As said, on Friday we drove to Skagway, everyone told us the route is so magnificent and yes we confirm it was worth doing the trip. The surrounding nature consisted of mountains and huge lakes. We drove along the Emerald Lake which is famous due to the turquoise color. The closer we came to the White Pass, the more special the nature became; it looked like small moon craters filled with blue water. On the summit of the Klondike Pass, the glaciers popped-up again. We didn’t realize that Skagway was part of Alaska, so we crossed again the US border. Skagway itself wasn’t really something to write about as it was a crowdy city with tourists from the cruiseships. Therefore we left Skagway pretty quickly and camped into the woods of Dyea. We stayed at the Klondike Gold Rush Campground. Dyea was a ghost town and in the past it was a starting point for the Chilkoot Trail that people took to go to Dawson City during the gold rush days. Of course we did a short hike on the trail in remembrance of the gold fever. In addition we hiked to the Dyea Tide Flats in the hope to see a bear and the salmon run. Luckily the hike was nice, as we didn’t see any bears nor salmon 😊. On Saturday we had to take partially the same route via the Klondike Pass and the White Pass, which wasn’t a torture, but in Carcross we changed the route and took Hwy 8 via Tagish Lake. Once back on the Panamericana Alaskan Hwy we met Lee and Sam during a fuel stop, the UK couple we met as well in Coldfoot. It was nice to meet with them again and to tell our stories since the Dalton Hwy. We camped at Morley Lake, on the beach of a beautiful lake. Due to the hot weather and some very nice neighbours, we were lucky to do a swim; David was able to do some windsurfing in the Yukon and Veerle did a trip with the paddleboard. Being in a complete holiday mood, we continued our route via the Cassier-Stewart Hwy and decided to stop again at a lake for some swimming, Boya Lake. The temperatures are way to high in British Columbia! We took the opportunity to enjoy in the late evening the beauty of the lake by our first canoe trip. It was lovely and very peaceful 😊. Monday was THE wildlife day. It started with a squirrel inside Veerle’s motorbike. It was hiding on top of the engine, but luckily it didn’t eat any wires. Continuing the Cassiar-Stewart Hwy, we saw a Caribou with her calf, a lone wolf which was too fast to take a picture and finally a grizzly bear, but the camera crashed when we wanted to take a picture and when the camera worked, the grizzly was already gone…. It was a long and hot day (35°C) that ended at the Meziadin Lake Provincial Park where we went again swimming to cool down a bit. In the evening, we had a nice chat with some Canadian motorbike riders whom we met also in Dawson City (it’s a small world). On Tuesday we had a short riding day; we went to Stewart (Canada) and Hyder (Alaska). From Hyder we drove to the Salmon Glacier, which was a nice dirtroad ride ending into a fabulous viewpoint on the glacier. It was the perfect ride to see an entire glacier; from glacier lake, glacier tongue until the glacier top. Certainly a MUST DO when you’re in BC, but don’t forget your passport because eventhough you cross the border between Stewart and Hyder (only village – dead-end village), the Canadian border control is actively present. In the evening we drove again to Hyder to visit the Fish Creek Wildlife Site. It is the place to be to see the salmon run and bears eating the salmon out of the creek. The salmon run is spectacular to see, however after 3,5 hours waiting, we didn’t see any hungry bear 😊. Today we stayed a second day at the same campground in Stewart to make Jaak and Mieke dust-free (we took them to the carwash), do the laundry and review our journey through Canada.
