Thinking about my old journals got me interested in going back to read more of the old thoughts regarding experiences I’ve had. Rummaging around my flotsam and jetsam stored here and there, I ran across my Alaska journal. I traveled up the Alaska Highway in the fall of 1968 because Alaska held an inexplicable draw to which I had to respond, a journey which I have never regretted.
After passing through Calgary and staying overnight in Edmonton, Alberta, I set out on the interesting part of the area, and I wrote: "The miles now carried me into an increasingly north country setting. Farms became less frequently seen, and forests were rapidly taking their place. Yet the highway was still busy, showing the heavy traffic of the vehicles needed to carry on the business activities..." Several hours down the highway the drudgery of driving turned again to some excitement: "Not until I came to Dawson Creek did I become excited again. It was here that Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway was situated. Finally, I thought to myself, I’m almost there. Little did I realize at the time that the hardest and most lonely part of the trip was ahead of me...Now the real journey began. The smooth paved highways I’d become accustomed to turned into the rough gravel surface...To compound the inconvenience, it had been raining quite heavily and, of course, the road’s surface became quite muddy."
I wanted to see new and different sights and I wrote about this scene: "A fantastic sight causes me to stop near Kluane Lake. A break in the weather that day permits me to look about a bit more, and I see beautiful white spots arrayed on a distant hill. I study them and conclude that they are Dall Sheep...I snap pictures with my Kodak and find only tiny white dots with no sense of perspective on the developed film. It is a picture I still carry in my head, though."
This trip was before the days of cassette tapes or CD’s or even FM radios for that matter. I enjoyed listening to my AM radio for company and recorded this: "The radio having been my constant companion is not very effective at certain points. The broadcasting stations are too few and far between so I am forced into solitary periods. No sound but the noise of the road gets very monotonous, and I drive on and on averaging 30, maybe 40 miles an hour because of the poor driving conditions. When I do get radio reception, I am subjected to an entirely different perspective than I have ever experienced. Messages between inhabitants were frequently relayed by the announcers, such as ‘Fred Johnson, meet John Olson at the river crossing at noon Saturday to pick up your groceries.’"
"The miles pass by. Inches are gained on the map. Place names are now behind me — Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, Minto, Pelly Crossing, Stewart Crossing, Whitehorse, Haines Junction. I started out in North Dakota,crossed into Montana, then into Albertan, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and now I am ready to enter Alaska. Milepost 1221.3...My car is loaded with mud clinging onto, under, inside, and all over. I promise myself a wash job as soon as I get to Anchorage."
I’ll have to return to this memory trip next week. Most of the good stuff is still to come.
