Sunday 2 July2000

Today’s destination is Haines Junction, about 300 km (185 mi) further down the road. Not a big distance, but with all the Kodak-moments and road works, it will take you more than six hours to get there. Besides that we have to pull over and get into action already 10 minutes after we set off. A mother with two children is standing beside her car on the side of the road. She is stranded with a flat tire. We do our duty. The Alaska Highway stretches along Kluane National Park. A wonderful mountain area. It is not really accessible. There are no roads and hiking is discouraged. The view from the highway is great and on the other side of it is the blue Kluane Lake. We pass hamlets like Silvercity and Burwash Landing. The only way to something of the National Park and the glaciers in it is from the air. At the southern tip of the lake we take a helicopter tour with Transnorth Helicopters. We opt for the Kaskawulsh Glacier tour, about the only one that is somewhat affordable ($90 pp, minimum of three passengers for 18 minutes). It is a great experience (our first) to fly in a helicopter over the glacier. On the mountain slopes we see some dall sheep and tracks made by grizzly bears. It is all over before we know it.

In Haines Junction we take a room in the Raven hotel, a fine hotel, with a surprisingly good restaurant (for a city with 795 inhabitants). The owner does not grow tired of reminding us: "the best of Alaska and Yukon"... "one of the top 50 restaurants in Canada". We take a seat on the balcony with a view on snow topped mountains and go about writing our postcards. That is until the mosquitoes get the better of us. We enquire at the Tourist office about the wildlife around Haines Junction. We get some useful tips of one of the tourist officers, apparently a native canadian. "Lots of Bears", she tells us, are to be seen on the Haines Road, especially before lunch time and early evening. After dinner we set out for some bear spotting and after a while we see a couple cars stopping beside road: about 20 yards from the road we see a Grizzly bear, lying leisurely, apperently enjoying the evening sun, acting as if we are not there at all. We return to our hotel with a feeling of "achievement"

Monday 3 July 2000

We have breakfast in our room out of a "picnic breakfast box". After that we are off "bear spotting" again. It is raining and we are out of luck. Then it is time for a good walk in the woods. Fitted with mosquito net and lots of repellant we set off on a trail through a wetland area, luckily with boardwalks to guide us over the wet spots. We do not see any animals, but lots of tracks. In the late afternoon I try a bit of swimming in Pine Lake. It should not be cold at all, according to a park ranger, but that turns out to be a matter of opinion. The water is fluid in stead of solid, but that is about it. In the evening we drive along Haines Road for a bit and yes, again we are rewarded with the sighting of a young black bear, not more than 25 yards from our car. We have dinner in the Raven Hotel and it has to be said: the food is excellent. The owner strikes the right tone with us: he speaks understandingly about how unfortunate Euro 2000 has turned out for us and with an expert knowledge recognises us as Feyenoord fans!

Tuesday 4 July 2000

Today we are heading for Whitehorse where we will return our car. We have driven about 1600 km (1000 mi) in total so far. We check in in a hotel and rent a mountain bikes. Wayne, who is renting us the bikes has a couple of good ideas for routes. We bike along a couple of rough trails along the Yukon River towards the fish ladder. After that we climb a couple of steep hills. A couple of hours later we return to our hotel, tired, but satisfied. We check our e-mail at an internet shop and write to our friends back home. In the evening we have dinner at Panda’s restaurant, supposedly Whitehorse’s best restaurant, but without the attitude and any dress code, as is posted conspicuously at the entrance. The waiter is very charming and is called Erik too. The food is excellent. We are tired and go back to our room. The room is very hot (over 28C or 82F). We ask for a cooler room and get one on the north side of the building without much trouble.

Wednesday 5 July 2000

We fly to Vancouver today. When we arrive at our guesthouse there, we find out that there nobody to let us in. It turns out that check-in time is from 4 to 6pm. I knew, but had slipped my mind. No problem however. We leave our stuff at the neighbours and go for some lunch. When we finally do check in at Nelson House B&B, we find that it is a very fine and welcoming place.. It is small (six rooms), but luxuourious and ... gay. Good atmosphere. We take a bus to Canada Place. That is where Vancouver’s cruise terminal is. Right now Holland Amerika Line’s "Veendam" is about to leave. Next to the terminal is the panoramic tower. We go up and enjoy the view of the city and beyond.

