Alaska 1997

Glacier visible from Alaska's Hwy 4 (8/30)

    During the summer of 1997 a friend and I traveled from the Southeast U.S. through Canada to Alaska and beyond to the Arctic Circle.  This was a road trip on the scale of our previous drive to Belize, Central America- but it was very different in terms of where we went as well as what I brought home with me.

The trip was conceived in the summer of 1996 when I went to visit my good friend Sean at Clemson University, where he was finishing up his master's degree.  We talked for a while about our trip of a year ago, from which we had returned with broadened horizons and a new sense of what it means to live every day to the fullest.  Eventually the inevitable question was asked: Where shall we go next?

Since we went south last time, north seemed the logical choice.  We decided that anything short of a road trip up the Alcan highway to Alaska would be anticlimactic after our last adventure.

This trip may seem strange to those who prefer to travel in comfort at all times, or those who need to be safe and entertained to be happy.  This trip was chaotic, spontaneous, difficult, uncomfortable, and rushed.  All but the last were by choice (if I had the option I would have made the trip last longer, limited vacation time made that impossible.)  What we were looking for was an adventure that would test our endurance and our ability to cope with adversity, while broadening our horizons and seeing some amazing sights.

It took a year to prepare our selves and our vehicle.  The trip was to last no more than 18 days.  Our itinerary, if you could call it that, was very flexible.  The plan was to begin from my home in east Tennessee, drive straight across the country nonstop to arrive in Seattle on the morning of the third day.  We would then cross the border into British Columbia and take a short ferry ride over to Vancouver island.  We planned to spend most of that day touring the island and making our way up to the northernmost town, Port Hardy.  There we would catch a larger ferry at 6:00 in the morning of day 4 and travel up the inside passage on a 12-hour cruise to Prince Rupert.  From then on the trip would be completely flexible- with Homer, Alaska as the unofficial turn-around point.  Possible side destinations of Denali National Park and Inuvik, Northwest Territories (above the Arctic Circle) were discussed.

What I have published here is derived from the journal that I kept during the majority of the trip.  It may be a little too text intensive for many people, but I decided to leave most of the text in there to give the site more substance.  Feel free to skim through and just look at the pictures.

The trip began on  Thursday, August 21st, 1997.  I left work as early as I could (about 3:00) and we jumped into the truck and started driving...

8/21 Tennessee to Wisconsin
8/22 Wisconsin to Montana
8/23 Montana to Vancouver Island
8/24 Vancouver Island to Prince Rupert
8/25 Prince Rupert to Teslin, Yukon
8/26 Teslin, Yukon to Glenallen, Alaska
8/27 Glenallen, Alaska to Homer, Alaska
8/28 Homer, Alaska
8/29 Homer to Denali National Park
8/30 Denali to Tok, Alaska
8/31 Tok to the Arctic
9/1 Arctic to Whitehorse, Yukon
9/2 Whitehorse to Dawson Creek,
9/3 Dawson Creek to Kevin, Montana
9/4 Kevin, Montana to South Dakota
9/5 Home to Tennessee

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