Low bush cranberries on the Hidden Lake trail
Well, we finally made it here, only five days after our initial try. We stopped at the visitor centre in Tok, and found that the highway past Chicken is still closed. There were some very dissapointed Americans in the visitor centre, which may indicate why the rest of the world doesn’t really like them much. I’m not sure how the poor lady at the counter was supposed to reopen the road!
Anyway, we left our campsite fairly early Alaska time, as we have now gained another hour. The road for the first 100 kilometres surrounding the border is very bad. It has enormous frost heaves, and the pavement is often broken. There are a couple of places where they are doing research on the permafrost and roads. They have pipes down into the ground to conduct cold air there, and also were shielding the edge with a white reflector. I honestly can’t say I think it’s doing much good!
After we crossed the border we stopped at the Tetlin National Wildlife refuge, and I bought a field guide to North American birds. Shortly after this we found a small hike to Hidden Lake, about a mile in. The lake is just small, but it is stocked with rianbow trout, and on the way in we met two parties of people that had been fishing. One had more guns than fishing rods though! We saw a lot of cranberries on the way in, but didn’t have anything to pick them into, so when we got back to the Yukon we got out our cooking pots, walked back about 5 minutes on the trail, and picked for half an hour. We got a litre bag full of them, so Enid will cook that up for use with our pork chops and chicken. There are also a lot of blueberries, but they are not the same flavour as ours. They are very sour, and not nearly as good, so we never picked any of them. They do have a similar flavor, but the bushes are different shaped leaves, and they’re not very sweet.
We are heading towards Anchorage next. It will take us a couple of days to get there at the rate we’re travelling and enjoying the scenery. After that we will be going to the Kenai peninsula.