Sunset, over one of Canada’s innumerable boreal forests.

A pair of otters. If anyone wonders why I spend so much time between blog posts… it’s the sheer quantity of photos I have to process. I took about 200 just of these otters! (One came out.)

Full moon, perched on top of a cloud.

Aurora, and inverted big dipper. We have arrived!

As promised, a photo of the Alberta/Northwest Territories border. with all the northern staples: aurora, big dipper, yes it is time to head north and see what the world brings.

To continue from the last batch of photos: another waterfalls route marker in sunset light.

Sunset view. I have lots of this general theme because I took about 300 pictures in the span of a half-hour here.

Some flash illumination on the foreground vegetation.

Same theme, slightly different angle.

In stark opposition to the Beatles’ experience: there goes the sun.

An otter, making a wake.

The last atmospheric feature to be illuminated red is this dash of virga to the east.

Obligatory rental-car portrait.

The road looking south.

Back at the territorial border. Spotty terrestrial clouds. It now becomes our task to find a clearing in the sky from which to view the aurora.

Look who shows up to the party! Don’t mind the blurriness – this was a test photo that I took handheld, 10 second exposure, just to detect the levels of auroral activity.

Fisheye, for maximum over-the-top value. Note that it’s not even full dusk, and the lights are this bright.

Over the forests, over the hills.

Just a little bit later in the night.

Back here again? Yes, we are running the same segment of the MacKenzie Highway and here is the place where the sky is the clearest.

and this is where we leave off for the night. I got a few hours of sleep… tomorrow, we resume with bears!

Painted skies at dawn.

A seagull at the Mackenzie River ferry. Yep, they do have them even thousands of miles from the nearest sea.

Some yellow and some evergreens.

Dawn. We take the first ferry across the Mackenzie River at Fort Providence. A bridge is being built, and will be opened sometime in 2012.

Yes, there is still a large gap in the bridge.

Looking like the makings of an excellent sunrise.

Also: attention, very bad flash photo.

A well-made bear sign.

Brightly colored dawn.

A closer view.

Everything is bright orange.

Off to the side.

More orange. More trees.

One last one before we leave the area.

The leaves are definitely changing color.

Bright yellow trees.

And some orange ones.

A truss bridge on the road to Yellowknife.

This is a standard bear highway marker.

Northwest Territories changed from green signs to blue sometime in the early 2000s.

The only place I saw a pentagon route 3. The others were all 1s. And this is the only photo from Yellowknife worth displaying. Not much to see there.

Nothing to see here, just a duck and a flag.

Cutout bison seems to be made of individual planks.

Fall colors.

The bison sign proves accurate.

A pair of bison. We’re in the middle of a large herd.

A year-old bison: young enough to look like a calf, but with the dark brown coat of an adult.

No traffic. No highway patrol. Set cruise control to a reasonable velocity.

I’m not sure what this plant is, but – let’s be honest with ourselves here! – it looks like a fuzzy turd.

A look back up the road to Yellowknife, even though right now we are heading back towards Alberta.

Plenty of older green signs still survive.

The crow is eyeing the dog’s lunch.

Bring out your nuisances. The sign, by the way, points to the garbage dump.

The sign at one point said “3″ instead of “1″. We are on highway 3 – the sign was an error.

We find ourselves back at the uncompleted bridge at Fort Providence.

A large piece of construction equipment.

We are on the ferry now.

Similar view as in the morning.

This might be the oldest sign we see on the trip. Very much custom fonts here. The road turns to dirt a couple miles down, so we will not continue that way.

The only green bear I found. Turns out there is another one at this junction which I flat out missed. Fearless and indestructible AARoads contributor Jim Lindsay got a photo of it a week before I was there, so it is preserved for posterity.

One of many random two-track roads that go to who knows where.

An incident of That Gull.

Some iridescent clouds.

I believe this is a Korean Air flight. Blue tail livery, and the general trajectory seems about correct for Seoul to Toronto or New York.

More yellow trees.

the farthest east we will head in Northwest Territories is the 5/6 junction. Alas, here we see no green bears.

Ominous distant clouds.

A cloud so big it needs the fisheye lens to be fit in correctly.

