Chapter 7: Alaska, New York and (finally) Canada

After resting up in Taipei and seemingly making a recovery from the hepatitis I contracted in India/Pakistan, we boarded a China Airlines 747 for the flight to New York via Anchorage, Alaska. We rented a little green Hyundai Accent and found a B&B in town to rest up and begin our exploration of the Arctic. It turned out that we'd just missed the big earthquake in Taiwan and weren't able to get through to Vivian's family for several days as all the phone lines were jammed by worried Taiwanese expats trying to call their relatives. Nobody in our immediate families was hurt, but one of Vivian's former China Airlines colleagues based in Kaohsiung lost her lost her parents and brother when their house collapsed in Nantou near the epicenter of the quake.

We continued north to the entrance to Denali National Park and puzzled over their complicated permit/camping/transport system. Private vehicles are only allowed 15 miles into the park and all other travel is done either on shuttle buses, bicycle or on foot. But if you camp at Teklanika River, you can drive the 29 miles in (only travel to and from the campground is permitted) and enjoy the peace and quiet of the Denali wilderness without daytrippers cruising by in their vehicles. (Map of Denali Nat. Pk. (1.33MB pdf))

Using the campground as a base, we made several trips into the rest of the park by shuttle bus. In the arctic, wildlife watchers refer to the big 5: grizzly bear, moose, caribou, Dall sheep, and wolf. We managed to see 4 out 5 from the bus and on foot, taking walks from various drop-off points along park road. One night, I got up to relieve myself and noticed some greenish lights in the sky. I couldn't find my glasses, but managed to find my camera and take a photo using the roof of the car as a tripod. I tried to get Vivian up, telling her that this was probably her only chance of seeing the Aurora Borealis, but she refused to leave the warmth of the sleeping bag. (There was frost on the tent every morning we were camped next to the Teklanika.)

After three nights of freezing our butts off in Denali National Park, we headed for the nearest reasonably priced motel (by Alaskan standards). This gave us a chance to get cleaned up, do some laundry, and have a proper sit-down meal. The town of Healy is at the first major crossroads north of the park. The cheaper rooms in the motel we found were in a rather unattractive detached pre-fab building. But it was warm, dry, and had running hot water. There was a quaint little diner attached to the motel, so we had a nice dinner and watched some TV to ease ourselves back into civilization.

Distances are huge in Alaska, so we compromised by taking a short loop east and then south to get a flavour of the land before heading back to the coast. We took the Denali Highway, which was originally built to allow access to Denali, but was pretty much abandoned when the paved George Parks Highway opened, providing Anchorage and Fairbanks direct access to the park. It's 135 miles of gravel between Cantwell, south of the park entrance, to Paxson, on the Richardson Highway. There's very little development and most of the traffic consists of hunters and fishermen. We passed many of their camps and saw lots of camouflaged off-road quads with rifle holders cruising down the bumpy, potholed roadway.

As you can see from the photo of the Esker roadbed, the weather had turned bad so we didn't spend too much time on the Denali Hwy. Even though it was mid-September, it felt like December in Vancouver with the cold, damp rain. Camping wasn't very fun. We did see some salmon spawning in the Delta National Wild and Scenic River north of Paxson and had a stretch of good weather for our drive along the Richardson and Glenn Highways. We stopped at Matanuska Glacier and camped about 10 minutes walk from the edge of the ice.

After bypassing Anchorage on our way south to the coast, we stayed in a funky youth hostel in Girdwood and enjoyed some indoor comfort as well as the woodfired sauna. One more night of camping in Seward on the Kenai Peninsula was all Vivian could take (I wasn't having too much fun either), so we checked out the B&B listings and ended up staying in a full-size mobile home in a trailer park. It was actually really comfy, like having a small house all to ourselves. There was even cable TV! Boat tours are one of the main reasons people come to Seward, so we booked ourselves on a half-day cruise that promised distant views of glaciers calving into the sea and close-up views of marine mammals. The ride was pretty rough and the skies gray and rainy, but we did see sea otters, orcas and sea lions.

