Alaska to Wisconsin, 2015: The first part

On September 13, 2015, after a journey of over 3,000 miles in 22 days, we pulled into Severance, Colorado, where we based our bus preparations (i.e. learning to drive it) before heading to Wisconsin. Our drive had been largely lackadaisical, and although we put in a few 500 mile days along the way, most of our legs being five or six hours of driving between campgrounds, AirBnBs, and friends' homes. We witnessed the aftermath of several horrifying accidents, saw a wide range of rare and unusual creatures, and even passed through what would become the scene of an armed standoff between self-proclaimed Patriots and law enforcement from local, state, and federal agencies only a few months later. But we'll get to all of that in due time. 

We started the trip with a 3:30 am check-in at the Alaska Marine Highway terminal in Auke Bay (Juneau), Alaska. 

Our trusty steed, Frank (aka Francine), a 2004 Ford Explorer, waits in the lead of lane 2.

I've always been partial to the Alaska ferry system, and enjoy the deep rumble of engines resonating through the steel vessels. Although the M/V Columbia, the largest vessel in the fleet, has abundant diversions (less abundant now that the bars have been closed on all the ferries), the LeConte is rather bare-bones, with a cafeteria, observation lounge, and a tiny solarium composing the main attractions on board. Regardless of the vessel, my home turf is always the solarium, where overhead lamps can turn chilly maritime air into a near-sauna, and where no view goes un-noticed - unless you're too busy looking one way to see a view in another direction.

Our vessel, the tiny M/V LeConte, hums at Dock 3 of the Alaska Marine Highway System's Auke Bay Terminal.

Northern Lynn Canal, the arm of the Pacific that connects the communities of Skagway, Haines, and Juneau, is a glacial fjord which only gets more awe-inspiring the further north you go, and Skagway, our destination, is at its northern end. With that said, the view from the back deck (and thus, the solarium) as we pulled out of Auke Bay wasn't too shabby.

Auke Bay, with the Mendenhall Glacier in the distance.

Sadly for photography, but as expected in Southeast Alaska, our voyage north was rather cloudy and gray. Waterfalls cascaded from hidden valleys and hanging glaciers tucked into the clouds and shrouding mist above us. Skagway was similarly wreathed - indeed, inundated - with the moist air which makes moss grow on any reasonably stationary object in the temperate rain forests of the Tongass (where we were) and Chugach (much further west and north) National Forests.

As we climbed up the White Pass towards Canada, we paused for a photo of Frank, with Skagway's water supply line in the background above the White Pass and Yukon Railroad's tracks.

We had stopped at the Skagway Brewing Company for lunch, partly because we weren't sure when our next good meal not cooked on a fire or camp stove would be, and partly to let the other ferry traffic clear Canadian customs before we got there. (Well, those reasons and because their Boom Town Brown and Spruce Tip Blonde Ale are both fantastic, and I hate to pass through Skagway without making sure that the newest batches are up to my expectations. I'm not usually into blonde ales, but the spruce tips really round this ale out into a phenomenally well-balanced, drinkable beer.)  Customs is always nerve-wracking enough when traveling in a fully-loaded (and I mean to-the-gills loaded with EVERYTHING we will need for the next two months, plus my ski gear, two bikes, a dog, etc.) car, and being there when it's busy is just asking for headaches. 

When we reached Canadian customs, it almost felt like one of those hot, dusty afternoons in a sleepy town that you see in old westerns. If there had been tumbleweeds, they would have been the only things moving other than clouds racing across the sky and gnarled trees whipped by the steady wind. We stopped at the obligatory "stop here until signaled forward" sign, and waited for the officer on duty to come out and wave us forward. He wore the dark blue para-military uniform you'd expect, replete with badges, flags, epaulets, heavy black boots, and close-cropped hair, but his smile was warm and his eyes signaled a delight at life missing from the demeanor of all too many border guards. 

