SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE ROAD TO ALASKA
Returning from Alaska for the 4th time in 1995 we spent a lot of time discussing our perceived need for a truly useful source of information for the trip. The shortcomings of available resources were obvious. The most popular guide, in the hands of most travelers (as attested to by our observing the person in the passenger seat usually reading the guide rather than enjoying the scenery), was complete to a fault. Describing every microwave tower and emergency turnout might give an air of authenticity, but the things really important to travelers were lost in the details. Where can we get gas or diesel? Where can we dump? Where can we eat? What are the roads like? What's the weather going to be? Where are the RV parks and campgrounds? These are some of the basic concerns that we agreed that, left unanswered, made the difference between an unforgettable adventure of a lifetime and a nightmare of worry and uncertainty.
Other sources of information had their own limitations. Visitor centers are packed with information, but most of the knowledge of the staff members is confined to a very limited area. This is not because they are uninformed. The job of any visitor center is to keep visitors in the area they serve, patronizing the businesses that ultimately pay to keep the center open. In the racks are hundreds of brochures and free maps. Each serves only the businesses or business who pay to appear. The guide mentioned above is just an extreme example of a common problem. There is a wealth of information about any place willing to pay for the advertising.
Regarding maps, it's as if some guys got together over a few beers and decided to get rich in the advertising game. Sometime in the conversation it was decided that a map would be the best vehicle to carry the ads, so a source was located, permission to use paid for, and yet another "free" map was born. Trouble is, most things that are free are crap.
One more example of the careful hoarding of information. For several years the main visitor centre in Alberta north of Sweetgrass (the one with the dinosaur) sold our Yukon and Alaska maps. But they wouldn't sell the British Columbia map because, I was told, they wanted tourists to stay in Alberta as long as possible on the way to Alaska. So east of Jasper there is a sign saying to turn right for the "most scenic route" to Alaska. Trust me, it most decidedly is not, and while the route may have many virtues, spectacular mountain scenery is not one of them.
Anyway, at some point we decided to stop whining about the resources and create our own. Our book and maps have always been works in progress as we struggled with putting our core concept to paper. First, we wanted to include all of the RV parks and campgrounds, public and private, whether they paid for an ad or not. Eventually about 2/3 did buy ads, but over a period of many years. Second, we wanted to be an Internet centered business with advertising on our web site, not pushing aside useful information in our book. We wanted to sell retail exclusively on line because we planned a product that could be changed as required to provide the most up to date information. Third, we wanted to be a publishing company, not an advertising company, with an emphasis on improving our product, not boosting our ad sales.
Remember, this was 1995. When we first approached people along the Alaska Hwy about our product in 1996 most had no knowledge of the Internet or E-mail. Two places, one in Dawson Creek and one at Delta Junction, were actually on the Internet. Most people thought that they would never get Internet where they lived and that they couldn't have an ad on the web unless they had their own computer connected to the web. So we had a lot of explaining to do. Another problem we walked into was that someone had come through in 1991 selling ads to go in a book commemorating the 50th anniversary of the highway. The book never appeared and many people were ripped off. Added to that were doubts about our ability to compete with the best selling guide (which was not our intention) since it enjoyed a virtual monopoly with the support of US and Canadian government at all levels. Worst, from our point of view, was the prospect of competing with all of the free stuff, including and especially free maps provided by the governments. From our point of view our maps have very little in common with a highway map, but we soon learned that for many people a map is a map is a map. (By the way, we are still connected to the Internet via a dial-up modem, while most places along the Alaska Highway have high speed.)
So there were plenty of good reasons to forget the whole idea, but then something really exciting happened! The first RV park owner we stopped at wanted an ad. And the next. And 23 more that first year. That may not seem like a lot, but it spelled success to us. That first year we had a webmaster building our site. He was very good, and wanted to do our site to have a place to send prospective paying clients to see his work. Problem was, as he got busy we got pushed aside. In 1997 we returned with 60 more ads and his attitude was that since the RV parks would be closed until spring there was no hurry to get their ads on line. So we invested in a scanner and $40 worth of software that we continue to use to this day, along with our original Canon copier. The scanner has gotten rather dusty as we have evolved from taking film photos, developing, and scanning to taking and uploading digital, getting E-mail attachments from clients, or simply pasting in photos from their other sites.
