The Haines Highway (out of Haines, Alaska) and Klondike Highway (out of Skagway, Alaska) both pass through British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. To get from Southeast Alaska to Southcentral Alaska, there is a little country called Canada that gets in the way. Even other travelers I met (who had also driven several thousand miles to reach this place) were in awe of the scenery that day.

With a bright blue sky and puffy white clouds, mountain peaks in every direction, waterfalls, glaciers, melting snow and ice, it was an arctic heaven reachable by automobile. And then I turned the corner to head up Thompson Pass. For the first hour or so–with nothing too interesting–I wondered if I had made a mistake.

There is only one road into Valdez and it stops just on the other side of town it would be a quick round trip. While spending the night in Glennallen, I happened to notice the sign to Valdez. At Tok, I turned off of the Alaska Highway with plans to head towards Anchorage. In fact, parts of it are actually a bit boring. And, by “near,” I mean “almost 100 miles.” Other than the border crossing, there isn’t much at all going on in this part of the Alaska Highway.

read more >Īfter politely answering all the customs officer’s questions, I entered Alaska again near the town of Tok. Yes, 235 steps! It was quite literally breathtaking-at right around step number 460 on the way back up. Then, there are 235 steep steps to get an eye-level view of the rock. Not a bad deal! Once on the island, and after a quick drive through the small village of Tiverton, there is a gentle 1.5-mile hike down to St. Normally just a $5 round-trip toll, I had to pay a $1.50 surcharge to take the Airstream on the ferry. The rock is on Long Island, a section only accessible by a 3.5-minute crossing aboard the Petit Princess ferry. Near the tip of the peninsula is “Balancing Rock,” a 30-foot-tall basalt column that has somehow balanced itself for over 200 years. In the fog and mist, I made my way to the Digby Neck, a peninsula made of two thick lava flows. Unfortunately, a low pressure weather system moved in about the same time I did. My plan was to check out the western part of Nova Scotia, most of which I missed the last time. A ferry across the Bay of Fundy to the town of Digby cut the day’s drive down to just a few hours. On my first visit to Nova Scotia back in 2010, I took the long way through New Brunswick.

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