Our taste of Alaska was complete with a halibut fish 'n chips dinner and we packed up the car for the drive back to Anchorage to reboard our China Airlines flight for New York. We almost didn't get on because we hadn't listed ourselves for the flight in advance. Our CAL tickets were on a space available basis, so we usually just showed up and waited to see if there were any seats. But because hardly anyone ever boards the flight during its fuel stop in Anchorage, they only man the check-in counter when there are passengers with reservations. We had to hunt someone down in the CAL office and were told that since no security was scheduled at that time, we may not be able to board even though there was space on the flight. Many nervous minutes passed as we waited and prayed for the security staff to put down their coffee and doughnuts to come and inspect our stuff. It took forever for the x-ray machine to go through its startup procedure, but we eventually made it through and boarded the flight.

Culture shock hit as we went from the wilderness of Alaska to the Big Apple. Bright lights, big city, crazy traffic. My cousin Gloria lives on 57th Street and she generously let us take over her living room during our stay in New York. Her apartment was great as a base for exploring the unlimited things to see and do. The weather was much warmer than in Alaska and we spent pleasant days visiting the de rigeur sights and museums and wandering the streets and avenues.

Our visit was two years before 9/11, so there we were able to climb the narrow spiral stairs to the top of the Statue of Liberty and seeing the blurry view through her crown. We didn't go to the top of the World Trade Center, but saw the same view that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan shared from the Empire State Building in Sleepless in Seattle. We also walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and tried out the famous Grimaldi's Pizzeria .

click here to see my photo essay of Ground Zero:

Finally, we departed from New York by train for Montréal, Quebec. At the border crossing, Vivian produced her Right of Landing papers and was welcomed to Canada by the immigration officer. I had lived in Montréal for 2 years while doing my master's and we spent a couple of days visiting the city's sights and some of my old haunts, including the Old City, Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Olympic Stadium, and St. Viateur Bagels, makers of the world's best (IMHO).

We continued on to Ottawa by bus and Vivian was able to make an early pilgrimmage to the capital of her newly adopted home. We stayed with my friend Dave and I cooked a big turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. Dave had never used his oven before and we found out very late that it wasn't working. But being a resourceful engineer, Dave got it working in time to roast the bird.

Back on VIA Rail (Canada's lame excuse for a passenger railway), we were off to Toronto (not the most unimportant city in Canada), which at that time was home to both my sisters Lynn and Margaret as well as my mom Susu. We didn't stay long as Susu wanted to make a pilgrimmage to Fallingwater, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's famous homes, situated south of Pittsburgh, PA. So into the rented Chevy Malibu we piled and off to Pittsburgh we went, making a stop at Niagara Falls on the way.

My longtime friend Carson is a prof in the math department at the University of Pittsburgh. We met up for a coffee and a tour of the Andy Warhol Museum.

Fallingwater is one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most widely acclaimed works. He designed in 1936 for the family of Edgar J. Kaufmann, owners of the successful Pittsburgh department store. The house is built over a waterfall which had been a focal point for the Kaufmann families activities on their property. They had envisioned a home facing the waterfall, and so were surprised by Wright's design which placed the house over the falls. The house was constructed using sandstone quarried on the property and was built by local craftsmen. Completed in 1939 with guest and service wing, the Kaufmann's used it as a weekend home until 1967.

Back in Toronto, we hung out at Lynn's place for a while and toured around a bit. I'd never been to the top of the CN Tower before so we did that. Travelling in Alaska and New York had started to take it's toll on me and I found myself feeling listless and headache-ey. Guess I wasn't fully recovered from the hepatitis and had done too much too soon. We used our fake ISIC student cards for the last time and bought one-way tickets from Travel Cuts at U of T and flew Canadian Airlines (now swallowed up by Air Canada) to our final destination, Victoria, British Columbia.

That's the end of the journey. Thanks to those of you who have followed along from the beginning as each chapter was completed. I never expected it to take me nearly 4 years to document these 8 months of travel. My next project is to scan the photos and write the travelogue for my travels through Tibet, Southwestern China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra, Singapore and Australia ('94-'96). Hopefully, that trip won't take as long as to do as this one did!

Thanks for reading!