Now I have to back up and explain that we had decided, against the advice of many well-wishing friends and family members, to carry bear spray with us on this trip. "Bear spray", if you're not familiar with it, is essentially industrial-strength (really, grizzly bear strength) mace. The can is around 12 oz instead of the usual 4 oz can of mace for self-defense against people, and as long as you're not firing it into the wind, it will shoot a fairly heavy stream of pepper spray 20 feet or more. Although quite common in Alaska, bear spray is illegal in Canada. And everyone we talked to reminded us of this. But we were going to be camping, in a tent, with a dog, in varying degrees of bear country, for the next month. We were damn well going to bring bear spray, and if the Canadians asked, they could take it - but otherwise, it was coming with us.

The customs officer opened with the standard question of "just the two of you traveling today?" to which we replied that we also had a dog in the vehicle. He was rather incredulous that we could have fit a dog into a vehicle with so much other stuff in it, but he eventually caught a glimpse of Kobi peeking out of his throne between the seats and moved on to the other questions. How long will you be in Canada? Where are you going? You'll be camping the whole way? You're taking the Cassiar Highway? Then, the "do-you-haves": Alcohol. Tobacco. Firearms. Bear spray. "Do you have any bear spray?"

"Yes, we do."

He paused for a moment, as if recalling our other answers. We were driving a route that, although paved in the last ten years, is still almost entirely wilderness, making the resource-extraction civic centers of Fort St. John and Fort Nelson along the Alaska-Canada Highway look positively metropolitan. A route where you fill up on gas every time you can, because if the next gas station is closed or out of gas, you may not make it to the next station after that. A route which, at its end, runs into the portion of the Yellowhead Highway known as the "Highway of Tears" because of the astounding number of hitch-hikers (predominantly women) who have gone missing along it in the last 40+ years. And that's when you know you're starting to get back to civilization. We were carrying food (there's nowhere to buy it along much of the route), and even if it was kept locked in the car, its scent could attract furry predators to the area of our camp.

He nodded. "Fair enough." And waved us across the border.

The Klondike Highway, which connects Skagway, AK with Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, passes through British Columbia briefly before entering the Yukon. The route winds between towering peaks through a rugged landscape of scraggly trees and rocky islands set in a maze of sinuous lakes. The lakes helped form a major route into the Yukon and interior Alaska during the gold rushes of those areas in the late 1800s, when prospectors would build boats on the Canadian side of the passes over the Coastal Range and take them all the way to the Yukon River and points beyond. Bove Island, in Tagish Lake, is an iconic view along the route.

Bove Island and Tagish Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada

We weren't in any particular hurry at this point in our journey, and only needed to get to Whitehorse, YT, 109 miles from Skagway the first day. We camped at the Hi Country RV Park, a facility I've stayed at many times in years past. Although my friend of many years, Rose, was no longer managing the campground, the new staff were friendly and welcoming, and glad to meet a return visitor. My favorite spots at the back edge of the campground were taken already, so we ended up closer to the road than I've usually stayed, but it was still wild enough that we had a fox come into camp and check us out that night. Kobi is generally pretty laissez-faire about other creatures, but something about the fox got him much more excited than I'd seen him in years. Growling with hackles up, straining at his lead, fixated on a being just out of our sight in the dark beyond the fire light. We finally saw it as it cut across a beam of light from the highway beyond: thick and full, unmistakable in its silhouette and crouching run. 

The next morning we broke camp for what would be the first of many times on this trip. We would eventually learn to pack the items we needed on a daily basis more efficiently, but this first re-packing was, simply put, a mess. We had finished "packing" the truck some time around one in the morning the night before, and instead of having things we would need on top of everything else, we had the things we had put in the truck last on top. So strange things which didn't fit anywhere else, but which we certainly didn't need while camping in the Yukon.

After unpacking half the truck and then more-or-less strategically re-packing it, we headed to Birch + Bear to meet Amanda, a Whitehorse friend of mine for a very late breakfast (lunch for Amanda). It was delicious. Undoubtedly the best food I've ever had in the Yukon, and close to the best food I've ever had in Canada. Heck, it was some of the best food we'd have in the next 5,000 miles, and we spent almost a week in the foodie-Mecca of Portland, Oregon among other places. Fresh vegetables, simple and yet exquisite sauces, whole grains...it was real food, and filled us up with a sense of warm optimism about our upcoming journey. We said goodbye (for now) to Amanda and thanked her for setting us off with bellies full of great food and hearts full of the knowledge that we'd find friends along the way, no matter how alone we might be for the miles between experiences shared with those we love.

