In normal times, the Alaska Highway would take us (funnily enough) to Alaska, USA. But in these Covid-border-closed-times, we can go as far as Kluane National Park then we have to turn around. Sounds a bit ‘dead-end’, but the spectacular mountains, lakes, glaciers of the Kluane icefields make it worth the schlepp. And whilst we’re out there in the Kluane wilderness, the local ‘rona virus palaver turns a positive corner – a whole new world of Canadian possibilities starts to open-up for us again…
Home again
Back in June after the looong drive south from the Arctic, we were back in Whitehorse – scene of our previous 12 week Covid stay-cation. It really did feel like coming home and a few people were kind enough to stop by to say hi and welcome us back (very friendly people those Yukoners😊!) We took a few days to chill out and restock at the amazing foodie outlets in town, then we set out west along the Alaska Highway to explore another part of the vast Yukon: the lakes, mountain and glaciers of the Kluane icefields.
Kluane Icefields
There are no roads or trails across Yukon’s Kluane Park. It’s a seriously remote and inhospitable region of mountains and glaciers linking into neighbouring British Colombia and Alaska to form the world’s largest non-polar icefield. A trip along the highways around the perimeter of the mountains makes for a spectacular drive, but the real Kluane experience is in the inaccessible interior.
For the brave, fit adventurer (errr…. that’s not us!) it’s a long, arduous expedition to hike into the park to reach the icefields and Canada’s highest mountain, Mount Logan. The lazy person’s cheaty way to get out there, is a glacier landing flight. Aha! Now that’s more our kind of thing!
Weather over the mountains is notoriously unpredictable, and you’ve got to be a special kind of stupid to fly around those peaks in little single-engined aircraft in bad weather, so we knew when we drove over to Kluane that we’d need to be a bit flexible on the timing. We arrived on Wednesday, parked up in one of the most spectacular wild camp-spots on the edge of the National Park and waited…
On Thursday it was beautifully clear and sunny overhead, but it looked a dead-cert from the grey murk over the mountains that there would be no trip that day. Friday’s forecast wasn’t good either. Sian at Icefield Discovery reckoned there was a ‘weather window’ potentially opening up after 12:00 hrs on Saturday. But when we woke up and looked out over the mountains, it didn’t look great. But here’s the thing in these parts… just because it looks bad/good down one valley, doesn’t mean to say it’s bad/good in the next valley. The local weather system is sneaky like that. When we arrived at the Icefield Discovery lakeside airstrip at 11:30 hrs under a murky sky, they had already done a test flight up to the glaciers and it was glorious up there. Eeek. So exciting… we can go!!
Florian our pilot introduced himself, did the pre-flight briefing and we were off! Flying down the valley we were initially under a grey cloud-base then suddenly, we turned a corner and… Wowser! There below us was an awesome glacier valley under a crystal-clear blue sky! Flo took us around the valleys, pointing out all the main peaks and talking us through the fascinating geology. Then he pointed out a huge flat white area in the distance, in front of Mt Logan… that’s where we’re going to land! No airstrip, no runway, no centreline to aim for, just an enormous expanse of flat ice!
Flo pumped the skids down to below the wheels then did the approach for a super-smooth landing. We climbed out onto the glacier, giggling like kids as we took in the sheer spectacularity (yes… made-up word) all around us. We ran around, threw snow-balls, marvelled at the views and took loads of photos. The photographic results are nice and they’re great for our memories, but somehow they just don’t capture and convey the absolute fabulousness of it all.
All too soon we were back in the aircraft and skidding over the ice on take-off back to base. We took a different route back around the peaks, getting great views of the spectacular Kaskawulsh glacier. The most interesting but disturbing aspect that Flo explained to us, was how quickly things had changed over just the last four years… how much the glaciers had receded and changed course due to rising temperatures.
The shrinking glaciers have caused the melt-water flow that had until 2016 fed into Lake Kluane, to divert down a different valley. The water levels in the lake have receded drastically, exposing large mud-flats and making it possible to walk out to rocky-outcrops that had recently been islands requiring a boat to access. The distinct lines on the valley sides many metres above the current ice-line show clearly where the glacier level was just a few years ago. The Kluane icefields provide clear but sad evidence the rapid and escalating climate change.
