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 Fly-Drive
the Pacific Coast from Baja to
Barrow
“There's great, big,
broad land way up yonder
There are forests where silence has
lease.
There's a beauty that
thrills me with wonder.
There's a stillness that
fills me with peace.”
 With
my latest version of the Trans Canada Yellowhead
Highway story available soon in a new travel
magazine, plus an update of the Alaska Highway
Anniversary video, we're introducing a series on
Great Continental Drives.Our first project follows
the route from Baja California to Point Barrow
Alaska. Truly a marathon tour, most of the journey
is by land, however alternatives include coastal
ferries and light aircraft. I caught the travel bug
at an early age, being born in Dawson City,
Klondike Gold rush capital. Yo get to the outside
as we called it, involved a trip by river boat,
train and CPR coastal liner. My father Don, an RCMP
officer, was from Seattle and my mother, Violet was
from Vancouver, BC. My grandparents home at Palos
Verdes, California looked out over the Pacific, and
our first drive south on Highway 99 to visit them
was like a dream.
Other great drives
 from
the far north to California added more fuel to the
fire, creating
a hunger to explore even more of this vast region.
To me, the old Highway 99 was every bit as romantic
as Route 66 immortalized in song by Nat King Cole.
The route extends from the Mexican border, via
California, Washington, Oregon and British
Columbia, to the Yukon and
Alaska.
Similar
to my format used in the “Yellowhead”
story, I plan to profile the towns and cities en
route.
Early
Explorations
A
year before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force, I
spent a season with the Canadian Government
Topographical Surveys from Ottawa, mapping a
remote, mountainous area of the Yukon Territory.
The project began in the Central Yukon at Mayo and
wound up on the old Canol Pipeline Road. midway
between Whitehorse and Norman Wells, NWT. Travel by
saddle horse, pack horses and float plane, gave me
a grasp of what the pioneer road builders faced in
1942. I interviewed several of them later for the
Alaska Highway Story. The next spring, I found
myself working on a stretch of road that eventually
bore the name Dempster Highway, that winds its way
over the tundra to the Arctic delta.
In 1992 we
started producing a series of Air
Highway Supermaps,
which show and tell how the land route is supported
by a network of airports and seaplane bases. In
1996 we produced our first Air Highway Journal of
Open Skies, which tied in the railways, ferry
routes and other facets of the total transportation
scene. A year later at Apec '97 in Vancouver,
thanks to the late Joe Whitehead, a publisher
friend and mentor, Air Highways introduced its
first Asia Pacific Edition. In 1998 we staged our
fist Air
and Marine Tourism
Conference,
with over 30 top speakers from various key
positions in the travel, hospitality and
transportation industries. While this latest
chapter in our “Roads to Adventure”
series is taking shape, here are several earlier
articles on the topic:
The
Alaska Highway
The
highway was also a massive sea-bridge, spanning the
coastal fjords of the Inside Passage to historic
Skagway, then over the White
Pass
by
narrow-gauge railway to Whitehorse on the Yukon
River, or up-coast to Valdez, Alaska, near
Anchorage. Inland, a 500-mile connection existed
via rail and dirt road, from Edmonton to the
staging point at Dawson Creek, BC. Mere dots on the
map soon became feverish anthills of activity, as
mountains of supplies and acres of equipment were
stockpiled along the way. The fleet
of paddle wheelers that plied the Yukon since the
Gold Rush of the 1890s was pressed into service,
since there were no real roads connecting the
territory's main communities. Continued
Hot
Springs Heaven
The
eternal ice fields wear a "necklace of thermal
springs", fed from water trapped in fissures and
caverns deep in the roots of the Rockies. Raging
rivers, glutted by the seasonal runoff, churn and
boil like some concoction from a giant soda
fountain. Oh the joys of steamy, bubbly-hot,
sulfur-scented waters; Solus Par Aqua (health by
water) to the Romans; a sacred rite to Canada's
native peoples, and Shangri-La to we hot springs
fanatics. Speaking of natural spas, the Kootenays
have them in spades; Ainsworth, Halycon, Nakusp,
Ram Creek and Wild Horse. Many of these natural
spas along the Columbia Valley and Continental
Divide are so enticing, you'll want to stop the car
right there and take the plunge.
Continued
I
am the Yellowhead
Imagine your
auto, RV or railway coach is a time-capsule;
cruising down a broad ribbon of Canadiana, in the
wake of nomadic hunters, voyageurs, missionaries,
traders, sodbusters, fortune-seekers and railroad
builders. From Lake Manitoba to the Haida Gwa'ii
(BC's Queen Charlotte Islands) , it's a 2600 km
journey into history, with Indian encampments older
than Egypt's great pyramids, national parks,
ancient shrines and battle sites. Ethnic dances and
pageants salute every facet of our heritage.
Before we
dim the lights and start the movie, you're curious
to know how the name Yellowhead was derived --
right? In the 1870s, a roving Iroquois guide,
dubbed Tete Jaune for his golden locks, gave title
to a mountain Pass near Jasper House and gained
instant immortality. Fly-Drive
Holidays are all the
rage, in an age when time has become more valuable
than money. You can fly the "Air Highways" to
dozens of gateway airports; then take your pick of
ground transport.
Continued
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