A small flash of color.

A bit of a rain shower on the windshield.

A better look at one of the Waterfalls Route markers.

Shooting dandelions directly into the sun.

Very bright colors.

And we’re going to leave off there with that sunset teaser. Next up – sunset and northern lights in Northwest Territories!

did I see the northern lights? In the interest of maintaining suspense, I’m not going to say quite yet.

Sunset. Usually shooting directly into the sun is a bad idea. Sometimes it isn’t.

The northern lights. Yep, they were out. This is about as bright as they get – when the red, purple, and green mix together to form a band of white.

Directly overhead, spanning the entire sky.

I used the fisheye lens for nearly all of the aurora photos seen here.

A view from the air. Crossing the Rockies, and I’m not quite sure but I believe that is Glacier National Park. (the one in Montana)

The Trans-Canada highway. The town at lower left is Exshaw, which is well on the way to Banff from Calgary.

And we’re on the ground. Our route takes us up the Mackenzie Highway to Northwest Territories.

Yes, that is a cutout moose advisory sign!

Standard route markers for primary and secondary.

Oops. This is supposed to be a secondary route, not a primary one.

A very important intersection. 43 continues to the Alaska Highway, while 49 goes to the Mackenzie Highway. Interesting that the two numbers are patches. Maybe the numbers were something else before? Without an old Alberta map, I just do not know.

We’ve reached the Mackenzie Highway. I didn’t take many pictures along this stretch, as I was dashing northward as fast as possible to be in viewing position for the northern lights.

In other news, this is the peak weekend for the leaves changing as well.

Sunset, looking the opposite direction as the photo I started off with.

The Mackenzie highway is always given two signs like this.

Sunset over a westbound secondary route.

The road’s primary purpose seems to be to service this radio tower.

Getting darker.

Looking off to the north.

Extremely wide-angle shot exaggerates the mild tilting of this post.

That about does it for sunset.

What do we have here?

A terrible photo which I had to publish just because it is unintentionally compelling. This is underexposed by what must be 13 or 14 stops, and is stretching the threshold of the CCD’s detecting ability.

This was the intended result.

The lights flared up, and I elegantly blew out the exposure.

Another long exposure – two minutes or so.

This exposure is maybe five seconds. That is how bright they can suddenly get!

The road heading … south? Yep, we’ve overshot our mark!

Red mixed in with green.

An exposure of moderate length. Wind is causing the trees to blur.

Time to get the fisheye, as it’s coming over the top.

A tower of green.

A very short exposure of the very beginning of a burst.

Directly overhead, and coming straight down.

Just a few seconds later.

Now with some context!

I must reiterate, that this spans the entire field of view, from one horizon to the other.

A giant spiral in the sky.

A truck goes by. Very light traffic at this hour – there was an interval where I spent about 20 minutes parked in the road without any problem.

The show goes on. Usually an active interval lasts 10-15 minutes. This one was 45!

The border line, with the barest glimmer of northern lights in the background. The next day, we’ll get a much more interesting photo of this same scene.

Our first Northwest Territories sign. Usually, NWT uses a route marker with a bear on it, but it looks like for a little while they experimented with this pentagon.

This sort of thing happens up here too.

Some very fine discrete filaments.

Sometimes the red and purple fringes are more prominent.

A very long exposure.

About the farthest we’ll get from actual shields with bears on them.

There, actual bears. Better photos to come during daylight hours.

The moon sets, while the northern lights continue.

Warning: photo may contain Clearview.

and that’s it for this day! Next up … daylight photos from Northwest Territories – and more northern lights!

What do we have here? An original I-90 trailblazer, complete with green sign back. We found a few of these in Spokane, and several modern copies with the old-style shield.

Someone made this gantry, with correct distances and accurate 1930s Washington style, for his own front yard.

Sunset in Idaho.

This may very well be the oldest sign in Washington. The 97 covers up an outline shield! It does not reflect very well after about 52 years of service.

I have no idea what is under the greenout.

The 97C shield is a patch – and no, I have no idea what is under that either.

The Crowsnest Trail gets gets its own distinct route marker. That’s a patch too – underneath it is an ordinary 3 shield.