After lunch, Jess and I took Kobi down to the banks of the Yukon River to stretch his legs before we hit the road again. We were surprised by a tiny, two-car historic "train" chugging past the very new building we had just eaten in; the century-plus between river travel, trains, and the new anchor of Whitehorse's riverfront redevelopment plan fused for one moment, and was gone around the bend before I could take a decent picture.

It's a caboose! No, it's an engine! It's a trolley! No, it's the whole train!

Our next stop, Boya Lake, back in British Columbia and 50 miles into the Cassiar Highway, would be our home for several days. Boya Lake is, simply put, absolutely beautiful. Glass-clear water, thunderstorms butting against distant mountains, loons calling in the distance. We hiked (really, walked, since Kobi is, at the age of 14, is not really into a "hiking" speed) around the lake, watched fish from the dock, talked to the camp hosts and fellow campers, received tours of enormous RVs, and celebrated my birthday from our campsite overlooking the lake. Although scavenging wood is prohibited within the campground, it is nearly surrounded by forest which burned a decade ago or more, and harvesting dead and downed wood from the burn is encouraged, so our campfires verged on bonfires as the night-time temperatures dropped to near freezing. 

Our dinners were "hobos", tinfoil-wrapped amalgamations of sausage, potatoes, onion, kale, butter, herbs, carrots, mushrooms, and other delicious things which Jess had prepared in Juneau for our trip; cooked on a bed of coals for an hour or more while we enjoyed the last of my home town Alaskan beer and the forlorn sound of loons on distant lakes, these metal-clad burritos would become a staple food for our trip, and continue to be campfire favorites even now that we have a roof over our heads and a real stove to cook on. (Obtaining local and/or organic ingredients, especially ethically-raised sausages lacking a laundry list of preservatives and questionable additives, has become our primary mission at grocery stores in small towns across North America.)

Kobi, setting the pace as usual.

Join us for the next leg of our trip, when we see what happens when a semi parks in an RV, how aerodynamic and agile cows are, and explore the logic of allowing charcoal fires in the middle of a drought-inspired burn ban.

Until then, happy adventures and safe travels, whatever road you find yourself on.

Cheers,
Ben

TSA-approved shenanigans. And some that might not be.

Happy New Year!

Jess and I have been busy, juggling time with family with working on Velda, making toys, and generally figuring out what the heck we're doing. I headed back to Juneau to see my folks, friends, and mountains in early December, and although the snow wasn't the deepest or fluffiest while I was there, I managed to see some of the most stunningly beautiful views I've ever experienced, and summited two of my favorite mountains – several times each. On my circuitous journeys between Wisconsin and Alaska, I passed through: Chicago, IL; Omaha, NB; Seattle, WA; Ketchikan, AK; Seattle again, Minneapolis, MN; and Detroit, MI. I had all sorts of entertaining airport shenanigans, including having my carry-on searched twice, getting patted down in security in every airport except Ketchikan, and even getting a private-room pat-down in Seattle. Although I got some great ones in Juneau, the only decent photo I took along the way was coming into Chicago (but the memories of there and back again will last a lifetime...)

Chicago from above, way too early in the morning.

East Chutes, Eaglecrest Ski Area. Looking north.

Hilda Peak, Douglas Island (above Eaglecrest Ski Area). Looking west, Admiralty Island to the southwest visible at left.

Approaching Hilda Peak.

Admiralty Island - Kootsnoowoo (Fortress of the Bears)

Hilda Peak with my ski buddies Reid and Paul. Miss you guys.

I stayed with my parents for my first and last nights in town, but due to some technical snafus which eliminated the car I had hoped to use during my visit, I needed to stay closer to town for the rest of my trip so that I could get business things done. Luckily, my friend and ski buddy Reid Harris opened his home and wood shop in downtown Juneau to me for the duration of my trip. Reid co-owns and crafts furniture for Northern Edge Craftworks, so his (heated!) shop was more than prepared for the final assembly of a flock of dragons and dinosaurs.

