In mid-July a series of large wildfires erupted across California, mostly in the northern part of the state and by August most of northern Washington State and British Columbia were also burning, but we were unaware of all this, having such a good time and all!
When we left Dawson City we started south, the weather was getting colder and I thought we should head for warmer weather, I planned on Carmack to Whitehorse then on to Watson Like and then we were going to take the Cassier Highway, back to Washington State. The Cassiar Highway provides an excellent alternate route to or from the Yukon or Alaska, and since we took the Alcon Highway up to Alaska..this was an experienced that I wanted...we decided we wanted to experience the Cassiar Highway also, mainly because this highway knives through mountains, glaciers, rivers and lakes. You pick up this highway just outside of Watson Lake.
When we reached Whitehorse we were able to watch some TV and we saw the fires, they were everywhere..all around us.
I thought we could make to Watson Lake and then down to BC...I was wrong...really really wrong.
We made it to Watson Lake and there we stayed, while the fires burned all around us.
Watson Lake.. normally a very small town...with only about 700 swelled to well over 1500 with more coming in every day from out laying areas that were catching fire, vehicle lined the streets. We were lucky we had found a site before all this confusion.. so we just stayed put...
The sign post forest/ welcome center became the information station, so twice a day we got info on where the fires were and what was happening around us.
The Alcan was burning..the Cassier was burning...
Ugh
After day four I had had enough of all that and I told Pierre we were leaving the next day..dam the fires... The fires crews were stopping anyone trying to leave, and turning them back, so we started out very early in the morning on the fifth day hoping the crews were not out yet and we lucked out... freedom... but it was scary.. we drove down the Alcan highway with fires burning on both sides of the Hwy... for two days we could not see more than a few feet in front of us, some times we drove at 35 mph, but we got through!
It was good to see Dawson Creek Again!!
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