His highway begins in Grimshaw (near Peace River) and crosses the border to Northwest Territories (NWT) and finally leads to Wrigley (at the Mackenzie River). North of Manning dense forest starts and the route is boring and uniform - you tend to fall asleep. The few villages you cross are tiny and not interesting.

Exceptions are the two waterfalls of the Hay River

The Alexandra Falls are 33 m high and a lot of water is thrushing down through a gorge - really worth seeing. And we read that already 3 canuyers rode down this immens fall and survived - one cannot believe

Here we stood overnight. And gave an interview to the local newspaper.

We travelled on the Mackenzie HWY 654 km to Kakisa and than left it for Yellowknife

This highway to Yellowknife is 338km long (one way and you have to come the same route back). Also this route is not very interesting (mainly forest and flat). We were lucky to see a bison herd (with young calves) and 3 independent bison bulls. This are the largest land mammals (more than 1.000kg) of Northern America. They mainly exist here (Wood Buffalo NP with approx. 4.000 and here in the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary with about 2.000 animals). But to know that this two sanctuaries have the size of Danmark.

It offers everything what a modern capital offers (even few skyscrapers) and a parliament. Only that the town is quite tiny - by the way the whole NWT has less than 40.000 people. It has been foundet in the 1930. because of exploration of gold (mines) and later on diamants. This is perhaps the town on earth with the highest multi - culti mix (first nations people - different groups - Europeans - again different groups - Asians - Africans - South Americans). You see poverty and alcohol problems as well as richness. Surprisingly hot summers for this altitude and very cold (but dry) winters.

Recommendable ist the museum with informativ displays and very good explanations of the flora and fauna, the ethnic, how the area has been discovered, the importance of the Mackenzie River and the bush pilots. You see deserted gold mines as well as operational ones.

Especially the „Old Town“ is a must see with the colorful wooden houses and the vegetable gardens. Yellowknife is surrounded by the Great Slave Lake - the 10th biggest lake in the world (and a very deep one - more than 600m). So in summer a lot to do - if the millions and large miskotos would not be. And they like especially fresh European blood.

We enjoyed this place

On the way back from Yellowknife (HWY3) to the Mackenzie River we saw our first black bear - but he disappeared fast. 

Also we saw plenty of wild buffalos including a large herd of approx. 30 to 40 animals.

This route is very boring and in a very bad condition. Large bumps which nearly rip off the axles. And as we were told is exactly this bad stretch quite new!!??

To go to Fort Simpson we joint the Mackenzie HWY again near Kakisa. This part is not paved. And we had unfortunately a lot of rain - the vehicle became so dirty we couldn´t touch anything. To reach Fort Simpson again a ferry is necessary across the huge Liard River.

In Fort Simpson we stood overnight - directly at the giant Mackenzie.

Fort Simpson offers nothing than gas station and small supermarket.

The Liard HWY connects Fort Simpson with Fort Nelson and is 394 km long. It has been opened only in 1984 and is at the NWT side a gravel road. In a misarable conditions with large pot holes which are difficult to spot and difficult to manoevre - sometimes only applying max. brakes help to avoid ripping off the axles.

The BC side is brand new and has asphalt coating. The route is quite boring except the bridges across the Poplar River and Fort Nelson River which is the longest provisional bridge in the world (430 m long) very high and very narrow. Sitting so high in our Volvo you can´t see the side of the road - only some 30-40 m down to the water. Rita loved this ride across.

Fort Nelson was the most important town for building the Alaska HWY. Here the HWY really has been started by the US Army in 194

The famous Alaska HWY is totally 1.390 miles long. It starts in Dawson Creek / BC and ends near Fairbanks in Alaska. We joined it in Fort Nelson

This town has around 5.000 inhabitants. Is a lively and fast growing oil and gas region with some wood industry and a lot of transportation firms. A good place to clean the dirty vehicle and to fill the fridge and diesel tank

