Squishy and mine’s first night on the road was eventful with the moose and porcupine but it was only day one of three, each of which with its own adventures. 

Squishy and I traded places shortly after the porcupine incident day one as he attempted to sleep so we could continuously keep driving and get to Washington as fast as possible. He had driven most of the night and the sun was rising when I took over. We still hadn’t reached the Canadian Boarder but were close having passed Tok. The roads were, as previously stated, TERRIBLE!!!

Squishy managed to get some sleep, in which I saw several porcupines not trying to cross the road until we hit some of the rougher patches and sleep became impossible. I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t white knuckling some of those more dicey areas and going several miles under the speed limit for fear of damaging the car more than it had already been damaged. 

Finally we reached the Canadian boarder, made it through customs, and were promptly greeted by more animals with a death wish. A Road Runner (very cool birds though not at all as they are portrayed in the old Willey Coyote cartoons) and a squirrel coordinated their runs from either side of the road toward the car but I managed to dodge them both while shouting “WHY?!” much to Squishy’s amusement. 

We got gas and continued on our way. After about an hour or so the roads cleared up and Squishy managed to get sleep as I continued to drive through much of the morning. 

Part of the reason I loved the drive so much was the views. While I was driving I didn’t get to take many pictures and there was one section in particular I really wish I had gotten pictures of. It was a large lake that ended in low lands full of sand. The road crossed these sandy low lands with a jagged mountain on the other side that we were driving towards. It was like a scene out of a fantasy or a science fiction. The early morning light turned it orange with the light blue sky contrasting perfectly and pink clouds from the sunrise. Breathtaking really. 

Eventually it was my turn to sleep and Squishy took over driving again. It was during his leg of the drive that we learned that Canada has some very interesting road signs neither of us had seen before.

They had signs for caribou on the road, elk crossing, mountain sheep crossings, and one that amused squishy more than any other was a reindeer crossing sign followed shortly by one warning drivers of reindeer in the work zone. He was rather disappointed that he didn’t get to see it as the reindeer were off duty when we passed, he said jokingly.

Much of the day was spent counting down kilometers until the next town, napping, giggling at signs, and taking pictures of the view until we finally toward the end of the day made it to our next turn off, Highway 37, the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. 

It was around here that we lost all cell signal cutting us off from the world, a fact made ominous by the evidence of recent wildfires in the area. Burnt trees and decimated lands giving it an almost post apocalyptic feeling. The highway was another two lane road winding through even more mountains and rough hills with no further signs of civilization as far as the eye could see. Small bunnies hopped along the side of the road every now and again, fleeing into the woods as we passed. Eventually the fire devastated lands and gave way to healthy forest. 

At one point a lonely black bear crossed the road ahead of us then watched bewildered as we passed with Squishy chanting “leave us alone leave us alone leave us alone” as we zoomed by. A few small towns dotted the highway several hundred kilometers apart. Outside of one town up in the mountains were signs for mountain goats and I got to learn that Squishy very much likes mountain goats and wild mountain sheep and was highly disappointed when we didn’t see any on this trip. He did, however, see two foxes. 

As the day dragged on it became apparent we were not going to get cell phone service back any time soon, but our family had wanted us to keep them updated on our progress through Canada and so we started our captain’s log. It was also apparent to us that our breakfast that we had eaten that morning in Whitehorse was going to be the last bit of food we were going to get to eat for a while. Thankfully we had snacks with us but nothing with any real substance. Our Captains log therefore took on the focus of trying not to eat the cat as we grappled with hunger. 

It got dark and Squishy’s shift of driving ended and I took over once more into the second night on the road. Of course I had to get one of the scary parts of this drive as it was dark on a steep winding road and though the speed limit was 90 km/h, I found myself at 75 most of the night. Thank goodness I was driving so slow too because very shortly into our change of shifts I got the experience of two bobcats within 100 kilometers of each other on the road. One of them was young to my eyes, maybe a year old. 

I managed to get us through the night to early morning as the sun started to rise on our third day but eventually had to stop because I had grown so tired and hungry I was hallucinating. Fallen trees turned into reaching hands and shadows under trees turned into large beefy moose running at me from the side of the road and I knew it was time to stop and get some sleep.  Squishy helped me find a pull over spot and took over driving into our third day on the road.

-Dare.