And we’re back in the US. Here is the beginning of US-97, with the very first marker. The border patrol gave us the whole nine yards. Apparently, wanting to return to the US to catch a flight out of Seattle is, in some way, highly suspicious. Nobody drives the Alaska Highway! Ever! [Dan photo.]

This isn’t an old sign, but the style – with the pointed directionals with city names inside – is reminiscent of what Washington did from the 1920s to the 60s or so.

An older ALT 97 shield with the classic shield shape, and the period after ALT.

The highway 150 bridge over the Columbia River in Washington.

Heading north on highway 17. The sign is barely legible, but the photo is in perfect focus. See the full-sized photo for how much the road was shimmering from the heat.

Everyone’s favorite town name. At least, it was Dan’s.

Another old 90 trailblazer, which is in slightly better shape.

Bicycle shields of Spokane, showing all the major routes through there.

This sign, complete with somewhat goofy-looking mix of 1958 and 1961 specs on the I-90 shield, also dates back to the opening of the route.

How long ago was the Maple St. Bridge tolled? Long enough that Washington still hadn’t started using button copy (mid-1960s), and the toll was a whopping 10 cents.

Ominous (but ultimately harmless) clouds over US-2 as we head northeast out of Spokane into Idaho.

A deer, by the side of an old US-2 alignment.

Almost in Idaho on US-2.

More overhead virga, but no actual rain.

We sure arrived at the wrong time of day to take photos of this old gantry at the Idaho/Washington state line. Note the black outline on the route 2. The gantry is of Idaho origin, except the state line sign was provided by Washington. Also, note in the background the green and white outline shield on the State Ave. street blade. I only spotted that when reviewing the photos – and that is not something I’ve ever seen anywhere else! [Dan photo.]

The second US-2 reassurance gantry has both the Panhandle and Selkirk route markers, as well as the Idaho scenic brown shield.

Getting near the end of sunset.

Trees to the south.

A perfectly reflecting lake behind this little tree.

The view to the north.

Sandpoint features several of these old green signs all down the main drag.

Some signs reflect better than others.

Several route 200 shields are the wide variety, but they are uncommon. [Dan photo.]

An awful photo of two signs that have lost nearly all reflectivity.

Idaho experimented with some retroreflective-background button copy signs in the 1980s.

Look at that, we’re in Montana. We were on the trail of a rumored cutout US-2 marker. We found no such thing, unfortunately.

End of route 200. We were in Montana only briefly, and cut across from 2 to 200 on state highway 56. 200 runs for over 1358 miles with a single number, running into US-2 again just west of Duluth, MN. It was given the number in the 1969. Washington route 20 was almost numbered 200 as well, but it would have split off from US-2 after a multiplex long enough that it was given a separate number. [Dan photo.]

95 does not enter Washington – and even when it did, it was for only a mile or so – but there are trailblazers for it in several places in the state. [Dan photo.]

A very thin-stroke variant of Series B, that looks pretty close to Series A, on numbers 27 and 272.

This 1960s I-90 shield survives. It may be the last 21×18 shield in Washington. [Dan photo.]

These 1960s green signs can be found at a lot of interchanges with I-90 in the Snoqualmie Pass area.

And we’re back in Seattle. Most of these green signs with both 5 and 90 on them were replaced when the Mariners got their new stadium, but a few survive.

Washington’s always liked putting their interstate shields on white squares.

This shield is old enough to have a black scotchlite (black, but retroreflects white) arrow under it. It goes back to the 1960s.

A City of Seattle sign – note the upside down letter “S”. Oh, and yes, the speed limit is six. You don’t see that very often.

Excellent old button copy in Tacoma.

An attention-getting speed limit sign made up of LEDs. [Dan photo.]

I don’t think the street where this sign is found is actually state route 7 anymore.

Tacoma’s main drag.

Getting close to the airport because we’ve got a flight to catch.

And that’s the end. About a tenth of a mile before the rental car return. Over 6500 miles in 7 days of driving.

Dawn. The roads have been plowed. We head east on the Yellowhead Highway into Alberta.

This could be a problem. Since 93 through Jasper National Park in Alberta is a park route, it is closed to commercial traffic, and therefore not plowed particularly frequently. [Dan photo.]

