince George, British Columbia

Known as the Spruce Capital of the World, Prince George is a logging town. There are three logging mills, a plywood plant, and a pulp plant. As it turned out we were in town on the right day to get a tour of the Canfor company’s Rustad mill.
This mill processes the logs from 120 trucks a day.

The mill is automated and this picture was taken in one of the two control rooms, looking out on the logs as they enter the plant.

The logs are measured and turned to the perfect position to maximize the amount of lumber that can be cut from each log. They are then cut to raw size. Sorry, between the dust and the lack of lighting, I could not get any pics of the saws.
The cut boards are then sent to the drying room. After drying they go back to another section of the mill where they are cut and planned to finish sizes, packaged, and sent out to the yard for loading on the outbound trucks.

Here we see some of the fine product the mill produces, as well as some of the fine products the area produces (also known as our tour guides).

The mill employs fewer than 180, with most of those working outside, transporting the logs and lumber to the various stations. We saw less than a dozen inside the mill and they were mostly to fix the occasional problem that arises with a jam.

Nothing is wasted either. The saw dust and chips go to the pulp mill. Larger chips and board scraps go into chip board. Any other leftovers are processed into pellets for the furnaces that heat the drying rooms.

A very interesting tour…….and by the way, they plant enough new trees each year to guarantee at least one replacement tree for each one they cut down.

The Parks - Kootenay/Banff/Jasper

The chain of Canadian National Parks that straddles the line between British Columbia and Alberta contains a long stretch of the most beautiful mountains I have seen in North America. Now I am not the consummate expert but I have to say that these Canadian Rockies are magnificent. They are the Northern portion of the same Rockies that are in the US.

Kootenay, Banff, and Jasper National Parks are mountainous the entire way and I could in no way do them justice with my pictures. But I did pick one place along our route in each park that amazed me and here they are.

Kootenay – the entry was astounding. It was a gorge. The river that cut the gorge has been captured and contained but still roars under the road.

Banff – the glaciers. This one is Crow’s Foot.


Jasper – Athabasca Falls which cuts through some of the hardest rock in the park.


And the snow you saw wasn’t just on those peaks and glaciers. This is the picnic table at our campsite the first night in the parks.


This is a bonus shot. It is Mount Robson, which is outside Jasper park, but on our route. It is the tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies at 3954 meters (around 12,400 feet).

It Is Official

We are on the way! We passed through the Canadian Customs on the morning of Monday, June 1. We bumbled through the standard set of questions. You know the ones. Where are you from? Are you bringing any produce in with you? Are you carrying drugs? Do you have on board any firearms or RPG’s (rocket propelled grenades)? Of course I answered them all correctly as I am, after all, a college graduate.

We pulled on through and immediately stopped for a picture under the “Welcome to Canada” sign.
Now, since I seemed to be plagued by minor catastrophes lately, one was required to occur at this, the moment of the official start of the trip. So of course it did. The sirens started blaring. There was shouting and running and hands on holstered guns (or batons or mace or something) as officers poured out of every cranny.
You see, some poor misguided person (that’s polite for really stupid) tried to drive right on around the customs barriers and just go on their merry way without first answering those question I alluded to earlier. Well, you just don’t do that going into Canada, no sir.

Anyway, the guards got all wrongs righted and no one was shot or beaten with clubs (for this I was a bit disappointed as I was hoping for some more exciting pictures to send you all). Anyway, we are across the border and moving North. I will be sending pictures and more stories very soon.

By the way, the correct answers to those questions are "The US", "Only in my stomach", "Yes, my glaucoma medicine which I grow myself", and "No, I had them shipped ahead".