Our Alaskan RV Trip 2024: Day 11: Watson Lake, Yukon to Lake Creek Campground, YK (north of Destruction Bay)

Photo of the day:

For the 2nd night in a row, we did not have cell coverage in our campsite. In fact, it was the first night in Canada where we were at a campground without any services like water and electricity (the only other night we didn't have services was in Theodore Roosevelt National Park). Since it was still light out until 10:40 pm, we were able to get settled in for the night without having to use any lights.

For those that were not aware... RVs have a propane tank that operates the refrigerator, heater, stove and cooktop. If you want to run any other appliances like a coffee pot, toaster, laptop or hair dryer, you need to either be connected to power or start up the generator. The RV also has a battery that runs basic electrical like lights. This battery gets charged while driving. Lastly, there is a water tank that is used for things like the sink, toilet or shower. When the campsite has water, you can use it to refill the water tank and then also connect it right to the RV to serve as the water supply to save the water in the tank.

When entering most "cities" (even the ones with just a gas pump), you have to reduce your speed to 50 km/h (31 mph) and sometimes even 30 km/h (18.6 mph), which feels painfully slow after cruising at 100 km/h (62 mph).

We started out thinking that the Alaska highway was much better than the Cassiar Highway with its normal-sized lanes, center and shoulder lines and wide shoulders....but we quickly learned that it is not as great as we had hoped. There were large sections of rough patched asphalt and multiple pot holes.

There was not much traffic again luckily so Dave was able to swerve from lane to lane to try to miss the worst of it, but it had us bouncing along to where it felt like we were going to go airborne.

Some rough spots on the Alaska Highway. Potholes, ruts, and washed out areas were common.

The geography/views were unreal again and so pretty. One thing we noticed driving along this road is that there were many sand dunes. Add to that the pine trees, mountains of all kinds, rivers, streams and lakes, and it is really is amazing to see.

Sand dunes along the Alaska Highway

Sand dunes along both sides as well as up the road

Teslin Lake is one of many enormous beautiful lakes that we drove by today. We will never forget Teslin because we almost got side-swiped by a semi barreling down the mountain towards, half in our lane, as he must have misjudged the curve. Thanks to Dave's speedy reflexes, the collision was avoided. Lynda felt physically ill after that near miss.

Teslin Lake was one of the beautiful lakes on today's journey!

We also passed Marsh Lake to the south of Whitehorse. It’s a 20 mile long lake! It was the most populated lake we’ve seen so far with many houses along the shore!

Before we arrived at Whitehorse, we picked out a few things to do. First we went to see the SS Klondike which is one of Canada’s few remaining steam-powered paddlewheelers (it is no longer operational). We arrived at 12:03 and, as it turns out, the visitor center is closed from 12 to 1pm. So, we decided to do a self-guided tour since this was listed as an option in the Milepost magazine. Well, apparently, it is under construction so we could not board. It had just started to rain and was quite cold, so we settled for a photo and moved on.

The Yukon River flowing through Whitehorse. I've wanted to see this ever since we met a canoe enthusiast who canoed the entire length of the Yukon!

A quick break from the action on the road...

Making the blog takes some effort, but we are happy we are doing it to 1) share with everyone and 2) help us remember. After a couple days in the RV, it is hard to remember even a few days ago. I always used to think pictures would trigger the memories, but with so many beautiful locations, the landscapes are hard to differentiate.

Here are the steps we do when writing the blog:

As we drive, we take notes on what we would like to include as well as photos along the way.
We then sort through the pictures to pick which to use.
We upload those to OneDrive. Then Dave downloads them to his computer and then upload them to the blog site. Videos have to be loaded to YouTube first.
Then we put it all together on the blog site and publish.

For nights like Sunday night and Monday night where we did not have cell coverage, we have to stop somewhere the following day to upload it all. There must be a more efficient way, but this works.

Here is a live action shot of Dave uploading a posting while we sampled some beers at Yukon Brewing in Whitehorse. We split four 4 oz samples, which came to only $7 CAD. Quite the bargain.

A small tasting at Yukon Brewing Company in Whitehorse, YK.

Yukon Brewing Tasting Room

We also ventured over to the airport to check out this windvane, supposedly the world's largest. It is an old airplane, with a great story, that now rotates to indicate the direction of the wind. As we stood underneath it, it did in fact rotate. The noise creeped Lynda out, but it was pretty cool overall.

The World's Largest Windvane, in Whitehorse, YK.

After leaving Whitehorse, the roads worsened and the wind picked up. There were a couple large sections of gravel road along the Alaska highway. The vehicles were kicking up so much dust. It was hard to see in front of you. This picture was when we were almost to the end. (It was also kind of sad to see people had spray painted some rocks and bridges along the route.)

This was near the end of one of the gravel road sections

It looked like we were going to get hit hard with snow or rain but we only had flurries. Other travelers a couple hours ahead of us indicated they were in heavy snow that was accumulating on the RV and the sides of the road.

Haines Junction is another stop along the way, but all we did was take a couple pictures! We actually entered Haines Junction twice, the second time because we took the wrong way out of the city and had to turn around. Only two roads out and we picked the wrong one 😕.

This "mountain" looked like we were driving into a huge sand dune plopped in the middle of the road. We ended up turning right and driving around it.

As we were bouncing along the highway trying to find a campsite that was not deserted or creepy, Dave spotted a grizzly bear sitting on the bank and we both saw one run across the road. Lynda was not able to get the camera since she had a death grip on the seat and armrest, so a sketch will have to do again.

We found a campground run by Yukon's Government. It is self-serve with no services, but the site was along a nice little river with great mountain views. The toilets are clean (although Lynda didn't go to them for fear of bears!).