We will be travelling in our truck camper - last time you saw that we had it down in Lo de Marcos getting a paint and polish. It worked well for that trip, so no reason things should be any different going north. It is actually the perfect vehicle for this road trip. Our routing will be Carstairs to Hwy 16 (Yellowhead) via the David Thompson highway and the Columbia Icefields Parkway. From there we will travel West to New |Hazelton then North on Hwy 37 (Stewart - Cassiar). We will be making a side trip to Stewart, BC - and a short jaunt over to Hyder, Alaska before heading up the Stewart - Cassiar Highway to the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse. Looking forward to spending a few days in Whitehorse visiting and touring around, and then north to Dawson City for another few days of fun! Then it's all new territory as we venture on the Dempster Highway to Tuktoyaktuk and the Beaufort Sea.
Click here to see Our Route North (3,933 kms - give or take)
The plan is to be in Tuktoyaktuk for the summer solstice - June 21st - no sunset that night!!!
Because we hadn't used the camper in a few years, it seemed prudent to do a little test trip to make sure everything was working as it should before we hit the road. We went to a small village about 40 minutes east of Carstairs - Linden, AB. What a great find!!! Linden is a nice little village of about 700 people - a grocery store, bakery and bistro, liquor store, pharmacy, bank and that's about it. Linden and the surrounding area was originally settled by members of the Mennonite church - there is plenty of evidence of the heritage in the village today. The campground is centrally located in the coulee right beside a nice little park and pond. It is small - only 7 sites and we were lucky enough to get one backing onto the fountain.
A visual walk around Linden . . .
So, test drive was successful - a leak under the kitchen sink - no biggy but something to be fixed and a note to bring better pillows! Other than that, we are good to go!
The camper is loaded, the house sitters are ready, and we will be on the road in the morning.
Until next time - Art and Bev
