After spending an epic week, driving the Dempster Highway, it was time to aim south and start our journey toward the South America!! First mission was to drive 3000 km in Canada to reach Vancouver and have fun along the way. We tried to select a different route for going south in Canada. First we took Highway 3, Klondike Highway to reach the White Horse and get some major grocery shopping as we were really low on provisions and they are not many options along the way south and then after a short drive on Alaskan Highway, we took Highway 37, also called as Cassiar Highway south.
For almost a week, our daily routines were simple. Driving for few hundred kilometers. Stop along the way for a quick hike to stretch our legs, camp next to an amazing lake or river, set up the fire, cook our dinner, go for a swim, spot Salmons and picking different wild berries. And technically getting from nowhere to nowhere but each day we had a small progress in getting south.
This drive can not be done faster for different reasons. First of all, even though the route that I explained is all through highways but there are far from the highways you probably know. Most of the sections are either gravel or under construction which means sometimes, you need to wait for hours in different spot to be able to pass through.
In Alaska and Canada, summer is the time that they can do the road work so it requires a lot of patience to cover some distances.
I must say, we really enjoyed a week of solitude and driving in pure nature with almost no cities or towns along the way.
As we were heading south, it was time again for us to cross one more time into Alaska and visit Hyder. Famous for its Fish Creek Sanctuary where it is almost impossible to miss Grizzlies coming to catch fish, it is a great detour on the way south in Canada. The drive is magnificent and the attraction is not just just witnessing a lot of Salmons in the creek and Grizzlies but the fact that to see one of the most stunning Glaciers that we’ve ever seen, we have to go through Hyder in Alaska. The fun fact is the Salmon glacier is technically in Canada but to see it you need to go through Alaska and back in Canada! We haven’t had any passport control getting in but we did got few questions when we got of Alaska. Both fish creek and the glacier are stunning and it was a great stop on our way south.
And finally after a week packed with long drives, amazing raw scenery and great surprises along the way, we arrived in Vancouver. We’ve somehow managed to get to the last stretch of the road from Whistler to Vancouver on a Sunday afternoon when all the locals were coming back home after the weekend. That was such a shock to our system to get stuck in the traffic and see so many cars and people after literally seen almost none for such a long time.
Accomodation in Vancouver is the most expensive we’ve ever seen! After looking for Airbnbs and hotels and seeing the shocking prices, we decided to stay in a campsite / RV park right in the middle of the Vancouver for 60 NZD a night!
It was packed with RVs and as very noisy as it was just next to a highway but it gave us the option to enjoy some of the charms of the big cities which we didn’t have for a long time!! Craft beers, freshly baked bread, fancy coffees and the most import one, trying some of the high end Persian food that Vancouver has to offer! So for two days, we were just walking around the city, and eat and drink and of course tried some more wild berries right in the heart of Vancouver too.
And finally after almost two months going through Canada and Alaska, reaching Arctic Ocean and covering crazy distances, our time was over and it was time to cross back into the USA again. The last two months were equally fun, exciting and also tiring and hard, but we are so happy that we’ve done it and had the opportunity to experience it all.
In the next post, we enter USA and carry one south on the west coast with a small detour 😉 Till then take care and enjoy life.