Haines Junction to… Haines Junction
Even if you can’t do a glacier flight to the Kluane icefields, and even if you can’t follow the Alaska Highway all the way to (errr… ) Alaska, the Kluane area with tiny-town Haines Junction, is still sufficiently awesome to be worth the trip from Whitehorse. Our previous little jaunt up to the Arctic Circle in far north Yukon was epic wilderness, but Kluane is definitely our favourite Yukon hot-spot of natural wonder. The scenery is stunning and reminded us of the Andes in southern Patagonia.
If you take the time to head out there, another awesome (currently dead-end) drive is the Haines Highway. Driving 170km south from Haines Junction, then turning round at Chilkat Pass and going 170km all the way back to Haines Junction might seem a pointless exercise, but it’s our favourite drive in the whole of the Yukon. It’s yet another route that would, in happier times, take us to Alaska but alas… that dratted US/Canada border closure. Ahh… the border… is it still closed…? It sure is. And the closure has just been extended again to the end of August. Why so? Well here’s the story…
Everybody needs good neighbours
The US/Canada border has been closed to non-essential travel since March. As Uncle Sam is still showing pretty poor stats with the ‘rona virus palaver, Canadians are (understandably) keen to keep their neighbours on the other side of the fence for a while. However… one category of US traveller deemed ‘essential’ and allowed to cross the fence is the American who turns up and says he doesn’t really want to come to Canada… no… he just wants to transit through Canada to Alaska. “Okay… no problem Mr Neighbour, Sir… off you go directly to Alaska”.
The snag is, no one official in Canada seems to keep tabs on these transiting neighbours and a thing called the ‘Alaska Loophole’ soon started appearing in the media. Apparently, at certain US/Canada border crossings these days, there’s a distinctive smell of disingenuous travellers’ pants on fire as they fib their way into Canada. They say they’re transiting to Alaska but in fact they just want to spend a week in Canada’s less crowded beauty-spots. Concerned Canadian citizens are out there spotting US vehicle registration plates on the roads. A few have been caught by police, received large fines and been hung-out as evidence in the CBC national news, but according to that other highly reliable and credible source of information known as social media… they’re still out there eating Tim Horton’s doughnuts and hiking around Canada’s national parks!
There are other travellers whose pants aren’t on fire… they really do want to get to Alaska, but… oops-a-daisy… somehow find themselves on a teeny little diversion off the designated direct route, going to national parks, liquor stores, campsites, liquor stores, fishing spots, liquor stores etc on the way to Alaska. Again, the social media gang are out there spotting and reporting them!
Remember, overall Canada has far lower Covid rates than the USA (the Yukon for example, has had only 11 cases of Covid, none hospitalised, all recovered, and the last case being several weeks ago) so you can see why people might be a bit miffed with the neighbours popping around uninvited.
For us, the US/Canada border closure means two things in practice: (1) we can’t go to Alaska (very disappointing, but hey… we’ll get over it, we’ve both been there before anyway); and (2) as soon as Canadian locals are clear we’re not transiting to Alaska and are complying with all the Covid rules, we get a lovely Canadian welcome everywhere we go!
Farewell Awesome Yukon
Trotting around the Yukon as it slowly opened up internally was an amazing but strange experience. As we were one of the very few outsiders who just happened to be in the Territory before lockdown, we found ourselves members of an extremely small and rather exclusive group of non-Yukoners in the Yukon. Not even other Canadians were allowed in at that time. So on the one hand, it was great for us to have the tourism hot-spots pretty much all to ourselves. On the other hand, empty places lack atmosphere. Some key tourism attractions weren’t open at all, and it’s sad to see those that do open, struggling to survive with few customers.
On 1st July the Yukon and neighbouring British Colombia formed a ‘Covid-Bubble’ and opened up to allow travel between the two. This allowed a trickle of external tourism into the Yukon, but as other visitors started to arrive we decided it’s time for us to move on. The clock is ticking on the preciously short Canadian summer, so we’re off to explore British Colombia!
Leaving Whitehorse and the Yukon we have mixed emotions. We’re excited to be moving on, but we’ve spent so long here and become rather attached. We made friends, found favourite shops and take-aways, we even got to know the local radio schedule! Since our CBC radio and tv interview a few weeks ago, we get recognised quite often all around the Territory and people come up to say hello (it’s tough being media-stars 🤣). After 4 months there, we were really starting to feel like honorary Yukoners. The people made us so welcome and there are very few places in the world we could have felt safer during a global pandemic. Thankyou Yukon, for just being downright awesome! Watch this space for news from BC Province…