The first 80 km are boring - only dark forest. But than the northern Rockies start and the road climbes continueously to the Summit Lake pass (altitude 1.267m) - the highest point of the Alaska HWY. The route until Liard River Hotsprings is surrounded by high mountains (between 2.000 and 3.000 m). This stretch is really beautiful. And especially the area around Muncho Lake. This lake with the different shades of blue colors streches out like a juwel in the Trout River valley. Here we had the most beautiful place to stay directly on the lake („Strawberry Flat Campground).
About 50 km further the Liard River Hot Spring comes. It is the second largest hot spring in Canada. There are two pools - the first one with 48°C (very, very hot) and the other one with 38°C and this one is quite large (it is practically the a small creek bed).
Unfortunately many people were there - a good time is early morning. But hte hot water ist good for the old bones!!
The hot water flows some kilometers down to the River Liard River and has developped a nearly tropical scenery (very very strange in this lattitude). One can develop a jungle feeling exept for the many tourist

Is famous for it´s „sign posts forest“. During the constuction of the Alaska Highway a US soldier was so homesick that he has put up his sign of his hometown („Danville, Illinois“) in 1942. And since than around 62.000 signs has been put up from visitors of all over the world. But this is more or less everything to see in this small town.
From here we took the HWY 4 (Campbell HWY) towards North

This highway 4 in Yukon is relatively quite and 40% is paved, the rest is gravel. We encountered road construction of at least 15km length. But the highway is relatively in good shape und leads through very interesting landscape (see pictures).
We stopped at the large „Francis Lake“ and had quiteness pure.

The next stop at the Campbell HWY was in Faro. Once a big mining spot with the largest open pit mining for zinc / lead. But because on pollution this mine was closed in the eighties and nothing much is left. We were wondering from what the 340 people live here.
Faro offers some intersting hikes - but unfortunately we had rainy weather.

In Carmacks the Campbell HWY meets the 716 km long Klondike HWY. This highway starts in Whitehorse and leeds to Dwason City. From Carmacks it runs some time along the mighty Yukon River which has many islands in tis section.
An interesting halt is at the „Five Rapids“. This was during the gold rush a very tricky section and many travellers lost here there lives. The ship captains had to prove here all their skills to maneouvre through this rocky rapids.
A one kilometer trial (with more than 200 stairs) leeds to a platform above the rapids.

At „Moose Creek Lodge“ - a funny old lodge, restaurant and shop with very friendly service

The town with the most colorful history - and probably the best known place in Canada. Today nearly 2.000 inabitants but during the „period of glory“ in 1898 it had (unblievable) 30.000 humans living here - if you see the area nobody can imagine how this people lived.
Because of the gold boom and because ot the size of Dawson a new Territory (Yukon) was established and Dawson became the capital. Shortly after the gold boom was over and the  prospectors left - in 1952 Dawson had 900 people and lost his capital status to Whitehorse.
Today you find here a lovely town - perhaps the most beautiful of Canada. Wonderfully restort with an excellent mix of tourists and locals who love their colourful wooden houses, their vegetable and flower gardens and their somewhat offbeat lifestyle. And exactly this mix makes Dawson so special.
It has one of the best museum connected to the gold rush time.
Dawson is the starting point to travel the „Dempster HWY“ to Inuvik and the „Top of the World HWY“ to Alaska. But both are closed persently because of earth slides.

The Dempster HWY starts at the Klondike HWY (40 km East of Dwason City) and leads 734 km to the North to Inuvik. It is the most difficult HWY in Canada (because of the road conditions and because of only few service stations).
We stood overnight at km 71,5 at the Tompstone Range at the Tompstone Territorial Park - with fantastic view to the surrounding Tompstone mountains.
It rained the whole night and our hiking tour the next day we had to stop because of rain. We decided to continue to the North (despite of rain and bad viewing conditions).
We came until the „Jeckell Bridge“ at the „Ogilvie River“. Behind the sign: „road closed“.
Our enquiries with the road service at this point revealed that the rain had washed away the road and nobody knew how long it would take this time. We decided to drive back - what a pity!!

On the way back the weather cleared up and we had stunning views to the mountains - please see the pictures.

Again we stood one night in Dawson City and the next morning we started our tour to Alaska.

We took the ferry over the Yukon and than the „Top of the World HWY“. It is a spectacular tour all along a ridge at an altitude of 1.000m. The view is different since the mountains are furhter away and shaded in all blue colours - like a painting.
The border at km 105 is very small and the officers were very very friendly - even prepared for a joke.
On 29. 7. 2010 we crossed the border to USA / Alaska

For contuniation of tour report please refer to "USA 2010 - Worldtour" / "Alaska"