May 2006

Fly-Drive Awesome Alaska

No time to drive your RV to Alaska? Here’s an idea. Fly up, rent a Class C motorhome for a week or two, and then fly home. On our last day we cooked breakfast, cleaned up the RV, and flew home in time for dinner. A fly-drive vacation allowed us two whole weeks in Alaska and Western Canada. It was the dream vacation of a lifetime.

Starting Out
This wasn’t our first fly-in RV rental, so we knew it takes time to get started. We like to spend the first night in a hotel to regroup after the rush of getting there. Then it takes half a day to move into the RV, get checked out, and shop for provisions.

We flew to Anchorage to begin our RV trip. Anchorage claims to have more superstores per capita than any other North American city, so it’s an ideal place to stock the pantry. While the fleet manager gave Gordon a thorough checkout on the rig and its many systems, I inventoried the galley. It had all the basics (toaster, coffee maker, pots, tableware) and the refrigerator-freezer was twice the size of the one in our own RV. We blitzed through the nearest mega-store, quickly finding everything on my two-week provisioning list. Early on day two, we were on our way.

Even if you come to Alaska solely for a wilderness experience, don’t leave Anchorage before seeing the Alaska Native Heritage Center. Sit in on tribal dance performances and native storytelling. See Native American artisans at work, and view authentic villages representing major coastal and inland tribes. If you have more time to devote to Anchorage, you can also visit a botanical garden, a museum of historic aviation, and a museum of history and art.

On the Road
Planning the trip, we had promised ourselves to spend quality time, and not be overly concerned with how many miles we were racking up. We knew we’d need time for daily RV chores, and we wanted to get into campsites early enough each day to have a campfire, chat with other travelers, and observe wildlife when it’s most active at dawn and dusk. Even 100 miles is a lot to cover on days when you want to linger at a museum or fishing spot, or are delayed by Alaska’s endless highway construction. However, on days when mountain scenery streams by with a new spectacle around each bend, driving itself is one of Alaska’s greatest pleasures.

We chose a route that would take us east out of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway and Tok Cutoff, into Canada’s Yukon via the Alaska Highway through Beaver Creek and Haines Junction to Whitehorse, then up to Dawson City and perhaps Eagle. If time ran short, we could take the shortest way back to Tok over our original route. There isn’t a square inch of Alaska that isn’t splashed with spectacular scenery, so we didn’t worry about driving the same road twice.

Some of the “musts” along the way include the many welcome centers and tourist information centers. Each community in Alaska and the Canadian provinces has one, usually housing a little museum and a gift shop. All provide ample parking for RVs, offer free maps, and are staffed with friendly people who are a goldmine of information and local lore. At each stop, we found it tough to decide whether to press on or to linger for the area’s fishing, rafting, canoeing, mushing, gold panning and flightseeing, or to drop in on a native culture center, musk ox farm, salmon bake, hot springs or other attraction.

Highway History
If you’re a history buff, you will want to check out sites along the Alaska Highway where World War II-era trucks and construction equipment remain, rusting where they were abandoned in the 1940s.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, it was feared that Japan would invade North America via Alaska. Construction of a supply road became a military necessity. In an incredible feat of engineering, a one-lane road was blasted out of rock, cut through dense forests, and floated over permafrost. Impossible bridges were built over raging rivers.

Today, at Historic Milepost 1061 on the Alaska Highway beside Kluane Lake, you can park on the gravel turnout and hike up a path to Soldier’s Summit, where the Alaska Canada Military Highway was officially opened in 1942.

Today’s Alaska Highway, formerly known as the Alcan Highway, lies at lakeside level, far below the original route. The road above on this lonely hillside is a mere hiking path, but you can imagine the scene 60 years ago when ungainly trucks drove it, clinging to ice-slick ledges as they carried vital supplies to remote outposts.

Rainy Days
If you’ve seen only travel brochures of Alaska, you may picture it as clear and sunny. It isn’t always like that. RV living can get soggy and you might feel shut in after a while. Have a Plan B for rainy days. They’re good for catching up on the laundry (most campgrounds have coin-operated machines), board games, reading and nuking microwave popcorn. Better still, do what locals do. Put on a slicker, ignore the rain, and go on with the hike or berry picking or sightseeing.

If you’re lucky, you’ll discover magic in Alaska even on the many drab, drizzly days. Every landscape is painted in shades of blue, smoke and silver. Clouds dance over mountains, daring you to snap your picture before they swallow the sun again. Shadows play tag over lakes that shift from pewter to blue. Rushing rivers are quicksilver; forests are a feast of fragrant green even when wet. Wildflowers are incredible, blanketing fields in pink, gold or the bawdy red of fireweed.

Alaska, larger than Texas and the next three largest states combined, is so vast that a two-week trip is a mere sip at the chalice. Being there in an RV, loping along at a leisurely schedule and camping each night, turns a mere taste into a feast.

The Groenes are a professional travelwriter team whose books include Living Aboard Your RV, Cooking Aboard Your RV and Great Eastern RV Trips. Send comments and questions to janetgroene@yahoo.com.