Bit of cheating going on with the Whitehorse post cos I skipped the blog on the way up, knowing that we’d be spending another week here on the way back down. Whitehorse is strategically positioned along the Yukon stretch of the Alaska Canada highway. Check out its location on a map and you’ll see it’s a bit of lone wolf, the only more-than-one-horse town for hundreds of miles, and therefore a beacon in the night to us digital nomads. That said, who would have thought it would have Yukonstruct – one of the coolest, not to mention busiest co-working spaces of anywhere we’ve worked in the last 18 months.

Maybe it had something to do with having La Petite Maison downstairs in the co-working office, serving sweet and savory crepes to rival any French establishment.

Our favorite camping spot was not a campsite but a little scenic overlook parking spot (luckily for us, without a ‘no overnight parking or camping’ sign, the bane of our lives). We spent a few nights there, enjoying how the view changed with the elements.

And we had a visitor.

So adorable, just check out that tail, almost bigger than she is! Of course, we didn’t feed the fox, although it was obvious that others had, given how close she came up to us. Keep wildlife wild people!

While nowhere else came close to our scenic overlook, we camped at a couple of proper campsites too.

The opportunities to get out and about before/after work were waning considerably, as the days were getting shorter and the weather didn’t particularly want to play ball. So some very random shots of Whitehorse coming up…

So we did what we do best and ended up in the brewery. Cheers!

I should probably have been navigating. But this time luckily, we took the direct route and there was no detour to the Top of the World as we journeyed between Alaska and Canada. Instead, as we were driving along with nothing better to do than gaze in awe at the passing wilderness and try to capture a million videos of the long road ahead, I was inspired to write. Not my journal or something particularly useful for the blog. Oh no, I was inspired to write a short story from the perspective of an Aspen tree.

So instead of “we drove from here to here and stopped for lunch here and camped here blah blah blah, and then the next day we drove some more”, all you need to know is we got from Homer, Alaska back to Whitehorse, Yukon. And here’s the Aspen to give you her story.

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In the undertones of the whispering wind, she thinks she hears an ominous warning “Winter is Coming”.

With the wind comes a drop in temperature. Her leaves are startled to realize that this is their time to shine. They give a confident show of glory, brazen with golden yellows and burnt ambers. What was once the sun’s rays morphs into the dazzling radiance of autumn leaves.

But their prime performance is fleeting. The chill inevitably takes a hold and each leaf shivers in the wind before parting ways with its umbilical branch. Freedom both engulfs and liberates. Emboldened by their new found, unrestricted maturity, they feel truly free for the first time.

Once they leave their mother tree’s embrace, their mood is subject to the wind’s follies. One leaf floats effortlessly to the frigid ground, awaiting the comforting blanket soon to be provided by its siblings. Another’s journey lasts for hours, blurring into days as it is blown frivolously to a new resting place far far away. Who knows what adventures it has on the way. Yet others dance jubilantly, swirling and whirling, enlivened by the wind’s frenzy. A sixth sense telling them to dance like there’s no tomorrow.

However they spend their final moments, sleep eventually overcomes them all. Today’s leaves destined to become tomorrow’s forgotten mulch.

Her job is done for another year. She feels naked and exposed without her cloak of leaves. And yet she knows they were not hers to keep; she had to let them go.

She reflects fondly on the brief time they spent together. Spring was characterized by their bursts of enthusiasm and sense of wonder as they emerged, aphid green and eager. The lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer were spent basking in the gentle sunshine as the midnight sun merged day and night into one.

But that precious time is a fleeting memory. It is now time for her to be stoic and resolute. She may look pale, delicate and vulnerable, but as an Aspen, her core is strong. She is shielded from the elements by her faith in the seasons. She lapses into a dreamlike state, induced by the shorter days and longer nights. Her dreams are peppered with flashes of muted pinks and greens of the aurora across the night sky.

And through the haze, she feels the first snowflakes drifting around her and settling. Silent white above, below and all around. Again the whispering wind… “Winter is Here…”.

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And now here’s the scenery and journey that inspired my little story.

Dawn of day two got a little hairy when we rocked up to the alleged petrol station with less than 50 miles of fuel to go, to find this.