We have been able to realize some of our ambitions, but others have eluded us. Right now we are uncertain about our future. In 2009 we decided not to make the trip to Alaska for the second time since 1992. In 1993 it took a devastating flood to keep us home. In 1999 we made the trip 5 months after Karen's six-bypass heart surgery, and two months after angioplasty. Last year it was Karen's dad's health that kept us close to home as we traveled almost every weekend from April to September across the state to visit. We did manage to take some of the grandchildren to the Black Hills, and in August drove out to see our son in San Francisco with stops at most of the Colorado and Utah National Parks on the way out and back. A couple weeks after we returned from that trip Karen's dad took a sudden turn for the worse and died. Now her mother, age 91, has our attention.
Another change that makes our future uncertain is changes in the printing industry. We have always provided our printer with camera-ready copy to print 500 to 1000 maps at a time, depending on demand. Last year all of the area printers went digital, and the cost to convert would be prohibitive unless we printed a lot more maps at a time. This would put us in the same league with map publishers who print tens of thousands of maps and sell them over many years. Our maps have so much information that they are made obsolete by changes on the ground as soon they come off the press. So we have started to revise our maps into a format that we can reproduce in house in a 11x17 format, have dropped our wholesale business, and intend to proceed to produce our maps as we do our book, on demand. Regardless of the future of our publishing activities, we have no intentions of closing our web site short of a catastrophe.
Finally, there have been a lot of changes in technology since we started. All these years we have relied on a dial-up modem with a local number, but that company changed hands and dropped our local number, so in order to change our web site we have to use a very slow long distance connection, plus pay a phone company data charge. Why not change? We did. Last spring (2010) we bought a new lap top and switched to an Internet connection via our Blackberry. Trouble is, our software and thus our site can't be moved to the Windows 7 platform, so we're stuck with the dial up and notebook until it crashes, at which time we will no longer be able to update the site. No, we're not interested at this stage in our lives to sitting down and switching everything to different software. More likely we will launch a Facebook page and direct people there for updates. Hopefully it will not be a problem any time soon.
I commented above on the skepticism of people we approached in the early years. While some people were, and continue to be, very supportive, many required years of visits to reach the point where they thought we were for real. And often we would make a stop expecting to be greeted by an old friend to find that he had retired to the south and a new owner was in place, meaning the whole process of trust building had to begin anew. In 1995 we estimated that there were about 360 private RV parks and campgrounds in our area of interest and assumed a modest growth in the industry with the improvements to the Alaska Highway making the trip long, but not necessarily difficult. We were wrong, and we have seen a net decline in the number of RV park businesses over the years. A quick survey of the John Hart and Alaska Highway in BC, using our map and truthfully not being particularly careful, yielded the following results:
Seven businesses offering RV facilities have opened; eighteen have closed. Twenty-nine have changed ownership or management. Five are still open but no longer offer RV sites. Twenty-one, or about 1/4, are still open under the same management. I'm sure the same trends apply through the Yukon and Alaska, meaning we can guess that about 270 RV park owners are people different from those in place during our first business trip in 1996. I mention this only to point out the severe impact of skipping just one year. We have always estimated a 10% turnover in ownership/management every year.
Because we are no longer doing business in Canada and Alaska on the wholesale level any future trips will be fact-finding only and we don't believe our mileage and per diem will be a deductible business expense. So our trips may become briefer, with fewer stops to chat and more drive-by observations. Right now we're planning an August trip, but things can and probably will change.
There are some things we really haven't done a very good job of keeping up with. Mostly these are things that don't lend themselves well to our format. One is the exchange rate, which has swung widely over the years and has an impact on the cost of the trip that many people don't appreciate until it's too late. Another is gas prices, another volatile commodity. All we can say is that gas will always be cheaper in the US, so saving a few miles by going through Winnipeg doesn't save any money. And Canadian gas prices will not fluctuate as widely as the US because so much more of the price is taxes. We also had some problems with the whole passport thing, trying to keep up with the government's whims. The Alaska Marine Highway is another problem. They shift ferrys around at will, retired a few and built some new. Almost every year a ship will go out of service, throwing schedules into chaos. One year we expected to board a ferry at Haines to go to Skagway only to discover it was surrounded by protesting Canadian fishermen in Prince Rupert! Highway construction is another thing that changes literally overnight. The good news is that most of the highways have been reconstructed over the last 20 years and any construction will be upkeep and repairs rather that rerouting. The bad news is that any highway project is subject to funding and it is impossible to state that a planned project will proceed as advertised.