Invisible trees at Shuswap Lake, about halfway through British Columbia on Trans-Canada 1.

Trans-Canada 1 in infrared, just west of Salmon Arm.

Here, the road has been sanded down for our convenience.

Behold the snowgoat. [Dan photo.]

The snow clouds descend. [Dan photo.]

New province!

Here is where we turn off the Yellowhead to head down the Glacier Parkway – route 93. This route is numbered 93 all the way down to Arizona, as it is the northern continuation of US-93. [Dan photo.]

This will be the most challenging 228 kilometers we face on this entire trip. [Dan photo.]

Forbidden mountain. The blue is glacial ice.

Close-up of glacial ice.

It only gets whiter and whiter. [Dan photo.]

Even in infrared, we are quite free of contrast.

This photo has had the contrast jacked up about 400%. No such photoshop tool was available to us in real life. These are all Dan pictures. I went about two hours without taking a photo, as I was busy getting us killed as infrequently as possible.

Finally! After about 40 kilometers of eight-inch-deep snow. And that’s just in the ruts – down the center it was 12 inches! [Dan photo.]

Made it! Whoever had “we failed to die” in the pool wins a prize. [Dan photo.]

The town of Lake Louise, with services for the foolish traveler. The actual lake is as seen behind the bear on the welcome sign – but for us, it is so overcast that we don’t get anything resembling that view. [Dan photo.]

This is what a cattle guard is called in British Columbia. [Dan photo.]

This is, mercifully, our last Rockies crossing on the trip. Why is the picture so blurry? Because the truck ahead of us is throwing up quite the wake. Yep, Trans-Canada 1 is a major commercial route. [Dan photo.]

Look at that, I’m taking pictures again. What a view!

Now that is how to cut through a rock and build a highway.

Heading west. There is no letup to the precipitation.

A single weigh station services traffic in both directions.

There are several snow tunnels in a row on highway 1.

Through the tunnel we go.

Outside the tunnel, it’s snowing of course.

Nope, fog is not transparent in infrared.

Absolutely terrible photo of men by the side of the road with guns. Okay, a gun. An avalanche gun, to be specific. We came around the bend and there they were, so Dan shot this photo out the driver’s side back window.

We come down from the mountains, and the snow stops. Well, it turns to rain. This is the Pacific Northwest, after all!

Heading towards Kamloops.

Here’s a blue Trans-Canada 1 shield. [Dan photo.]

We are almost back at 97. This is a very old gantry, complete with Silver Scotchlite on steel signs; likely not much newer than the conversion to metric in the early 1970s. [Dan photo.]

The information sign at Shuswap Lake.

Picnic tables are painted to turn blue under infrared.

Dan’s infrared take on invisible trees.

Invisible trees in visible light. [Dan photo.]

Fog over Shuswap Lake. [Dan photo.]

The narrow old British Columbia font (rarely seen on shields), which looks nothing like the wider variants.

And we’re back at the 97.

Old green signs in Kamloops. The pull-through sign omits highway 97. Perhaps at the time the sign was installed, it was routed elsewhere?

British Columbia has been using Arial for a while on their signs. This one is old enough to have been patched for Yellowhead 5 (as opposed to standard 5), and also for Trans-Canada 1 (I do not know what is under that patch).

A very informative gantry.

An early variant on the Yellowhead 5 shield. By the way, we’re heading back the other direction now – we took both directions of the Kamloops main freeway just so we could claim to have driven all of 97 … and to get photos of all the old signs!

These Yellowhead shields have been patched over.

And these have not! Apparently, they did not bother patching this tiny bike route sign on the shoulder. And we barely noticed it; this is the best photo we got.

This overhead sign is on the business route, not the freeway. It looks to be an exact replacement for a sign that was posted when this was Trans-Canada 1.

The very first style of Yellowhead 5 shield, with the classic fonts. [Dan photo.]

A terrible photo of an unpatched 5.

This sign was, at one point, green. [Dan photo.]

The closest thing we’ll find to a US-97 shield in British Columbia.

Heading towards Vernon and Kelowna as night falls.