Before you ask, we couldn’t just pump and pay. No credit card machine at the pump and the pump itself wasn’t switched on. We tried hollering at the lodge, but the posted opening hours of 11am were not promising. There was some vague sign of life at an outbuilding but turned out to be a (luckily friendly) guard dog. We hung around for a while, hoping someone would turn up.

They didn’t.

Well if you’re gonna break down, I guess there’s worse places.

With no cavalry to save us, we resorted to our phones and their frustrating now you see it, now you don’t bars of signal strength. Apple Maps, Google Maps and Yelp revealed not a petrol station in sight for 100 miles either way. But some of Darren’s advanced research, corroborated by a potential sighting on satellite map view and an online review from three years ago, yielded a potential thumbs up just 30 miles further on. With no other feasible option, we continued down the road.

Our journey continued less eventfully to Destruction Bay, where we saw the grizzly bear on our way out. No bears this time but we did have more time to stop and appreciate the view (what without that 600+ mile detour).

We found the most awesome place to boondock for the night.

All good things must come to an end, and that includes vacations in Alaska. Boo. Although the good thing about our nomadic lifestyle is that we didn’t have to pack our things and fly home – like a hermit crab or a tortoise with its shell, we already had our home with us. We were camped up on Homer Spit at Fishing Hole campground. To some it might look like a ship junkyard, but to us it was a prime waterfront spot.

And all was not lost, we still had the rest of the weekend to play with. Oh hang on a minute, the weather had something to say about that.

Our planned floatplane day trip to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park was cancelled (to be fair, much as I love watching bears I didn’t much fancy standing around in the wind and rain all day, not to mention being out in a storm in a iddy biddy plane).

Plan B started with crepes and coffee for brunch at Wild Honey Bistro. We then holed up in the cozy Basecamp for the rest of the day – journaling, blogging and planning the return journey of our trip, a beef bourgignon one pot simmering slowly on the stove.

By late afternoon, as the relentless thud and thrum of the rain finally abated (a cat on a hot tin roof could not have been louder), we emerged blinking into the light.

And then we went to the pub. Not just any pub, the rather quirky Salty Dawg Saloon, beloved by tourists and locals alike, it doesn’t get any more Alaska than this.

The whole dollar bill pinned on the ceiling (or wall or any available space these days) seems to have started as a way of putting a down payment on a future drink, whether it be sailors leaving for an expedition, soldiers heading to war, or gold prospectors plunging into the earth’s depths. They would pin their dollar in a prominent place in the bar so if all else was lost when they returned, they could at least be happy in the knowledge they could get a beer.

Made me think of the now commonplace ‘Beer it Forward’ schemes in place at local breweries, the key difference being you’re paying for someone else’s future drink rather than your own. I guess that’s what you call progress.

Being the metropolis at the end of the world that Homer is (note the End, not the Top of the world), it didn’t have a co-working office. So it kind of felt like an extended holiday to book an Airbnb for a few days to work out of. Especially one with expansive windows and views.

While our remaining days in Homer were limited, we still managed to check out the local craft brewery, closely guarded by an oddly life sized bear. At least he had his mask on.

And we still had light enough to get some fresh air after work, in between rain showers. Along the beach…

Along the prom and marina on Homer Spit…

And up a hill for a view…

If there’s one thing we know now about US locations, it’s that whatever their calling, they’ll blow their trumpet, loudly and proudly. Homer’s claim to fame is as the Halibut capital of the world. OK then, bring it on, we’re on a fish n chips awesomeness mission.

What we didn’t quite factor in was the timing. Labor Day in the US is widely considered to be the end of Summer and the unofficial yet rather abrupt end to seasonal tourist attractions. Turns out this applies to fish n chips too. A whole week the wrong side of Labor Day and all the cafes were closed – not a fish or a chip to be found.

Luckily the seafood market stays open year round 🙂 We stocked up with halibut cheeks, halibut fillets, spot prawns and more. And resorted to cooking our own fish n chips.

I’m not an oyster fan. I really wish I was. To me, oysters and champagne sounds hopelessly high end elusive and romantic. In reality, I like to drink the champagne and pass on the oysters. But with all fish, chip (and peas) avenues officially closed, I reluctantly agreed to an oyster bar instead. The important point being it was one of the few establishments in Homer still open.

