Hey Canuck! Tourist question today.

[Packard27]

In late May I am planning on taking a 13,000K ride-about through your western provinces (AB, BC, YT) on my way up to Alaska. It is going to take me about three weeks to make the entire journey with me hoping to cover about a 900-1000 clicks/day.

So after I pass Edmonton, it looks like the Alaska-Canada Highway is almost exclusively a two lane blacktop/hard surface road all the way up to Fairbanks, AK.

Do you have any learned insight to share about your western Canadian roads in that area? Is 75K/Hr a reasonable expectation or should I expect a thousand RVs and semi trailer trucks in front of me that will all going around 50K/hour all day long with little hope of me ever passing any of them?

What do you think?

Packard

_____________________________________

"There is no substitute for a good reccee."

Captain Tom Batty

Princess Louisa's Royal Canadian Hussars

[schnurrbart]

Are you riding something or driving a car/truck?

[Packard27]

I will be driving my stately Ford Crown Victoria LX for the entire round trip journey.

My better half took one look at the proposed, and admittedly ambitious travel itinerary and then suddenly recalled that she had to wash her hair each day during those three weeks.

Nevertheless, a bucket list item is still a bucket list item. Just gotta do it.

[Samthehumble]

People I know who have traveled it said it was a bit rough in a truck.  Don't know how the roads will be in late May as far as snow and ice, but I'd check on that.  I've seen it in ontario in late May.

[Canuck_2]

I am  not much help Packard.

i am a 3 day drive from there and best I ever did was a trip from Calgary west to Vancouver in 1986.

Did you try Google and see if you can 'drive' it there, might give you an idea of how it is for traffic and condition.

Will think about it as I am sure someone I know has made that trip or part of it but can not think of anyone at the moment.

Would be an interesting trip. not sure of the route but when we were there we stopped into Banff and Lake Louise. They are worth a stop. we also did the trip up to the ice fields and the tour out onto the ice.  Not on the ice long but interesting to be right out there.  I think that might be THE route north or maybe just an option. Would have to look up a map to tell you highway ##.

[Canuck_2]

Still not sure this is the best route or if it is a route north but found #93 going north which would have been the route we took to the Ice Fields.

Dropped on to have a look and this is what I found, seems a lot like the scenery I remember 

https://www.google.ca/maps/@51.6780629,-116.4682411,3a,75y,87.78h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPK4G...

[Canuck_2]

Yes i know that was not the highway but we did take a couple little side trips, we had a guide, and looked at more scenery than we saw from the highway.

This should put you on the highway I mentioned #93 but I still have not figured if that is the route you should take or not.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@51.6838782,-116.4644909,3a,75y,117.79h,85.65t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sXZX3jm...

[Packard27]

Canuck,

Thanks for all the input.

I was sort of hoping to find someone who had actually done the great Alaska-Canadian Highway road sometime in the past 10-15 years. They might be able to tell me whether 1000 K/day driving was unrealistic given the two lane road and late May traffic.

One thing you can say for certain about your country, it is a very long and very tall expanse of land with what appears to have precious few hotels and gas stops once you get a hundred K or so north and west of Edmonton. Really good stuff though. I am looking forward to seeing it all.

Tally ho,

Packard