Yep, it’s raining again.

One last guide sign. We stop in Kelowna for the night, in preparation for crossing back into the US the next day. Gotta look presentable for the border guards!

A caribou, just south of the British Columbia border.

Winter scene on the Cassiar Highway. We will be seeing a lot of this!

The clouds clear up for a bit – but we’re still heading south, so infrared is the rule on the day.

The Stikine River. The Cassiar Highway crosses it, on one of its few, very brief dirt sections. Not only is this section dirt, but there are 13% grades on either side of the river!

Ominous yellow clouds in the distance. Yep, we’re going to get hit with snow. [Dan photo.]

The south end of the Cassiar Highway, which we reached just around dusk.

This is a blower. It makes an ominous noise and spits out a lot of flames. If anyone can tell us what it is, we’d be grateful!

Heading east at dawn. We’re almost at Watson Lake, Yukon, having driven quite a ways through the night.

The bridge over the Little Rancheria River.

An age-old question answered: no, caribou are not transparent in infrared. In fact, they look much the same as they do in visible light.

Infrared clouds.

Glowing guardrail in the sunrise.

Even though we’re in Yukon, we get a British Columbia trail signed. Also, the only junction marker in Yukon. (There isn’t one in the opposite direction.)

Doubling back from Watson Lake to the entrance of the 37. We needed gas, thus the detour – and thus, the westbound photo in morning light.

The Cassiar Highway begins here, and is 720 kilometers to its southern end. Click to see details. Note “Rabid Grizzly Rest Area” – just the sort of thing we need to run into when trying to rest! [Dan photo.]

Here, “hours of operation” may mean that it opens in May! As far as we can tell, the gas stations at Junction Alaska Highway and 37, and Meziadin Junction are not in operation – and some others may not be either. We stopped in Watson Lake, Dease Lake, and Bell II. [Dan photo.]

The sign farm in Watson Lake. The Texline sign is very old, and was posted on either US-287, or the road that preceded it between Denver and Fort Worth – the Canada to Gulf Highway. [Dan photo.]

More signs, ranging from a white Tipler town boundary sign to a sign for Finland (not from the country of Finland) to a yellow sign (from the country of Germany) to the hand-painted Hendersonville, North Carolina sign at lower left, with accurate mileage (and plausible direction) from Watson Lake. [Dan photo.]

Rossland is in British Columbia. Ozark is in Missouri. The Folsom sign was, remarkably, green once upon a time, and is from California.

Heading south on the Cassiar Highway.

Dan gets a photo of some moose crossing right in front of us.

This is what happens when caribou run directly away from our car before figuring out that if they head to the side, we’ll all continue without further incident.

Approaching the first mountain pass on the Cassiar Highway. The blue spot on the rocks to the right is a frozen waterfall. Ice shows up as blue in infrared.

Winter in British Columbia.

This isn’t the first 37 reassurance marker, but it is the first one with the old font.

And here is what it looks like in infrared.

Going over some mountain passes.

More frozen waterfalls.

At Dease Lake is this shield with closely spaced narrow digits. And a gas station.

Snow blows across the road as we head out of Dease Lake.

The view to the west from the Stikine River bridge.

And the east view again, but this time in infrared. Also not quite as wide an angle.

One from Dan, significantly more zoomed in.

Did I mention the ominous yellow clouds?

Yep, over the next hill, we’re going to be in trouble. [Dan photo.]

More infrared from Dan.

Panorama of a frozen lake from Dan, best appreciated at full size!

Same lake, different vantage point, different person taking the photo.

I wonder why they felt the need to change a word (likely “gas”) to “fuel”. [Dan photo.]

And it’s overcast!

The bridge over Devil Creek. [Dan photo.]

Getting murkier and murkier. Around here is where I don’t take a single photo for about an hour, as I’m busy keeping us on the road.

A truss bridge, about 100km south of the previous photo.

The sign is being buffeted by a stiff wind. 37A is the spur route to Stewart, BC, and then across the border to Hyder, Alaska, which can be accessed by land only from Canada. [Dan photo.]

The road to Hyder is fairly murky as well, but since we’ve come down a lot in elevation (and a little in latitude), it is more rain than snow.

