One of the many little voices accompanying me on this road trip says, "Pfff. We don't need no stinkin' cell phone." And I swung onto the Cassiar Highway just west of Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. All my voices had an argument in Whitehorse when we awoke to a low overcast and grimly damp streets.
"OK. No Cassiar Highway. Alaska Highway all the way."
"Well, then you have to cancel the hotels in Dease Lake and Smithers...."
"OK, if the rain stops by Watson Lake, I'll take the Cassiar." N.B.: The rain stopped. But there was a sign: BC 37 CLOSED. For further information....
"Well, there. No Cassiar."
N.B.: Checked with gas station attendant, and road is open with Pilot Car.
So, I turned onto the Cassiar Highway. By now you're wondering what the big deal is. Well, the Cassiar Highway comes with warnings. Bears, road closings, signs like '141 km to the next gas,' no services (well, precious few). At dinner one evening at Camp Denali, a guest listened to my plan to drive "out" via the Cassiar. He then asked if I had a GPS. "No, and there's only one road, and you're on it." Then came the dire warnings about logging trucks speeding at you, kicking up rocks that break windshields. "And make sure to take a tire pump, the kind you plug into the cigarette lighter." I'd heard most of his conversation before; indeed, mostly what you hear is why others would NOT take that road.
Still, it's a numbered, year-round route maintained by the Province of British Columbia. And, still, this would likely be the last chance I had to drive this road. Even with this tentative resolve under my belt, my misgivings filled the car. What if I DID get a rock through the windshield? What if I had to drive 400 miles on the Tonka tire after a flat? How far is the next gas? Where are the logging trucks concentrated.
At its far northern end, the "Highway" is little more than an unshouldered, crowned, paved causeway through muskeg and old forest burns. Turning left here, right there, around little ponds, steeply up little hills, and then steeply down the other side. Maximum speed limit: 80 kph. I thought, "This is gonna take a l-o-n-g time."
After a while the road widened, and at about mile 125, the road climbed up the side of a huge ridge, and the view in the photo above presented itself. The trees flamed brightly against the spruce; whitecaps dotted the lake. The motel in Dease Lake was clean, comfy, and quiet, and in the morning, I set out about 7:00 in order to make the 10:00 pilot car about 2-1/2 hours south. I arrived in plenty of time, snaked through some VERY dramatic areas of spring mudslide and flooding.
It was sort of like driving through that snowstorm in the Yukon Territory back in April. You go until you can't. And so does everyone else. I ended the day richer by six black bear sightings (three were a sow and two little cubs--tiny after my summer's exposure to Denali's grizzlies), a Bald Eagle, and assorted ravens.
And richer by the knowledge that now that I've driven the Cassiar Highway, I know what everyone is talking about. It's narrower than the Alaska Highway, the scenery is more spectacular--because it's much closer to you, and it's 130 miles closer to Prince George if you take it. It's difficult to remember how large British Columbia is, how broad its valleys, how much its mountains bulk up the horizon. It's as big as Texas and most of Wyoming together! I think of the ease with which the plan was made to drive it--again, as I pointed out back in April, plans made with the Atlas in your lap and your seat cushioned by the couch often end up being questioned in the execution! The mind wrestles with the why and the how of the drive, conflicted by the assumption that you will be able to handle what comes along and by the fear that you won't. The drive becomes less about touring and more about just getting there.
But when you do get there, you get to smile inside even as you hold tightly to the milestone the drive represents. I may have gripped the steering wheel a bit hard in places, but I have now driven the Cassiar Highway.
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