Heading for a Highway Commute with Nature

I took a bus to Alaska the other day.

Well, not from my front door, exactly. I began the trip in Vancouver, bound for Fairbanks by way of Canada’s historic Cariboo Trail and the legendary 1,520-mile Alaska Highway, which plunges boldly through a mountain wilderness of intimidating immensity and spectacular beauty. I rode for five days and a total of 2,323 miles, and I rarely pulled my eyes from the window.

The trip certainly ranks as one of the grandest bus rides anywhere in the world--an unusual (and safe) mini-adventure into North America’s western frontier. When I finally pulled into bustling Fairbanks, I was just 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

In summer only, Alaska is linked to the lower 48 states by twice-weekly intercity bus service, an inexpensive route north favored especially by young backpackers. I opted for motor coach because I wanted to travel the Alaska Highway and see the sights along the way, which, in this mostly untouched landscape, means plenty of wildlife.

By keeping alert, I spotted bear, fox, moose, mountain goats, countless deer and rabbits and one stately bald eagle that brought the bus to a dead stop just over the Yukon Territory border into Alaska.

The old fellow was finishing up a meal in the middle of the road, and he wasn’t about to move until he was good and ready. Only when the bus edged to within a few feet did he begrudgingly lift off, circling directly overhead until we passed by.

The bus carried my fellow passengers and me through quaint old Gold Rush towns and Indian villages, gave us a peek at the gleaming trans-Alaska pipeline, climbed high Rocky Mountain passes, skirted emerald-green lakes and traced the winding paths of glacier-fed streams and rivers.

I was awed by the density of the evergreen forests draped over much of the northern landscape. Wildflowers bloomed in profusion along the road, and the twilight sky glowed a deep red of incredible intensity.

I traveled in mid-June, when daylight in the far north lasts around the clock, so I could watch well into the night.

Anxious to get on the road, I showed up two hours early at the Vancouver bus station to buy my ticket. The clerk gave me the bad news: Heavy rains had caused flooding just south of Prince George and the road was washed out.

The bus could take me to Quesnel or Williams Lake, the first towns south of Prince George, but no further. No one had any idea when the road would be repaired. It might take days, said the clerk.

What an inauspicious beginning. I decided to take my chances on the bus. We wouldn’t reach Quesnel until late in the day. Maybe the road would be opened by then. Meanwhile, I counted it fortunate that I had planned an extra day in my schedule. Even if I were delayed 24 hours--which proved to be the case--I still had time to make my Alaskon Express connection in Whitehorse.

The 43-passenger Scenicruiser started out almost empty, but it filled as we made several stops in the Vancouver suburbs. The first stop came only 15 minutes after we had left the Vancouver station. I sighed deeply, and wondered if I had made a mistake about this bus. If the delays kept up, the trip would be endless. Once free of the city, however, the pace quickened.

We were barely two hours out of Vancouver, initially following the Trans-Canada Highway northeast through British Columbia, when the scenic show began. For about 80 miles, the two-lane roadway clings to a precarious ledge above the Fraser River as it races in white-water frenzy through a narrow, twisting canyon.

To the distant north, the Alaska Highway, which we picked up at its beginning point in Dawson Creek, wanders for miles alongside both Kluane National Park in the Yukon Territory and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska. We were treated to splendid snowcapped mountainscapes and a glimpse or two of blue-gray glaciers.

Though eager to make the long journey, I nevertheless was apprehensive at the outset that it might become tedious and, since I was traveling alone, a bit lonely. I shouldn’t have worried. There was so much fine scenery outside the window that I never opened the paperback I had packed.

As for my bus mates, they were almost as intriguing as the views. I chatted one morning with a retired schoolteacher who had taught for years in the remote Aleutian Islands and was returning for a visit.

An elderly Indian woman with braided hair who boarded at a midnight stop told me she was making her first trip back to her childhood village. A down-on-his-luck laborer from Toronto, who occupied the seat next to me for much of one day, was headed toward a chance at a job in the Yukon. (His professional problems may be the result of too many beers--he polished off a couple at each meal stop.)

Curiously, the characteristics of the passengers changed the farther north the bus progressed. For much of the first day out of Vancouver, the bus served as something of a commuter link for local folk between the many towns of populous southern British Columbia.

Two days later, as we turned onto the Alaska Highway at Dawson Creek, Americans and other tourists had begun to predominate. By the time we reached Alaska, almost everyone aboard was a tourist.

I’m a fan of bus travel, and on other long-haul bus trips I’ve noticed that a certain camaraderie develops among the passengers. My Alaskan adventure was no exception. Fairly quickly, I became acquainted with a pair of middle-aged German businessmen carrying backpacks. They had begun the trip in Vancouver, and looked forward to camping and exploring in Alaska’s national parklands.

We would be on the bus to Fairbanks together for the full five days. Neither spoke fluent English, and they needed shepherding along the way. Once I caught them getting onto the wrong bus.