Downtown Stewart. 37A turns to the north to cross into Hyder. [Dan photo.]

Welcome to Hyder. The best US border patrol station ever, as it is in Invisible and Harmless Mode. Indeed, there is no US border patrol here! There is a Canadian one in the other direction, but they are well aware that one can’t go anywhere from Hyder, so the interrogation there was extremely brief. [Dan photo.]

This odd little sign can be found in downtown Hyder.

There isn’t much to do in Hyder – once you go down the main drag, you can turn around and head back to Canada. [Dan photo.]

Back we go. Meziadin Junction is where 37A splits off from 37. Kitwanga is where 37 hits 16, the Yellowhead Highway. [Dan photo.]

And we’re back at the split. The green sign in the background says “Alaska Hwy” – over 300 miles away. [Dan photo.]

What’s this? A plain route 16 marker. Usually 16 is signed with a pair of signs: one British Columbia cutout with the Yellowhead Highway symbol (with a number 16 on the older shields, but not the newer ones) and one green and white Trans-Canada 16 rectangular shield. [Dan photo.]

End of the Cassiar Highway. The number 37 continues for a while, as it was extended in 1985 down the Yellowhead for a while and then south on its own over the previous route 25.

Correct signage on the Yellowhead highway.

Heading east on the Yellowhead.

Confusing signage at the foot of highway 118. It isn’t one road that goes one way, and one the other. Trans-Canada 16 is the Yellowhead Highway, and it goes in both directions. [Dan photo.]

This is what happens when you have the camera set to a manual exposure length, and add flash on top of that. Extra-squiggly photo of these older route markers courtesy of Dan.

Here is an older Yellowhead shield with the route number. [Dan photo.]

Here is where we close the loop. Prince George – where we were on the night of Day 1. [Dan photo.]

Surprisingly, the only Trans-Canada 16 shield we saw that had the correct font. [Dan photo.]

Last photo of the night. We tried making it across the Rockies (the Alberta line is the Continental Divide), but had to turn back due to the snow getting heavier and heavier. We stopped to wait for the snowplow.

Next up, day 7, on which it snows terrifyingly. Did we survive? Tune in next time to find out!

Mt. McKinley! This is an early morning shot, which is usually the best time to see the mountain, before a mid-level fog tends to vanish it. In fact, several minutes after this photo, the mountain was no longer visible. This is fairly late in the morning, but at this latitude, 8-12 hours of red twilight per day are common. In this photo, the mountain is about 80 miles away.

On the road to Fairbanks. Here is where our trip was the coldest – minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit.

This 16″ state highway 3 marker with a 1962 date stamp survives. The bridge that this sign serves dates to 1968, so they must’ve moved the sign from somewhere in town to the bypass – and hung it on the first available pole.

Completely whitewashed overcast from just outside Fairbanks, all the way to Tok Junction.

The time I was here in 2007, these mountains were in direct sunset light. I tried to get a photo from the exact same spot, but I just couldn’t remember where it was. Close enough!

Yukon after sunset.

Almost at the end of dusk, we stopped at a bridge over a frozen river.

Northern lights! This is about a three-minute exposure, because the lights were quite faint. The road in the foreground is the access road to a garbage dump somewhere to the east of Whitehorse. Note the reflection of the northern lights turning the snow green.

Steadily accumulating miles on the rental car…

Here’s where we joined highway 3 when we headed into Anchorage – now we leave north on it to head to Fairbanks. Interestingly, there is an “END 1″/”BEGIN 3″ shield gantry at this junction. Neither of us got a picture of it, and it is splendidly wrong, as 1 is the signed route that starts way down at Homer, and continues towards Glennallen. Even “begin 3″ is potentially incorrect – its mileage starts in downtown Anchorage, but it is unsigned until this 1/3 split.

Heading towards Mt. McKinley. Those mountains you see are only about 12000 feet high. [Dan photo.]

Dan’s Mt. McKinley shot is somewhat more panoramic than mine.

Heading north past McKinley. Actually, it’s almost due west of us here, but cannot be seen because of the clouds.

Snowplows rule. [Dan photo.]