One final topic. Over the years we have explored dozens of approach and escape routes. For a couple years we crossed into Canada north of Flathead Lake in Montana and skirted the west side of the Rockies to Golden or Radium, then entered the National Parks through Yoho or Kootenay. After starting the business we settled on Sweetgrass, MT, as our port of entry and found it's best to stay consistent as there are customs and immigration questions to answer. At first we crossed Montana on US2, the High Line. Later we settled on picking up 200 near Glendive and ending up at Great Falls. One year we deviated to follow Lewis and Clark from Bismarck and visited Fort Benton as I researched my scratch-built model of the steamboat Far West. We have also crossed the state on 12, and connected N-S using 89. When our son moved to San Francisco we began to include that city (our home in 1972-73) in our return itinerary, meaning crisscrossing Washington and Oregon and exploring the California coast. Relatives in Cheyenne died or moved away, while one brother moved to western Nebraska, another to the Colorado foothills. And a third to Arizona. A cousin settled just west of Denver, and Karen discovered the shopping opportunities in places like Georgetown. We used to hurry home on I-80 to Omaha, then north through Iowa. More recently we have fell in love with the Great Basin and cross Nevada on 50, 6, and the Extraterrestrial Highway. Still to be explored are areas south of the Black Canyon, although we did visit Arizona in the early 70s on the way to living three years in Corpus Christi, TX. Commenting in detail on all of our lower 48 routes would fill another book, but we are always willing to share our experiencess via E-mail.
We hope you find our webs site, maps, and book helpful. We, more than anyone, are aware of the shortcomings of our products and understand that it is impossible to answer everyone's questions and concerns in one publication. So we encourage anyone, whether or not they buy our product, to E-mail us if they have any specific questions or concerns.
Rodger and Karen Found, February, 2010, January, 2011
2007 TRIP NOTES. We gave away our fourth and final daughter on 18 August, rested and packed on the 19th, and headed west on the 20th, planning to make as fast a crossing of ND and MT as possible. These plans literally went south next day when we discovered the Enchanted Highway and spent the morning checking out the 70-foot tall metal sculptures along the 32 mile route. So we changed course and mounted an expedition up the Yellowstone in search of Pompey's Pillar, Three Forks, and Lewis and Clark Caverns. Next day we decided to take some time to see Glacier NP again as most years we're either too early or on the way home and in a hurry. Finally arrived at Prince George and got down to business. The first week of the trip we had some kind of rain every day, but after that only a few days of rain and then on days we weren't doing much.
On the Hart Highway, Salmon Valley has changed it's owner and new name is Rockin's River Resort. Log House Restaurant and RV, east of Prince George, was sold to a private party as a home site. Azouzetta lake Lodge has a new owner and lots of great improvements. Silver Sands remains closed and for sale. Aaras Campground, the little start-up west of Dawson Creek, appears closed. We have never found anyone there to talk to. This is a problem with many start-ups where the people keep their day jobs and try to run a self-registration operation.
In Dawson Creek we found Shirleys RV Park closed, as we expected, along with the tiny Honour RV parking area that was giving donations to women's causes. We heard that Tubby's has been sold, and one source said that land may be sold to a developer. Another source said 40 RV parks closed in BC last year. This may sound like a disaster, but many of the closings are due to the booming economy and oil and gas explorations. Land that once seemed good for RV parks is now part of the expanding urban area and much more valuable as a shopping center or hotel site. Of course there are many other reasons for closures, and every one has it's own story. Sometimes it's financial, but more often personal reasons like failing health or just a desire to live in a more "civilized" place or close to the grandchildren. The big Sourdough Pete's RV in Fort St. John is closed and will be a future shopping mall. Status if the nearby Arina Gardens is unknown for 2008. Fairway in Taylor has a new owner. Charlie Lake RV has added a bunch of new full service sites, but continues to fill most of his spots with oil and gas exploration workers. At Prophet River the former Prov. Park CG is no longer being run by a concession. The picnic tables are gone but outhouses are still there. Up the road, Lum 'n' Abners is closed. Steamboat at mile 351 was closed again this year, and there is still a sign leaving Fort Nelson saying next gas in 81 kilometers. Don't be fooled! Summit Lodge remains closed and will probably never reopen.