After that we head on to the Gastown, the historic centre of Vancouver. It is named after "Gassy" Jack Leighton, who opened a saloon here back in 1867 for the numerous workers in the timber industry. We have dinner later on in a Singaporese restaurant (Kam's place, Davie Street) and have our first good coffee in a week at Starbucks. The night is for exploring some of Vancouver’s gay scene . Wednesday is not the ideal night for a pub crawl and clubbing, but it is not bad at all, especially Davie Street, Vancouver’s Gay Village.

Thursday 6 July 2000

We start the day with a 10 km cycle tour around Stanley Park, the largest city park in North America. Very nice. The park is some sort of cultivated wilderness, that designated as protected park in 1886 by the newly installed city council and thus saved from the timber industry. A good example of farsighted government. After the bike tour we return the bikes and take a ferry to Granville Market, a busy covered market. Besides groceries, vegetables and meat stalls, there a quite a number of eateries serving good and fast food. Finally we head for Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver, where the well healed of the city have settled in beautiful surroundings. It is on the other side of the Burrard inlet, which we cross with the Seabuss, a very efficient catamaran-ferry. Then we take the bus up the mountain to the groundstation of the mountain gondola. In eight minutes it takes up 1000 metres (3300ft). From the top we have marvelous views. The mountain is also the place where paragliders set off. We could have done the mountain by foot too, but that would have been a heavy and not at all pleasant climb. Later at night we have a delicious Japanese dinner at Haro and get take in more gay nightlife, which is quite varied and extensive.

Friday 7 July 2000

We start the day with another very original and large breakfast in "our" Nelson House Guesthouse. After breakfast we take a taxi to Hertz Car Rental. We get a larger type of car than we booked and paid for, which is a nice surprise (a Pontiac Grand Prix SE for those who know cars) and hit the road for Kamloops. We take the Transcanada 1 via the Fraser Valley. A beautiful route. At Hell's gate, a rapid, we stop to take a closer look. With a gondola we go down to the river. From a bridge we can see the rapid up close, which is quite impressive. The rapid was came about by an avalanche caused by the construction of the railway. Later the flow of the river has been artificially slowed down in order to give spawning salmon a better chance. During our trip we get the odd rain shower, but the weather is quite nice on the whole. In Kamloops, a town of little interest, we stay at the
Executive Inn, a business hotel, that could do with some refurbishment. At night we eat at a pasta restaurant, run by a Peter from Switzerland. His pasta is delicious and Peter assures us that had the Dutch soccer team eaten his food, things would have turned quite differently. Maybe good advice for the new manager. Name and address of the restaurant are available from us. We end the evening with a movie: Mission Impossible 2.

Saturday 8 July 2000

We continue today our journey towards the Rocky Mountains. The road there is worked on quite extensively during the summer. There a lots of road work sites, that cause delays. It is a cloudy day and we get the odd shower or two. We pass Mount Robson, with 3954 meters, the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies. A bit further on is the entrance to Jasper National Park. We have to pay $6 per person per day. The fees are valid for all national parks run by Parks Canada, including Banff, which we will visit later. A year pass is available too for $70, but that is not economical for us. The park is over 10.000 km² in area and offers lots of possibilities for walking, trekking and touring. Right at the entrance we see our first elk grazing by the side of the road. What a coincidence!! Around 4.30pm we arrive at Jasper Youth Hostel. We have booked a simple, but modest private room. Later in the evening we have dinner in Jasper Town site and send some e-mails home. At night we attend a talk about all the things you need to know about bears, who we may encounter in and around Jasper. A friendly man with lots of experience tells what we should and should not do when confronting a bear. Most important is is to avoid meeting bears altogether. When you run into a bear you’ve made a mistake already. And another piece of advice: the elegant bear bells for sale at tourist shops are of little use. Apart from annoying yourself they don’t have any effect whatsoever on bears. They simply do not hear them.