Days 1-3 (of motorhome rental after previous one night hotel stay upon arrival)
Whitehorse to Haines Junction
After collecting your vehicle, do your grocery shopping and head west on the historic Alaska Highway, a modern, two-lane highway that began as a trading route between First Nations. During the Second World War, the American Army pushed bulldozers to the Pacific Ocean allowing supplies to reach the coastal defences.
✪ 100 Miles to Haines Junction
Days 4-7 – Haines Junction to Haines
Your stay in Haines Junction will depend on how much fishing and sightseeing you want to do. When you leave town (fill up your tank with gas first), follow the signs to Haines, Alaska on the Haines Highway. It may be a military spur that has been modernised, but before that it was a pack horse trail to the Klondike Gold Fields … 20 years before the Gold Rush of 1898. Before that, even, it was the “grease trail” used by coastal Chilkat Indians to trade oil and furs with the interior First Nations.
✪160 Miles to Haines
Days 8-10 – Haines to Skagway – By Ocean Ferry
As you plough through the Inside Passage toward Skagway, the gateway to the Klondike Gold Fields, try to imagine how the Stampeders felt over 100 years ago when they approached this very same port. The mountains look cold and imposing as they stand shoulder to shoulder as if they forbid entry.
✪ 7 Miles to Skagway
Day 11 – Skagway to Carcross
The next leg of this trip will start with a shock: in a mere 10 minutes you will leave behind broadleaf cottonwood trees of a coastal rain forest and enter a moonscape of glacially scarred granite and stunted heather on the top of a mountain at 1004 metres above the Pacific Ocean you just left. It can snow 12 months a year here and it is often steeped in fog for an eerie feel.
✪ 70 Miles to Carcross
Day 12 – Carcross to Whitehorse
Your last day on the road begins immediately with the Carcross Desert, the world’s smallest desert. It is 260 hectares and is home to several plant species that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.
✪ 50 Miles to Whitehorse
Day 13
Return your motorhome to our Whitehorse location.