Two of the four RV parks around Muncho Lake have closed and Double G is not advertising parking as they have in the past, just motel. Muncho Lake Lodge remains closed, and J&H is for sale under the name Den's Wilderness and advertised as "private." That leaves the Northern Rockies Lodge and the two prov. camgrounds, which typically fill early on weekends with "local" anglers. Iron Creek Lodge was closed all season and we heard the new owners defaulted. This is a nice place and it's hard to believe it will be closed for long.
In the Yukon, Nugget City has a new card-reading gas bar that they're real proud of. There's a new RV park in Watson Lake at the Tag's across from the sign post forest. The posts were being relocated to make more room and signs reattached, so don't expect to find yours where you left it. We were supprised to fine MukLuk Annie's closed for season already in August. Tagish Store on the cut-off to Skagway has a new owner, as does Caribou RV at the Skagway Road junction. In Whitehorse, Mackenzie's was closed for the season and 2008 status unknown. Wal-Mart, which has been a magnet for free RV parking, has limited the space available for overnight parking. This may sound like a nice gesture on their part, but I suspect that the opening of a new, Canadian-owned discount store and resulting competition forced WM to take steps to improve their image. While in Whitehorse visit the brewery!
We departed from our normal schedule and headed north on the Klondike Hwy for Dawson. Drove 60 miles up the Dempster to see the fall colors. Further south leaves were changing, but color was more controled by altitude than latitude. A Dawson we stayed at the YTCG on west bank and finally found the steamboat graveyard by walking up the beach a quarter mile. Goldpanner, at Chicken, has a new owner and the store is being enlarged and "improved." The Top of the World route was in good shape, with some pavement breaks and fresh gravel on the Canada side. The 30 mile gravel stretch was well graded, and the pavement from Chicken to the Alaska Highway junction in good shape with the usual pavement breaks and frost heaves.
From Tok we went straight to Fairbanks to spend a couple days with my brother. Norlite RV Park is closed and housing units are being constructed on the site. Might pay to call ahead for reservations before you get to Fairbanks if you want full hookups. Did the river druise for the first time and enjoyed it, but they won't tell you ahead of time that they no longer enter the Tanana River due to channel changes. From Fairbanks we backtracked to Delta and drove the Denali Highway, stopping overnight at Tangle Lakes. New owners at Paxson Lodge, an extended family from Michigan. Butch and Carol are still at Gracious House and still wanting to sell. Went up to Nanana and were told the RV park has a new owner and will reopen next year. We were also told that the small CG across the river is open, but we didn't drive down there because of the No Tresspassing signs. Check at the Visitor Center. Very nice improvements at Tatlanika Tracing Post! Stopped at the Denali South Viewpoint for a great view of the mountain. Last year I took a photo from same spot of the panorama photo with cloud bank in background. At Talkeetna the city park is tents and day-use only. Susitna Landing has undergone a remarkable transformation with grass everywhere (except on the pads) and two new RV site loops.
Big shock in Anchorage as the fairly new Anchorage RV Park on the east side is gone. Plowed under for a shopping center. John's Motel is also closed, so RV spots in the city will be at a premium for the foreseeable future. On the Kenai Pen., we visited Hope and discovered that Eagle Rising is now called Alaska Dacha. Hadn't realized we had missed Hope last couple years. Seaview Cafe also has RV park. On the Seward Highway, Renfro's has new owners and new name: Kenai Lake Resort. Outside Seward, near Miller's landing, sign says a new RV park, Silver Derby CG & RV, will open in 2008. On the way to Homer we were surprised to see Village Barabara closed. Some sort of problem with the sewage system, we were told. At Ninilchik, the former Deep Creek Resort is now run by the American Legion Auxillary. Kasilof RV Park is also closed and for sale.