Flock of dragons and dinosaurs after final assembly, Northern Edge Craftworks, Juneau, AK

The view I grew up with: Fritz Cove. Looking westish, Douglas Island to the left, Spuhn Island to the right, Admiralty Island barely visible in the middle.

The view in downtown Juneau isn't so bad either. Looking down-channel (southeast); Mt. Roberts (mainland) visible at left, Mt. Jumbo (Douglas Island) visible at right.

Moving from the comfort and community of my home town and residence for the last dozen years to an entirely new region of the country, where I not only know almost no-one, but live ten minutes from the 1,000-person town which I'm ostensibly a resident of, has been a rather shocking experience. I'm used to knowing all my neighbors, and to seeing them nearly every day. I spent years walking my ten-block commute, and could often tell the time of day by who I encountered where as I walked through Juneau's tiny downtown. Living surrounded by people whom I've known for a decade or more, many for over thirty years; waving at or saying hello and exchanging pleasantries with more people I passed than not. Never being anonymous.

Now, I find myself detached from that reality, living a life which is, in many ways, more remote than even my childhood off -the-road system in Alaska. And yet the dell in which I dwell has become home to me in many ways. Cross-country skiers glide down the loop beyond our driveway as we work on Velda; coyotes and their calls surround us in the night; Orion leaning into the pull of his bow takes the dominant place in the sky, while the Great Bear lumbers low, hibernating below treeline as I pass a winter much farther south than I am accustomed; turkeys more common than ravens, and much less personable than the greatest member of the Corvus clan.* The strange and wondrous experience of being in a new place and finding it both fascinating and familiar. Iconic silos, barns, and farmhouses dot the landscape, church steeples reach above the oak, pine, and walnut woods which separate fields and nestle around meandering rivers. And as if just to make things weird enough for an Alaskan to feel at home in the midwest, the property we're living on is part of the Iola Ski Club, which has miles of cross-country skiing and ski-jumping; it's populated by articulated wooden figures such as the 12' "Hiking Man" on the Ice Age Trail (which bisects the property); and it was the site of the Iola Rock Fest, the one-year anniversary/reunion of Woodstock - and even if you've never heard of it (I never had), it happened here...

Iola Ski Club - our private trail system when there's no snow

No...no, thank you, but no. Iola Winter Sports Club.

Hiker Man. Thanks for keeping the landscape fun, Donny!

Yes, that says Chuck Berry, Ted Nugent, AND Ravi Shankar.

The living area at the house has been taken over by sheets, piles, strips, and chunks of cloth in vibrant hues and patterns, teddy bears multiplying under Jess' ministrations. I even took a few uncomfortably cold days (negative temperatures exacerbated by wind) to refresh my sewing memory and crafted a couple of bears: a much more comfortable undertaking than working outside in sub-zero temperatures.

Other than one cold snap, it's been unseasonably warm, and the majority of my time is spent working on Velda or researching the remaining (and ever-more detailed) questions we have about what exactly we're supposed to do. The day that we installed the last exterior wall panel inserts where we had removed the original school bus windows was joyous indeed, and followed closely (finally!) by removing the Ricon wheelchair lift and installing nearly all of the floor insulation and new sub-floor. Jess' brother, Ben (that never gets confusing), helped me get the lift out before Jess even realized what we were doing. It was a relief to have it out without any smashed fingers or toes, or worse.

Jess rounding the corner and realizing that we'd already removed the lift.

Physical hurdles aside, registration of a converted school bus is generally considered to be one of the most difficult and frustrating aspects of owning a skoolie (what people who own these things call them). In preparation for our requisite State Highway Patrol inspection, I called the local field office and spoke with Inspector S--, who recommended that I not install the wood stove until after the inspection, and informed me that the conversion did not have to be complete for him to sign off on it: the bus just can't have the stop arm, flashing lights, or yellow paint job that identify it as a school bus any more, with working brake/turn/driving lights. And I imagine that we'll need to replace the rear door before a state inspector will sign off on her road-worthiness. So with the minor hurdles of installing and connecting new running and rear lights and figuring out how to attach a (cut-to-size) residential door to a school bus frame ahead of us, we are within striking distance of getting Velda registered as a Recreational Vehicle!

