Yukon Explorer

Plan to travel only a short distance today - Whistler is a great option for your first night’s stopover. Whistler is an RV vacation paradise. Be sure to ride the Peak2Peak gondola which spans the valley between Whistler and Blackcomb mountains – it is truly a modern feat of engineering. Off the mountain there’s lots to see and do – one night will not be enough!

CanaDream Club Partners on today's itinerary:

• Canadian Outback Rafting
• MTN Fun Basecamp
• Paradise Valley Campground
• Backroads Whistler
• Ziptrek Ecotours Inc.
• Canadian Wilderness Adventure
• Squamish Lil’way Cultural Centre
• Riverside Resort Park
• Whistler Olympic Park
• Whistler Sliding Centre
• Squamish Rafting Company
• Sea to Sky Air
• Audain Art Museum
• Talaysay Tours

A fairly long drive today though some spectacular mountain scenery to your overnight destination in Quesnel. Stretch your legs in downtown Quesnel on the Riverfront Trail. Borrow gold plans and a map from the Visitor Centre and try your luck at finding gold! At nearby Pinnacles Provincial Park, view some ancient hoodoo rock formations and catch a scenic view over Quesnel.

CanaDream Club partners on today's itinerary:
Barkerville Historic Town

If you’d like to stay another night in Quesnel we suggest a trip to Barkerville Historic Village, seeped in gold rush history. If you’d rather just hit the road to give yourself more time to explore along the way, highway 97 continues on to Prince George where you’ll join BC’s other TransCanada Highway east to Smithers. The area is forested with lakes aplenty. Small towns dot the highway and a number of provincial parks beckon you in to hike or just take a break.

CanaDream Club partners on today's itinerary:
Bulkley Adventures
Shady Rest RV Park

CanaDream Club partners on today's itinerary:
Water's Edge Campground

You might like to break today’s drive into two to give you more time to explore en route as you head towards exciting adventures in Yukon Canada. Teslin might be a good overnight option. Either way, you’ll find yourself criss-crossing the BC border today as the road winds through stands of deciduous and evergreen trees, and opportunities for wildlife spotting abound. At Teslin, stop at the overlook before the bridge to view the town from above before continuing along the Teslin River to Jakes Corner. Here the road divides – take Highway 1 past Marsh Lake (don’t forget to stop here) and on to Whitehorse.

Spend the day exploring Yukon’s capital.  Here small town meets big adventure – outdoor recreational opportunities are endless! Visit Miles Canyon, S.S. Klondike, soak in some hot springs and get a taste of some famous Yukon Fireweed Jelly.

• Best Western Gold Rush Inn
• Edgewater Hotel
• Westmark Whitehorse Hotel
• Tatshenshini Rafting
• Arctic Range Adventures
• Up North Adventures
• Nature Tours of Yukon
• Yukon Adventure Centre
• Caribou RV Park
• Hi Country RV
• Pioneer RV Park
• EPIC NORTH Tour Experiences

Make sure you have plenty of fuel in your vehicle – gas stations are sparse this far north. There are few amenities along Highway 2 as you pass by a number of lakes through scenic countryside to Carmacks.

Home to the Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation, Carmacks has a population of fewer than 500 people and is popular with river travellers paddling the Yukon between Whitehorse and Dawson City.

Keep your eyes peeled for wildlife as you continue on Highway 2. Townships are few but interesting. Stop at the Big Jonathan Heritage Center in Pelly Crossing, home of the Selkirk First Nation Cultural Centre. Not far from Dawson City, you’ll pass by the junction of Highways 2 and 5. Hwy 5 is the infamous Dempster Highway, taking you above the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories and beyond. You might like to stop and photograph the sign and add the highway to your bucket list for another trip.

• The Klondike Experience

History is preserved in Dawson City. Technically a town, Dawson City has a special provision allowing it to use the word “City” in its name for historical reasons.

