Journey to Alaska
Our journey to Alaska began with a maintenance window in Seattle, with help from my parents. We fixed the toilet sliding mechanism, adjusted the water tank air exhaust, stained the bottom half of the van's woodwork, built a shelf for the back under the bed, and completed a few other smaller tasks. Once these were done and my parents left for their own vacation, we cleared the gray water tank, filled the fresh water tank, and stocked the snack cabinet for the long drive.
"Jerry cookies" were our secret weapon along the way; we had four bags, each with at least four or five cookies. The day before, we had seen our neighbor walking her dog, and Ray convinced her to bake some of her amazing oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
We left my parents' place on the afternoon of August 10th and drove up to Blaine, Washington, to check out the area before crossing the border into Canada. We arrived in Blaine with about an hour until sunset, so we drove around, exploring and debating what to do for dinner. Eventually, we found a nice, quiet parking spot near the harbor and settled in for the night.
We woke up around 8, checked out the harbor in Blaine, and figured out how we would document our trip to Alaska. I remembered that before leaving Spokane, I had grabbed the GoPro we bought a while back. I attached it to the front of the van to timelapse a first-person POV of the drive. With the GoPro set to timelapse, we headed for the border just after 9 in the morning. Border patrol grilled us with questions! It felt like we sat there for 10–15 minutes, just answering questions about our lives and our travel plans.
For those who have the pleasure of knowing Toby, you know he is very... expressive. With Ray and I feeling a bit on edge from the questions, Toby decided to break the tension by letting out the loudest yawn/yell ever. I immediately looked at Toby who was being distracted/held by Ray, burst into laughter, then turned back to the agent, who was struggling to keep a straight face. Just as she started to crack, she looked back at her computer and saved herself 😆. Soon after that, they waved us through, letting us continue on our way into Canada.
Before starting the first long drive in a couple of months, we quickly checked out Vancouver and then hit Highway 1 for Prince George, Canada—roughly a 470-mile, 8.5-hour drive. When we arrived in Prince George, we got dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Afterward, we decided to sleep at a rest stop about 45 minutes west of the city near Fraser Lake.
In total, we drove around 10 hours on Sunday, the first time we’d ever done that—and, oh boy, did we feel it waking up Monday morning! All three of us were slow getting up and didn’t really start moving until around 9. This was a bit disappointing, knowing we wanted to get another 10–12 hours in that day, but the extra sleep was definitely needed.
Our first city destination was about three hours away in Smithers, Canada. There, we could refuel, have lunch, and let Toby run around a bit. After making it through Smithers, we stopped for gas in Bell II and Meziadin Junction, where prices were around 200 cents per liter, or roughly $8 per gallon.
We drove until we were exhausted, eventually stopping a little more than an hour north of Jade City at a highway rest stop. There, we met Matt, who was pulling fuel from four external jerry cans strapped to the top of his truck as we pulled in. He was driving up from Texas with his dog, heading towards Fairbanks. We chatted for a bit, and he gave me tips on good places to get gas along the route to Alaska. After saying our goodbyes, we each returned to our vehicles for the night.
On Tuesday the 13th, we woke up feeling a little better than yesterday, despite driving nearly 12 hours the day before. Before heading out, we let Toby run around the rest stop, which was larger than most and separated from the highway by a nice ditch. We then set off for Whitehorse—a 300-mile drive—with the goal of arriving by lunch so we could refill both our gas tank and our stomachs.
Whitehorse was pretty cool, but we were in and out in the blink of an eye, aiming to reach the border by nightfall. After a lot of driving, we achieved our goal, crossing into Alaska around 10 p.m. There was one border patrol officer stationed there, though I think the real deterrent is the hundreds of miles between towns on the Canadian side.
After crossing the border, we drove to Tok, Alaska, pulling into our sleeping spot around 10 p.m. (Alaska time, one hour behind PST) with some light still in the sky, as sunset had just happened as we crossed the border.