Teslin YT to Skagway, AK
From Teslin we are going to take a shortcut by traveling the Tagish/Atlin Highway. This will cut several miles off of our distance but . . . and that is a big but!! The highway is a mess. They are working on the frost heaves and the method of doing this is awful. First, they dig the chip seal out, then they lay gravel - lots of it. When they have the gravel graded, they flood it with calcium chloride - mixed in water - to make the gravel pack better and to help keep the dust down. This makes for one sloppy, slippery mess for someone traveling on it. If you pride yourself in having a clean vehicle - this is not the road for you. We have, in fact, found a few of these roads along the way so far.
We did not go to Atlin as it was out of our way, but we did go through Tagish - population 206. This little village is not very big, but it has a marina and several business that cater to the traveling public. Two miles south of Tagish on the Tagish River is Tagish Post, originally named Fort Sifton, the Canadian customs post established in 1897. The North West Mounted Police and Canadian customs collected duties on thousands of tons of freight carried by stampeders on their way to the Klondike goldfields between September 1897 and February 1898.
Next town is Carcross. This is a delightful little town - population 446. Carcross became a stopping place for gold stampeders on their way to the Kondike goldfields. It was a major stop on the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad from 1900 until 1982 when the railroad ceased through train service. There are several little shops in the buildings that still look as it did back in the "old" days. And there are new enterprises like Eddie's Check Point. Eddie r
uns a hamburger/hot dog stand out of a 5 x 9 shed with his personal gas grill out the back door. The burgers are big, juicy and really good. I asked Eddie what he does in the winter and he replied "mush". He runs sled dogs and enters every long distance race he ca
n. Sounds like a good life to me. His wife works full time in a business in Tagish and his kids are mushers, too.
From Teslin we are going to take a shortcut by traveling the Tagish/Atlin Highway. This will cut several miles off of our distance but . . . and that is a big but!! The highway is a mess. They are working on the frost heaves and the method of doing this is awful. First, they dig the chip seal out, then they lay gravel - lots of it. When they have the gravel graded, they flood it with calcium chloride - mixed in water - to make the gravel pack better and to help keep the dust down. This makes for one sloppy, slippery mess for someone traveling on it. If you pride yourself in having a clean vehicle - this is not the road for you. We have, in fact, found a few of these roads along the way so far.
We did not go to Atlin as it was out of our way, but we did go through Tagish - population 206. This little village is not very big, but it has a marina and several business that cater to the traveling public. Two miles south of Tagish on the Tagish River is Tagish Post, originally named Fort Sifton, the Canadian customs post established in 1897. The North West Mounted Police and Canadian customs collected duties on thousands of tons of freight carried by stampeders on their way to the Klondike goldfields between September 1897 and February 1898.
Next town is Carcross. This is a delightful little town - population 446. Carcross became a stopping place for gold stampeders on their way to the Kondike goldfields. It was a major stop on the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad from 1900 until 1982 when the railroad ceased through train service. There are several little shops in the buildings that still look as it did back in the "old" days. And there are new enterprises like Eddie's Check Point. Eddie r
uns a hamburger/hot dog stand out of a 5 x 9 shed with his personal gas grill out the back door. The burgers are big, juicy and really good. I asked Eddie what he does in the winter and he replied "mush". He runs sled dogs and enters every long distance race he ca
n. Sounds like a good life to me. His wife works full time in a business in Tagish and his kids are mushers, too.
After lunch we headed south to Skagway. But first - we had to hide our meat. When we came through US Customs 4 years ago after the Maritime Provinces, the customs person, went through our freezer and refrigerator and confiscated every piece of meat we had that didn't have a US label on it because Alberta, Canada had just had a mad cow disease - or so she said. So this time, we emptied out the freezer and refrigerator of meat that wasn't correctly labeled US and hid it in bags beneath and behind our refrigerator. There is a dead space there that works just wonderful for that.
This road g
oing south is absolutely incredible - the best scenery we have seen so far. Tagish Lake and its extension Windy Arm, are beautiful. There is evidence of mining and a stamp mill site is still standing which ties in with the 
Venus Mines concentrator which had a capacity of 150 tons per day. The mine closed in October 1981 due to the drop in silver prices. We passed a beautiful area called Tormented Valley, a rocky desolate "moonscape" of stunted trees and small lakes.We finally arrive at the customs station - we answer all of the usual questions - how long were you in Canada, do you have anything to claim, any alcohol, guns, ammunition? We answered all of these and expected him to come out to inspect our refrigerator!! Wrong - he just waved us through with a "have a great vacation, folks" and sent us on our way. Whew - that was great but a lot of work for nothing. Next customs stop we won't do that and hope we are as lucky.
In Fraser - where the Canadian customs is, this area reportedly
gets up to 24 feet of snow a year. They have snow poles posted on the highway so the snow plows can see where the road was before it got burie
d. Incredible. From here is was all down hill and I do mean down hill. The grade for the next 12.5 miles is at 11% which is pretty steep especially when you have 10,000 pounds behind your truck. We got down safely, found a campground and decided to stay put for the next couple of days in Skagway.
A few more on the road pictures:
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