Tok, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

Today wasn’t the best day of riding, IMHO.  The day started out fine. The weather looked good, it wasn’t too chilly and we had pancakes and coffee before heading out.  

Then things went south.  To Canada.  🇨🇦 

We hopped on the Alaska Highway toward the Canadian border, 90 miles away.  You’d think that would mean 1.5 hours.  But no, with road construction and worse road conditions, we didn’t arrive to the border for 2.5 hours.  The immigration and customs process was fairly quick and we were down the road in minutes. FYI: We once again provided our travel details via Canada’s online travel site, ArriveCAN.  Painful but necessary.  

And speaking of the condition of the roads: That 140-mile portion, from Tok past the border checkpoint, had to be some of the worst we’d ridden.  And we’ve ridden some bad roads. It was 1/4 mile of bad pavement, then 1/2 mile of oily gravel..then repeat.  For over 125 miles.  The pavement was some of the worst I’ve seen, potholes that will swallow a bike.  

When we fueled up at Destruction Bay, we were told by the locals that the roads would improve significantly right away.  They did and they didn’t.  But the scenery around Destruction Bay was spectacular, truly. It reminds me of an angry Lake Tahoe.  

My suggestion for Canada: Use all of the money you spend on the thousands of road signs you place here and there (Bad Road Ahead, Caution: Gravel on Roadway, Rough Road, Motorcycles Please Exhibit Extreme Caution, etc.) and put that into real road repairs.  Geez.  

As well, we encountered a bit of wind.  Like hurricane force.  That was fun.  It’s tough to appreciate the mountains and lakes alongside the road when you’re being blown into oncoming traffic.  Nuff said.  

We arrived to Whitehorse, for no other reason than there was no other decent place to stop before that.  We grabbed some chow and local beers and a hotel.  The hotel is a whole other story…

Total mileage was a bit more than 400 miles.  Easy peasy.