A few days after receiving this happy news, we were offered positions as Camp Hosts on the Mirror Lake Scenic Highway in northeastern Utah. Which means that we now have a hard deadline for when we need to be on the road; luckily, it is months after we intend to be capable of living in Velda. Which is probably a good thing, considering that we've been insulating and applying new sub-floor, but otherwise she looks like a gutted school bus inside.

Jess laying the groundwork for everything to come.

Although installing them isn't our highest priority right now, we received our custom-made, reclining, 360-degree spinning seats, right on schedule at seven weeks from the date of order. Constructed to our specifications in California by shop4seats.com at a price that I considered surprisingly low, I look forward to a much more comfortable ride than the original bus seat provided.

Since drafting the paragraphs above, I've been focusing (with mixed success) on installing the rear door and building a box for our generator to live in. Both are turning out to be much trickier than I had hoped, or even guessed. The flashing around the door is working well; that is, flushing out corners and making the doorway look like a doorway. Unfortunately, the material behind the flashing, a combination of heavy-gauge steel and sheet metal in various configurations, simply won't take a screw well enough to hold a hinge. I've broken at least four drill bits and nearly a dozen sheet-metal screws of various sizes trying to hang the hinges, and aside from making a tremendous mess of things, I've made no real progress on installing the door.

The generator box, which needs to be strong enough to hold (suspended below the bus) a couple hundred pounds of generator, is thankfully coming along better than the rear door. It's constructed of two layers of 5/8” CDX (exterior rated) plywood on each face, with angle brackets reinforcing it both inside and out. The exterior brackets are set into the plywood to keep a flush surface upon which I can mount sheet-metal to cover the box. At this point it is nearly built, with only four more exterior brackets and three strips of reinforcing metal to install inside the box before I put the last side on, clad it in metal, cut in the door, and figure out how to attach it to the bus (the box in the first photo below goes in the hole along the bottom edge of the bus in the second photo). You know, just a few minor details to attend to.

I also worked on installing conduit for our electrical wiring today, as well as clambering around under Velda and removing the last wires and relay which previously powered the wheelchair lift. And with that I wash my hands of construction for the day. If we receive the three to six inches of snow that are predicted tonight, I'll take the day off tomorrow too and go skiing. Granite Peak Ski Resort, located on Rib Mountain (yes, that confuses me too), may only have 750' of vertical but the snow has been fast and carvable**, and with another foot of snow many of the tree runs and “rock gardens” (which are actually labeled as such on the trail map) will be skiable. 

750' vertical, 500 snow guns...that's one gun per 1.5 vertical feet of mountain. And it shows.

We're teaming up with Jess' mom Jane, the miraculous glazier behind Mudder's Place pottery, to put together an etsy store that will feature Jane's quilts, Jess' bears and other fabrications, and my wooden toys (and once I know what I'm doing, my bears too!). We just had to get enough stock together to have an etsy store's worth of merchandise, but we'll be spending some time in the photo booth this week and should have the store up and running in a week or two. Now if I can just stop being obsessed with making progress on Velda for a minute...

Until next time, safe travels and playful journeys my friends.

Ben

*Yes, this is a totally arbitrary statement, and my bias is showing. I base it on my own proclivity for watching and interacting with ravens, and the historical regard of many peoples for this most-intelligent of birds. In Southeast Alaska, the Tlingit and Haida peoples regard Raven as a powerful force who does not create the world, but is certainly responsible for many attributes of its shape. The sun, moon, and stars live in the sky because of his trickery, and watching ravens play with the world around them makes this seem like a reasonable proposition, as creation myths go. But since this blog isn't about ravens or Raven, I'll just recommend this story and this article.

**"Carver", a double-black diamond (Experts Only) run which I skied last week for the first time (it had just opened), is groomed. If you know what I'm talking about, you appreciate the irony here.