And what a warming, welcoming spot the Broken Oar Oyster Bar turned out to be. The perfect blend of a tiny friendly establishment – seated maybe 10 people indoors max, the warmth of the ovens and the deliciousness of the food. I don’t know if we’ll ever make it back to Homer, but if we do this place will be on the list for sure.

It’s not often an entire post is dedicated to just one day, even less so just one hike. But I kinda sorta over-indexed on the photos for this one.

At the furthest south west tip of the Kenai peninsula, the road runs out at Homer. From there, the only way to reach Kachemak Bay State Park, the peninsula’s most remote southern wilderness, is by boat.

Armed with a couple of ham, cheese and Branston pickle sandwiches and a couple of beers for good measure, we joined a handful of other hikers to take a small water taxi from Homer marina to Halibut Cove. It was a cool boat ride, lots of sea otters chilling out along the way.

As we neared the beach at Glacier Spit, we were told the tide was too… low/high/up/down I don’t remember, other than it was far from ideal. But the skipper thought there was a chance we could time it just right between the waves to disembark. And then out came a ladder. Yes, a common or garden stepladder.

After watching a couple of the others successfully navigate the improvised gangway, I gingerly descended the ladder. Then like my life depended on avoiding wet feet at all costs, I launched myself up the beach arms and legs akimbo, only to find Darren was filming me.

Our route took us along the beach and then inland through coastal rainforest, the vivid autumn colors just bursting with enthusiasm to show us what they’d got.

One of the distractions along the way was the Grewingk tram – a pulley system used to transport people in an open metal contraption loosely resembling a tram across the very wide, very fast flowing and very cold glacial meltwater river. With some lighthearted banter around making a good 1SE video clip, I was the one put into the ‘tram’, while Darren tugged heartily on the metal rope to ease me into the middle of the gorge, way above the raging waters.

The intention was not to reach the other side, this was just a dalliance on our planned hike that continued on the same side of the river. “OK now, this is far enough, bring me back please!” I hollered. Too far away to hear each other properly over the roaring river, there was some pantomime gesturing on my side, mirrored by nonchalant shrugs on his. I caught something along the lines of “Damn blueberries” and “Top of the World” and “You thought I’d forgiven you, hah!” Or maybe I imagined it.

Turns out it takes a lot more huff and puff than you’d think to get some momentum going on the tram. And maybe a few less pies on my part. But eventually Darren’s relentless hauling on the pulley meant that I made it back to solid ground in one piece.

As we continued, we caught glimpses of the Grewingk glacier through the Fall foliage. (Side note – I know Fall sounds terribly American to the Brits but after ten years I’m pretty ambivalent about the vocab differences and quite honestly, just milking the alliteration here. I also kinda struggled with the name Grewingk, thinking it must be spelt wrong, what kind of word has a g then a k? One named after a Baltic German geologist apparently.)

I really wasn’t quite prepared for Grewingk Lake. One of those blow you away destinations with wait for it, icebergs floating in the lake. Not to mention we were surrounded by yellow-tree awesomeness, a full-on 13 mile glacier at the far end of the lake, and a poetic pebble beach strewn with weathered driftwood.

Out came the Alaskan Brewing Company Icy Bay IPA. We could not have staged a better beer for the photos – anyone would think Darren gave it some forethought. The Pleasure Town beer barely got a look in. As for the ham, cheese and branston sarnies, they didn’t last even long enough for a photo.

Not that it was exactly busy but I guess the other hikers had more foresight to plan their water taxi timing than we did. We thought we’d be twiddling our thumbs as our boat pick up time was way later than everyone else’s. But the silver lining was that we ended up having the entire lakeshore to ourselves to enjoy.

The final stretch of our hike took us up and over the saddle trail, past lots of fresh bear scat (but no bears) and down to our pick up point for the return boat ride to Homer.

Not quite a step ladder this time, but the makeshift steps still extended into the water and required maneuvering way beyond my natural agility. Somehow I collapsed into the boat unscathed. And this time, I was the one with the camera.

All that remained was the boat trip back. All in all, a fantastic day and for us a new addition to our Top 10 Hikes in the World Ever.