We had a perfect day in Seward and took the fjords cruise. Had already seen Belugas along Turnagain Arm on the way down. On the cruise were treated to the antics of two humpies and a pod of orcas, plus a long list of other sea and land creatures. The perfect blue-sky day, followed the following day with more typical horizontal rain and 70 mph winds around the arm. Returning to Wasilla, we took a day off to watch the Packers play, then started to head home. On the Glenn Hwy they are still working on the rerouting around Hick's Creek, and this mess will probably continue for several years. Most work is off-road, but the highway closes at night. On the way to Valdez we found that Silver Lake CG on the McCarthy Road is no longer in business, bought for a home site. Stopped at Tiekel River Lodge to meet the new owners. At Valdez the Glacier CG is now operated by the Army, but open to public. Allison Point CG, out by the oil terminal, is now called Kimberlin's CS with nice pavement due to last year's messy construction.
Close to the Tok Cutoff junction the riverfront Gulkana River RV Park is private once again. Mineral Lakes B&B seems to be closed. Couldn't find their sign. Went through Tok and bought gas on the east side at the Village, much cheaper than the other stations. Noticed the Texaco burned down. Running down the Alaska Highway we found things pretty much unchanged although more and more places were closed for the season. Construction continues on the highway along the south end of Kluane Lake, requiring a lot of blasting. And the road is pretty difficult from the lake to the border due to frost heaves, but nothing that a moderate speed won't handle. At Haines we were surprised to find Salmon Run closed, but called Ruthann and she says she'll be opened in 2008. Fred at the Iris is still mayor; Fred at the gift shop has sold his ice cream stand; and Fred at Haines Hitch-up RV is still watering his grass and running one of the best groomed parks on the trip. Watched a brown bear catching salmon in Chilkoot River. Stopped by the ferry terminal and found that we could take the Aurora to Skagway. This sailing was not listed on the published schedules because Aurora was helping take up slack caused by tow of the largest ships being laid up.
That left is the Cassiar. Mid-trip we got a scathing E-mail about road conditions, specifically on the Top of the World Route, the western Yukon, and especially the Cassiar Highway. Our experience was that the highway was in great condition, with only two short sections of gravel remaining. There were several problems earlier in the season that got blown out of proportions. One was a slumping of one lane of the road into the lake at Tatogga. This caused many rumors that were unfounded. In truth, the road was "offically" closed for 24 hours, although traffic was allowed through during this time. On the north bank of the Stikine there was another problem with road slumping, and the bank is being cut back to put the road farther from the river. Worst of all was problems caused by contractors putting in the new stretch of pavement south of the Stikine. According to one of our sources, gravel was laid down much too thick, causing equipement to bog down and have to be pulled out. This resulted in some long traffic delay. The road is great now, but I'm sure there were some very upset travelers in July. Such is the price of progress.
Meziadin Junction Services closed for the season, along with the other gas stop ten miles south. This meant no gas going south for 100 miles. To the north gas could be had at Bell ll, Tattoga Lake, Iskut, and Dease Lake, but for people traveling south from Watson Lake who plan to gas up at Meziadin, this caused some problems. The closest gas to the junction is at Stewart, 40 miles away, and they aren't always open. There were signs posted at several locations warning of the potential problem, and we hope people saw them. The MJS business is up for sale, and some people say there is an East Indian buyer.
After wrapping up business at Prince George we headed south through the Okanogon and discoverd Canada's biggest open pit copper mine. In Washington we followded the Columbia River all the way to the Mt. Hood turn-off, then went south with a stop in Oregon at the Newberry Volcanos. Spent two pleasant days in SanFrancisco with our son, then took route 50 (Loneliest Highway in America) across the Great Basin and stopped at the National Park for a remarkable cave tour. Waiting for the tour I heard someone call my name. Turned out to be my boss from the school district back home (I've been subbing for the custodians). In Colorado we picked up the Interstate and crossed the Rockies in a snow storm. Only an inch actually accumulated, but the westbound lanes were closed east of the tunnel for the morning. Stopped at Loveland and spent a perfect day in Rocky Mt. NP with my brother, then headed north with stops at Scotts Bluff to view my other brother's new property, Mount Rushmore to be disgusted by the construction of larger-than-necessary infrastructure to support the money-grabbing activities of the concession and minimize the granduer of the monument itself, and finally Wall Drug and the Badlands. That's all, folks. Maxed out all the credit cards, but were happy to see we got 18 or more mpg with the van and had no mechanical problems. Only real problem was all the end of season sales and Karen's inability to resist. Picked up a lot of neat rocks (we live in a sand county and have to import rocks) and the usual driftwood.