The Road to the Yukon - Journey Home

 

We have become very adept at packing early in the morning. It doesn’t take us long. Though the first priority is always to take the dogs for a walk and to feed them. We never have any issues with Shay, but Coco picks up the signs that another trip in the car is coming up and refuses to eat. 



From Haines we returned to Whitehorse and then almost all the way back to Watson Lake. This was the second longest day of driving of the trip as we still had to go a few hundred kilometres south to Dease Lake. There we stayed in our favourite hotel/motel of the trip. It was an almost new structure that caters to both truckers and tourists. 



Dease Lake is a small indigenous village that sits beside Allen Lake, a small but very deep body of crystal clear water. We started to go clockwise around the lake until we both stepped into a fresh pile of bear scat. We went back the other way and found a great spot to take a dip in the water that was still bathed in late day sunshine. Heather braved it first. I walked out second wearing my swim trunks. With the water up to my waist, I looked around and saw absolutely no one around. So, down came the trunks and into the water I dove. I’ve done it so rarely, but there is something completely refreshing about skinny dipping. 



The next day’s drive from Dease Lake to Smithers was a lot of twists and turns, ups and downs. It was shorter than the day before but tougher because of the anxiety and discomfort the terrain was causing the dogs. Coco whined constantly. On the trip to Valemount the next day, I tried something different. I brought Coco onto the seat with me. That settled his (and our) nerves immediately.

There were two highlights of our next to last driving day. First, I discovered that I lost my wallet at some point between Smithers and Prince George. I went to grab it at the gas pump and found nothing there. I tore the car apart and found nothing. 


I think what happened is that I put it in the front pocket of the plaid jacket I was wearing, which I had never done before. At one of our proceeding rest stops, it fell out. Now, a duct tape repaired wallet with all of my cards and ID is lying lonely on the ground somewhere. Other than a few toonies, no money was lost in this minor transgression. 



As you might imagine, my stress went through the roof for most of the rest of the day. In the shock of the realization my brain struggled to find purchase. I had an incredibly difficult time piecing together where we had been and where the wallet might have gone missing. It took several minutes of Heather driving and Coco nestled on my lap to remember clearly the last time I had used it. At the first hint of a cell signal, I phoned the Petro Canada in Smithers to see if it had been turned in. It had not. 



We arrived at the Rocky Inn in Valemount and moved into our room.



“I’m taking the dogs for a walk,” said Heather. “You make the calls you need to make”.



I spent the next 90 minutes calling the various banks and cancelling cards. I carry way too many cards in my wallet from three different banks. With all replacement cards ordered, all I need to do is figure out a temporary driver’s license. In my research, I discovered that our agency back home should be able to email me a temporary document.



To smooth out the emotional wrinkles, we went for a lovely walk along the river to see the salmon spawning. We didn’t see schools, but we saw several. The journey they had made since the spring when they left the ocean to return to the stream of their birth was epic and a miracle of nature. 



As we walked along the path through the forest, we heard a rustling in the bushes to our right. As I could see a dark mass of something through the foliage, I thought it might have been a small bear cub. It was not.



“Porcupine!” declared Heather.



Sure enough, that’s exactly what it was, slowly crawling its way up a tree. We both grabbed our cameras, but getting a decent shot proved to be challenging. The picture above was the last frame I took. 



Niggling at the back of our minds was the work that was happening back home in High River. SEED Homes were doing a bunch of work inside our home and we were longing to have an update as to what to expect when we arrived back home. We finally got ahold of Stephen Morgan late in the evening. He, like us, was in a spot with sketchy cell service. An update will be forthcoming later today.

It is going home day for us. We will leisurely check out of the motel in Valemount and then drive to Jasper to visit the Alberta Registries office. This will hopefully get me a temporary drivers license, with a new one coming in the mail in a couple of weeks. I tried to do this process remotely but inevitably hit a wall. 



“Government is archaic,” said Heather.

She is right. Something that should be so simple is anything but. In fact, getting a temporary drivers license doing all the paperwork from a distance proved to be impossible. 



Once that is done, we will drive from Jasper to Banff and eventually land in High River. We are in no rush as we want to give the SEED Homes team the time they need to finish up the flooring on the west side of the house and move all the furniture back in place. We fully expect there to be a strong smell of glue. However, the problems we were having with boards separating will be completely gone. 


For our final hike we decided to do the Swift Creek lookout loop, about 10 kms. With an elevation gain of 300 metres, it was the perfect walk to bring our holidays to a close. It was through a very old forest with towering cedar and balsam fir trees.

Amazing. 



A sit down Korean dinner closed out the day and our holidays.