Jasper National Park to Burns Lake, BC (375 miles)With a snowy start to the morning in Jasper we thought we should get going to make sure we got over the Yellowhead Pass out of Jasper. Once we got over and into Mt Robson Provincial park we had some great scenery on Highway 16 westbound AKA the Yellowhead Highway. We lingered a bit for a short hike but wanted to get some miles in so we pushed on westbound to Burns Lake. The town had a nice little free campsite down at the lake which we made use of.


Burns Lake, BC to Hyder, Alaska (300 miles)

From Burns Lake we carried on westbound until we hit Highway 37 AKA the Cassiar Highway. We decided on the Cassiar Highway rather than the Alaska Highway all the way. We will still be joining the Alaska Highway but not till we get further north into the Yukon. The Cassiar Highway is described as the wild route and stuffed with bears – Heather didn’t take much persuading. I did warn her that at this time of the year the bears might still be asleep!

Whilst our final destination is of course Alaska we did dip a toe into Alaska today. A detour from the Cassiar Highway took us to an Alaskan ghost town called Hyder. Originally a mining town of 10,000 people it is now population 100 (+2 for tonight) and famous for its picturesque glaciers. The pub is closed until tomorrow so we headed up out of ‘town’ to a glacier viewpoint to camp for the night (or as close as we could get as they got bored with the snow plough!).


Hyder, AK to French Creek Wilderness Campground Cassiar Highway, BC (370 miles)

Today was the real backcountry drive. No lane markings or hard shoulder, paved all the way but that’s about as fancy as it gets. If you have hundreds of miles to do with nothing but a few petrol stations then you might as well do it surrounded by amazing scenery. The Cassiar Highway didn’t disappoint as a northbound route and we spent the full day driving until the sun started to get low (and I started to get thirsty), and we pulled in at one of the many wilderness campgrounds – basically just a spur road to an overnight camping spot on the river. French Creek flows into the Dease River which was frozen over, a beautiful spot to spend the night. We watched the sun dip down with some beers until the cold sent us back to the heated up campervan.