The visitor information centre should be your first stop today. For a town the size of Dawson, it’s packed with so many things to see and do. Spend an evening at Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall!

The Top of the World Highway connects Dawson City with Tetlin Junction and it’s this highway you’ll travel today. Beginning with a summer ferry ride across the Yukon River, the highway starts off wide with a few steep drops, narrowing and becoming winding as it makes its way into Alaska. Keep your speed down and make lots of stops to enjoy the views which are truly spectacular. There are several campgrounds in Tok and flightseeing tours are provided over nearby Wrangell-St Elias Park by Tok Air Service.

Alaska Highway 2 continues south to the Alcan border where it retains its name but changes its number to 1. The landscape is predominantly trees but is surrounded by distant hills and the odd body of water. Canada Border Services will welcome you back to Canada at Beaver Creek, Canada’s westernmost community. Burwash Landing lies on the shores of Kluane Lake where you’ll find a selection of campgrounds for your overnight stay.

Welcome to Haines Junction. Here, far off mountains feel close enough to touch and the roads seem miles away from anywhere. Outdoor recreation is the name of the game and bears can appear from anywhere. Haines Junction is an ideal base from which to explore Kluane National Park & Reserve. The Kluane Mountains are home to Canada’s highest peak in Mount Yukon. Among the must-do activities on offer are glacier flight seeing, mountain biking, horseback riding, llama trekking and hiking.

Spend more time today exploring Kluane National Park and surrounding areas.

• Kluane Glacier Air Tours
• Tatshenshini Rafting

Make sure you’ve filled your gas tank before hitting the Haines Highway towards Kathleen Lake. If you’re a fisherman, you can try your luck at catching rainbow and lake trout, kokanne and grayling – remember to purchase your license in Haines Junction! Klukshu, a native fishing village just past Dezadeash Lake, is also a great option for a stop. The highway seemingly ends at Haines, as the city meets the sheltered waters of the Chilkoot Inlet on the edge of North America’s longest and deepest fjord.

Daylight scarcely ends in summer, giving you long days to fill with fishing, hiking, cruising and learning about the culture of the native people. Spend a day in and around Haines to discover all that this city has to offer.

• Haines Hitch-up RV Park
• Sockeye Cycle Co, Haines

The Haines ferry terminal is your first stop today as the Haines Highway becomes the Alaska Marine Highway and you can enjoy more time out from driving on the one-hour ferry ride to Skagway. Be sure to book your RV on the ferry ahead of your arrival.

Sailing into Skagway in the summer time, you can’t fail to notice the cruise ships lining the docks. The majority of Skagway’s visitors arrive by sea, and people line the streets everywhere. False fronted shops and boardwalks recreate the gold-rush era when Skagway boasted a permanent population of 30,000 people, largely American prospectors. Today the ‘gold’ lies in tourism with Skagway hosting more than 1,000,000 tourists annually. While in Skagway, enjoy spectacular scenery on the Yukon & Whitepass Railway, built in 1898 by thousands of construction workers. Join a day cruise to Juneau and enjoy marine mammal watching en route. There’s plenty here to fill in more than a couple of days.

• Mountain Flying Service
• Alaska Fjordlines
• Sockeye Cycle Co, Skagway

The Klondike Highway winds through mountainous terrain and alongside numerous picturesque lakes as it takes you back into Canada and on to Carcross. The border itself lies in a no-man’s land where the highway number changes from 98 to 2 but the name of the road is unchanged. It’s another 12km from here before you reach the Canada Border Services Agency and officially re-enter Canada.

The small town of Carcross lies at the head of two lakes and is home to the Yukon’s oldest general store. Originally known as Caribou Crossing, the town’s former name lives on at the Caribou Crossing Trading Post where visitors can sample their home-baked goods, visit the wildlife museum, take a dog cart ride or play a round of mini golf. Close by is the Carcross Desert, often considered the smallest in the world, covering only one square kilometre. It is actually a series of sand dunes carried by the wind from nearby Bennett Lake but it contains a wide variety of plants not found elsewhere in Canada. Despite this, it is not a protected area and the locals use Carcross Desert for recreational activities.

