Fantasy Caravan Day 48 - on the road to Destruction...

On Thursday we were on the road to Destruction... Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory, that is, from Tok, Alaska.

It was another grey and rainy day...

... with frost heaves and "loose gravel" and "road breaks" and construction.

However, we got behind fellow caravan-travelers, Paul and Carolyn, so we could see when their rig bobbed up-and-down and slow accordingly!

Some interesting information from The Milepost today:

Those female mosquitoes biting you need a blood meal before laying eggs. The first mosquitoes to bite in spring spent the winter as dormant adults. Others (about 30 kinds) hatch from eggs during summer. Until freeze-up, some type of mosquito is always hunting for blood. A moose may lose a pint a day to mosquitoes.

Some more information:

In a record year, more than 650 major wildfires burn across the state, half of them ignited by lightning, Although only 2 out of every 10 lightning bolts hit the ground, interior Alaska can be struck 6,000 times daily. Without rain, lightning that strikes tinder dry fuels may ignite a wildfire.

Quick drying, feathery mosses send fire racing along the ground in spruce forests. Fire can smolder beneath a mossy carpet several feet thick during wet weather and even throughout the winter. Where life or property is not at risk, lightning-caused fires are allowed to burn as part of the natural process of northern forest evolution.

The Russian word taiga ('land of little sticks') best describes this boggy landscape of bottle brush trees. Black spruce grow so slowly that a tree 2 inches in diameter may be 100 years old. Where black spruce thrive, few other plants can survive. They spread their roots in the boggy, shallow soil above permanently frozen ground. Permafrost blocks water drainage and limits root growth and soil fertility.

Black spruce invite fire. Drooping branches make a stepladder for flames to climb to the cone-laden crowns. The fire's heat opens the resin-sealed cones, spreading seeds of new life.

From The Milepost, "Waist-high vertical corrugated metal culverts topped with cone-shaped "hats" seen on either side of highway were an experiment to keep ground from thawing and thus prevent frost heaves (It was unsuccessful)."

We were leaving Alaska (and the US) and heading into Canada. We passed the US Customs point and then saw the information welcoming us to Canada...

... and welcoming us to Yukon.

However, the Canada Customs station was some 18 miles further along the highway -- closer to the first town in Canada, Beaver Creek.

While we were waiting to get through the customs inspection, there was a crow/raven who appeared to be inspecting each vehicle...

...might it be very effective for border control to implement a crow-looking robot to do an inspection of vehicles before they got to the control station?

We saw these poles just outside a rest area where we stopped for lunch. The Milepost indicates: "Tall white poles on east side of highway are part of the Alaska Highway Stabilization Project in the Dry Creek area, where Yukon Dept. of Highways and Public Works identified 'massive ground ice' during a 1994-95 reconstruction project here. The ground ice makes this section of road 'particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate warming due to the thaw-sensitive nature of the permafrost.' What that meas for motorists is a bumpy ride over frost heaves and other road damage."

Additional information from The Milepost:

Ever since the Alaska Highway was first punched through the wilderness in 10 short months in 1942, this war-time road has been under reconstruction. There never seems to be a shortage of road to straighten, culverts to fix, bridges to replace, or surfaces to level out, especially along the stretch of bumpy road between the Donjek River and the Alaska border. From the 18th Co. Engineers' pioneer road building in 1943, to the modern engineering techniques of Yukon's Dept. of Highways, this section of the Alaska Highway has presented some unique challenges.

In a 1943 report on the highway, Senior Highway Engineer R. E. Royall wrote: "By far the toughest job of grading was in building the 90 miles of road from the Donjek River in Yukon Territory to the border. Swamp ground underlain by permafrost, numerous creeks, lakes, and rivers, and a thick insulating ground cover made this section difficult to penetrate for establishment of camps and conduct of work. Army forces pushed through the pioneer road late in 1942 as the ground was freezing and a limited number of vehicles went over the frozen surface during the winter. During the spring thaw (in 1943), this frozen road completely disappeared and there was no traffic whatever during the summer." Indeed this section of road did not open until October 1943. 

According to Public Works Yukon, much of the soil along the north Alaska Highway is of glacial origin and unsuitable for road embankments. "Anything that causes the permafrost to melt will cause the ice-rich soil to liquefy, and liquid soil had little strength and will settle or subside. Then if this soil refreezes during lower air temperatures, it will expand or heave." This process wreaks havoc on the drivability of the road surface by creating undulations and cracking.

We were on the roadway from the Alaska border down to the Donjek River. I don't know whether this video will give you any appreciation -- this shows Paul and Carolyn's rig in front of us and the rocking and rolling that we saw that allowed us to slow appropriately. Unfortunately, we were also rocking and rolling so the camera isn't exactly steady!

Watching the path that Paul took gave us some clues as to where we might want to go! Thankfully, Paul was in the lead for us for about 175 of the 225 miles of our drive!

We spent the night at a campground in Destruction Bay. Destruction Bay grew out of the building of the Alaska Highway -- one of several such towns about 100 miles apart. It got its name when a storm destroyed buildings and materials during the highway building.

If you've been reading this blog, you may remember that we drove into Alaska via the Top of the World Highway (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2024/07/fantasy-caravan-day-23-part-1-dawson.html).  We had a number of RVing friends who were a bit taken aback that we would be going on that highway -- they indicated that it was very bad. Actually, we found that Top of the World Highway was not so bad, but, after we crossed into Alaska, Taylor Highway in Alaska was pretty awful.

What we didn't realize before coming to Alaska was that there are only two road options to get from the lower-48 to Alaska. Well, there may be a lot of roads from the lower-48, but eventually you either take Top of the World Highway, or the Alaska Highway, and they are both tough driving, especially in a big rig! For the Alaska Highway, the part that is particularly bad is in Yukon, but... Canada doesn't really need it to be better -- it is needed for those traveling to/from Alaska. There has recently been funding provided from the US for work on the Alaska Highway in Yukon (https://fm.kuac.org/transportation/2024-07-01/federal-state-funding-helps-yukon-repair-maintain-alaska-highway).

Not only is Alaska a LONG ways north and west, it also has very few options when it comes to roads in many places!