One of the perks of working for a cruise company, in particular this cruise company, is that we don’t just have cruise ships. We also have a number of upscale lodges, which as luck would have it happen to be in Alaska. We’d booked in for a night at the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge, which just so happened to be the very last night they were open for the season.

We spent a relaxing afternoon wandering down by the river looking for bears, then drying off in the rustic cabin room with a cozy wood-fired stove and private porch.

The afternoon was completed with hot as you like showers (no tokens required!) and truly a luxury – a hairdryer. Might not seem like much to you, but my new normal is towel-dry, essentially damp hair. Never dry hair. Wet hair. In the summer not a problem. But ugh, damp hair in the cold – for me means long chilly fingers seeping ever so gradually through my scalp to my bones, making me cold from the inside out. Not tonight though. Indeed, very happy to have hairdryer hair. And a hearty meal rounded off the evening.

One of the Must Do’s in Alaska is salmon fishing. Now I happen to know a thing or two about pacific salmon, having become closely acquainted with the different types and quality for a project at work a couple of years ago. It can get a bit confusing with various names for each type of salmon but I can give you a quick version if you like….

There are five types of Alaskan salmon, and you can remember them by counting them off on the fingers of your hand:

The first, is Chum – rhymes with thumb (also known in Alaska as Dog salmon because it’s just about good enough to feed your dog. If you see it in the supermarket, it’s usually smoked and likely to be called by its Latin name Keta). Next up is your pointy index finger, which you could use to sock ‘em in the eye, or Sockeye salmon. Then you have your middle finger, the biggest of the lot, think King salmon (also known as Chinook, considered the most supreme in flavor as well as in size). Followed by your ring finger, used to denote Silver salmon (Coho). And lastly, your little finger – your pinky – think Pink salmon (humpy).

So Chum, Sockeye, King, Silver and Pink. Ta-da, consider yourself an Alaska salmon expert. (And in case you’re wondering, Atlantic salmon is just one species so no need for a round two).

All of this didn’t help one diddly squat with our fishing trip, mind. The salmon have different migratory patterns and timing, and therefore on the Kenai river in early September, like it or not you’re fishing for Coho.

It was dark when we got up at 5am. It was dark when we drove to our boat launch and it was still dark when we left the riverbank at 6am. We sat in the boat in the dark – and the drizzle I might add. Four of us plus the captain in a tiny fishing boat, anchored maybe a hundred yards from where we set off. And we waited. No sign of any fish and get this, no sign of even any fishing rods. Huh?

The gruff skipper explained that the fish didn’t start biting until after sunrise – but it’s important to get out early on the river to get a good spot. We should think ourselves lucky – just last month the trips started at 4am instead of 6! Hmm.

There was no sunlight getting through those rain clouds believe me, but gradually the grey sky turned a lighter shade of grey, indicating the passing of time, and out came the fishing rods. And then we waited some more.

Anyone who’s ever been fishing knows that a modicum of patience is required. As we sat around doing nothing, I looked to our compatriots in the boat, fully kitted out in head to toe camouflage, that’ll fool those pesky fish!

The conversation between them and the skipper turned to hunting moose and caribou. Noooo! I wanted to put my fingers in my ears and tune out but found it impossible. Deep breaths. Probably not the right time to start a feisty discussion on the ethics of hunting, especially when we’re essentially hunting salmon!

Throughout the long morning, we had a few nibbles but they weren’t exactly coming thick and fast. The skipper was pretty much tearing his hair out and spent most of the morning on the phone to his other buddies on the river. Seems like everyone else was having a similarly dry day. Muttered conversations overheard included “It don’t get any tougher than this.” “This’ll drive a man to drinking.” And my personal favorite “It’s like fishing in the Mojave desert”.

Luckily we were saved from an empty-handed tail between your legs retreat by a lucky catch from Darren. He was the only one of the four of us to land an edible fish, a Silver Coho in its prime, kudos indeed.

Meanwhile, the Sockeye I caught was well past the optimum stage for being edible, so she was returned to the river to complete her journey and the next generation. I could not be happier that I caught (in my opinion) by far the coolest salmon and yet that fish still got to complete its lifecycle and its destiny. Good luck Sockeye!