Today we’re heading back to Jake’s Corner via Tagish before covering some already travelled ground, albeit in the opposite direction. Your return trip to Vancouver is via the Alaska Highway, a more popular route than the Stewart-Cassiar highway, and tonight’s destination is Watson Lake. Despite its small size and population, Watson Lake has a lot to offer visitors.

The Northern Lights Centre showcases Yukon’s Northern Lights through a video shown nightly throughout the summer months in its 100-seat domed theatre. The quirky is catered to with the Signpost Forest, one of the most famous of the landmarks along the Alaska Highway. Visitors are welcome to add their own signs to the over 80,000 already present.

If you’re travelling mid-summer you’ll have daylight on your side, but try to hit the road early and take a break at Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park. Here a boardwalk across warm water swampland leads to the second largest natural hot spring in Canada. Water temperature ranges from 42-52C, and parking is available at the entrance. An admission fee is charged.

From here, the highway continues to Muncho Lake and Toad River. Spectacular landscapes and incredible wildlife viewing opportunities await in Stone Mountain Provincial Park.

Fort Nelson was initially founded during the fur trade. Not to be missed here is the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum which showcases the construction era of the Alaska Highway.

In Dawson Creek, call in at the tourist information centre housed in the railway park, featuring an old-style grain elevator. Pick up a walking tour map and spend an hour exploring the downtown. Close by, have your picture taken by the Alaska Highway sign. Dawson Creek is the beginning (or end) of the highway – officially Mile 0. There’s a marker post in the downtown core showing Mile 0.

A recommended stop on this section of highway is in the small town of Chetwynd, host of an international chainsaw carving championship. Here take a walking tour to view more than 120 intricately carved figures around the town.

Around 30 minutes north of Prince George, the Huble Homestead Historic Site features the original homestead, along with other pioneer buildings detailing the lives of the settlers of the region. The park is open seasonally.

Prince George is also home to the Central BC Railway and Forestry Museum which has one of the largest collections of vintage rail items in the province. Climb into the locomotives and ride the mini rail train.

It’s a long but picturesque drive south down Highway 97 to Cache Creek, but the towns along the way will be familiar from the trip north. In the words of Travel BC, “Cache Creek can accurately be described as a bustling oasis town in the midst of cactus, tumbleweed and a desert-like climate.”  Camping is available by the Thompson River in nearby Ashcroft.

Historic Highway 1 beckons today as you head south through Hope and on to Vancouver. From Lytton to Hope, the Fraser River is never far from sight, offering many opportunities for scenic stops along the way. Stop in Hope and wander through the town to view the chainsaw carvings here before heading back to Vancouver along Highway 1.

• Burnaby Cariboo R.V. Park
• Vancouver Water Adventures
• Coast Hotels
• Steveston Seabreeze Adventures
• Vancouver Whale Watch
• Quality Hotel Airport
• Accent Inn Vancouver
• Sandman Signature Hotel
• Pacific Gateway Hotel at Vancouver
• Vancouver Trolley Company
• Landsea Tours & Adventures
• Off The Eaten Track – Olympic Village Food Tour
• Off The Eaten Track – Railtown Urban Eats Tour
• Sandman Vancouver City Centre
• Vancouver Photowalks
• WESTCOAST Sightseeing – 24 Hour Hop on Hop Off
• Vancouver Lookout
• Cycle City Tours and Rentals
• Vancouver Photowalks Canada Place
• Harbour Air Seaplanes
• Harbour Cruises Ltd.
• Vancouver Photowalks – Stanley Park
• Stanley Park Horse-Drawn Tours
• Vancouver Aquarium
• Talaysay Tours
• Capilano River RV Park
• Capilano Suspension Bridge
• Grouse Mountain