In Dawson Creek, three Americans with backpacks climbed aboard. Two of them, college students from Colorado, were bound for Anchorage in search of summer work. The third, a clerical worker from Washington, D.C., hoped to find a permanent job in Fairbanks. He had planned to drive all the way, but his car broke down in Canada and he sold it to the mechanic.

All three soon became a part of our temporary bus family. We shared meal breaks and made sure nobody got left behind.

Similarly, the nature of the bus drivers changed along the way. As I recall, we had 10 different drivers between Vancouver and Fairbanks. In the south, they were brusque and businesslike, concentrating on loading and discharging passengers at frequent stops. Up north, where bus stations are few and far between, the drivers had more time--and, it seemed, more inclination--to be friendly.

With some of them, we passengers quickly got on a first-name basis. Hans, an affable Canadian who drove too fast, nevertheless made an unscheduled stop at one of his favorite scenic viewpoints in British Columbia--Muncho Lake, a large and beautiful mountain gem of deep turquoise color--so that we could get off to snap pictures.

Jerry, an Alaskan with an obvious love of the north country, was full of tales about gold mining on the Yukon-Alaska border, a hobby of his. Steve, our final driver, was an amateur pianist who had brought along several classical tapes, which he played for us over the bus’ speaker system.

I made the trip in five days, spending two nights on the bus and two nights in roadside motels. The trip could be done in four days, including two nights on board and one obligatory night in a motel or campground.

My one disappointment, and it came as no surprise, is that the bus hurried past many places where I would like to have lingered. This is the big difference between an intercity bus and a tour bus. An intercity bus is in the business of hauling passengers, not entertaining them. I think that’s why the unexpected little extras from the northern drivers proved so welcome.

All the buses I rode were quite clean and in very good shape, and they all had restrooms. Smoking or drinking of alcohol are not permitted on any bus. The drivers did very well in keeping to the published schedule. We fell behind only once, because of bad weather.

Rest breaks come about every two hours. We generally got 20 minutes for coffee and snacks and 45 minutes for lunch and dinner. I stretched my legs at every opportunity.

A couple of sleepless nights, I concluded, was a small price to pay in discomfort for the real thrill of traveling the famed Alaska Highway from beginning to end. For most of its 1,422 miles from Dawson Creek in British Columbia to Delta Junction in Alaska, it cuts through an untouched wilderness so vast as to be almost stupefying.

Many times our bus climbed a high ridge where we could look for miles in every direction, and the only sign of civilization was the slender ribbon of concrete cutting through the forest far ahead of us. If I weren’t afraid of sounding maudlin, I might confess the sight brought tears to my eyes more than once.

In 1858, gold was discovered along the river, and thousands of prospectors paddled their way up-river in hope of a strike. One town along the canyon highway is, indeed, called Hope. I tried to absorb the history while keeping an eye on the river.

Meanwhile, the rain poured heavily, forming slender waterfalls that cascaded down the canyon walls. Just ahead on our route north was the Cariboo Highway, following the path of the wagon road that led miners to Canada’s Cariboo Country, where even more gold had been found.

When we stopped that first evening for dinner at Williams Lake, a pleasant lakeshore community, the bus driver informed us the road onward to Prince George would remain closed until the next day.

I decided to spend the night in a local motel. The forced halt actually proved beneficial. It gave me 24 hours to rest before boarding the bus again for the next two nights on the road.

All of this was preliminary for what I considered the most important leg of the trip, the Alaska Highway out of Dawson Creek, a prairie town identified from afar by its tall grain elevators. An extraordinary engineering feat, the road was built jointly by the United States and Canada in 1942 in just nine months.

The reason for the rush, of course, was World War II. Both countries feared a Japanese invasion of Alaska. The road served as an overland military supply route from the lower 48 states to Alaska. After the war, it was opened to tourist traffic.

In the early years, the road was all gravel. Since then, it has been paved almost entirely, although short stretches of gravel remain. On these segments, the dust stirred up by passing trucks can be blinding.

“We call it Yukon fog,” said Hans, the driver.

Maintenance of the road is spotty. In some places, the pavement is wide and smooth; elsewhere, it is rough, potholes are a threat and there are no shoulders.

One big problem plaguing the highway is permafrost. Much of the northern end of the road was built across frozen ground. Basically, the pavement heats the soil beneath, causing the frost to melt. The soil becomes squishy, and the roadbed sinks. Much work has been done to correct the condition, but the highway is still full of queasy dips and rises.

“Hold on to your seats, it’s going to be a rough ride,” said Jerry, when he took the wheel.

I was surprised at how much traffic the road carried, most of it the vans and campers of summer tourists heading for the Alaska parklands. Towns are scarce along the highway, but every 20 to 50 miles there is an outpost providing food, gas and usually motel lodging.

By the fifth day on the road, I was looking forward to the end. And yet I was far less tired than I had anticipated, and I had never once been bored. From Tok, the last change of buses, the final ride into Fairbanks took five hours.

Steve, the driver, put on his classical tapes, some Beethoven and Mozart. Outside my window, on the left, my view was of the soaring peaks of the Alaska Range.