Liard River to Johnson’s Crossing

Awoke to a cool clear morning at the Liard River Lodge and quickly went to the car to check on Lucy who was really really happy to see me. Although she had her litter box, plenty of food and water and warm blankets to sleep on, she immediately curled up in my lap looking for body warmth to take off the chill her little body was obviously feeling. It is amazing how much this little animal has added to the enjoyment of this trip. 

Rather than have breakfast at the lodge restaurant Marci and I broke out the camp stove, boiled up some coffee and ate breakfast out of our cooler while Lucy explored the nearby woods on the end of her leash. 

While we were looking for an electrical outlet to run the coffee grinder (not a difficult task as every parking lot in this part of the world are wired for block heaters) Marci struck up a conversation with another guest at the lodge named Mike Ocko. Mike and his family are hauling a twin axel trailer filled with their worldly belongings behind a BFT  (Big F’n Truck) on their way home to Inuvik after living in Fort Simpson for the last 22 years. It sounds like they are are a similar travel schedule as we are so we may have company as we travel up the Dempster next week. 

After repacking and securing the tailer load for the third time, (practicing for the real test just before we hit the Dempster) we hit the road for the 520 Km trip to Johnson’s Crossing at the tip of Teslin Lake just east of Whitehorse. Lucy now has free run of the car while it is in motion and has chosen the lap of the person in the passenger seat as her preferred perch where she sleeps and preens herself for hours. But, as soon as we stop, she is ready to bail out and hunt down the local critters. 

The weather deteriorated significantly shortly after we met this guy and three black bears along the way. 

The countryside flattened out north of the Liard River and the scenery was much less spectacular than yesterday. By the time we got to the grocery store and gas station in Watson lake it was beginning to rain.

We arrived in Johnson’s Crossing (Bridge over the Teslin    River) at 5:30 local time and found, to our surprise, that the RV park and motel we had booked was a very clean, pet friendly but modest location (very small room) run by a lady named Andrea Underwood. Andrea also runs a bakery on the premises and serves simple but tasty home made fare.  Our surprise was based on diminished expectations resulting from our less than enthusiastic impressions of the more heavily advertised locations in the Village of Teslin (50 km before Johnson’s Crossing) that we had considered before deciding (on a whim) to book with Andrea. 

Life North of the oil patch is much harder than than further south. We saw a number of tourist locations that were closed down and more than one still in operation with “for sale” signs on them. The proprietor of the Toad Lake lodge where we stopped for gas, told me her business was down 30% from last year. She blames the US recession, the accompanying weak US dollar and the cost of fuel. 

Short Drive to Whitehorse tomorrow.