An infrared photo – with some blown-out yellow skies.

This isn’t an infrared photo – it’s just overcast and snowy.

This one is infrared – we just happen to be breaking through the clouds.

Blue skies and plowed roads. Excellent.

Uh oh, more clouds. Dan took this one out the side window while I was doing about 85.

This is what happens when I try the same thing. Also, I inadvertently punch Dan in the face, sticking the camera that way while attempting to keep us on the road.

The rivers run with … what now? [Dan photo.]

The road to the mountain – and also to the Richardson Highway in the other direction. [Dan photo.]

Dan continues his thorough documentation of snowplows, and other snowplow-like creatures, of the great frozen north.

Blue skies, and converging trees.

Steady progress towards Fairbanks.

About 100 miles to go.

Dan tries his hand at infrared, to excellent results.

More infrared from Dan.

Gotta love how the railroad sign came out almost correctly yellow.

Blue skies and high clouds here – but Fairbanks is going to be overcast.

Shiny bridge is shiny.

Next shiny bridge is … even shinier.

And we’ve reached Fairbanks, where highway 3 ends at highway 2. We turn east (south, as the case may be) on 2 to get to Delta Junction, and restart the Alaska Highway there. [Dan photo.]

End of the line. [Dan photo.]

Down the Richardson Highway to … Anchorage? Indeed, before highway 3 was built as a straight shot between Anchorage and Fairbanks, the way to go was out to Glennallen on highway 1, north to Delta Junction on highway 4, and then northwest on highway 2. It’s about 100 miles longer. Always good to have a set of alternates, in case one is closed for a snow event.

Overcast all the way as we head out of Fairbanks.

Shiny bridge is less shiny in the absence of direct rays.

This is what things look like in visible light. [Dan photo.]

This shield isn’t quite as old as its northbound counterpart.

Somewhere fairly close to mile number 1337.

Yep, it’s possible to shoot directly into the sun under these conditions.

Past Tok now, and it is clearing up in the distance.

Are caribou transparent in infrared? The world will never know.

And we’re back in Canada. The US customs house to the west is immediately at the boundary, but the Canadian one is 20 miles inland. They gave us an average level of hassle, wondering why anyone would want to come out here “in the middle of winter”. We’re not the sharpest bulbs in the galaxy, all right? And besides, it’s early spring.

I think one of their questions was “given that you have told me that you have no contraband, if I were to search your car, would I find any surprises?” “Why no, ma’am, of course not.”

She searched the car anyway. Probably for the best, since Dan had about $500 in a small envelope that was attempting to hide itself under a car seat in a place that only the border patrol would look.

No drugs. Such a shame.

A splash of red, well after the mountains are all dark.

Pink skies, even further past the border.

The last of sunset.

Getting honestly dark now – somehow, still able to make sharp exposures. Gotta love having a VR lens!

Dan takes one from the bridge as well.

This is looking north, off the other side of the bridge.

The most unusual northern lights photo I’ve ever taken. Partly cloudy skies. The green is the aurora, and the red is the reflection of Whitehorse’s municipal lighting.

Lights of Whitehorse. If you look really carefully at the left edge, you can see a bit of the northern lights through the clouds.

A six-minute exposure of the northern lights. Note meteor at left. [Dan freezing his hindquarters off.]

One of only four bridges across the 2100-mile Yukon River. There is one on the Klondike Highway, one on the Alaska Highway, one on the Dalton Highway … and then this one that connects the two halves of Whitehorse together.

Here in downtown Whitehorse is about the only place that Yukon uses stand-alone directional shields. 1A is the old downtown alignment of the Alaska Highway, as opposed to the route that bypasses the town.

Garbage access road, everybody!

Dan takes one final picture as I turn the car on, and the brake lights illuminate the trees.

And that’s day 5. Next up, day 6 – where we return to Watson Lake, then head down the Cassiar Highway (37) to the Yellowhead Highway (16) and run into the storm that nailed us in Anchorage.

Dawn in Yukon. Just past Haines Junction, we hit the final stretch of Alaska Highway.

Close-up of distant purple mountains over Destruction Bay. Yes, that is what it is called! It was named by the troops who were building the road in 1942, and had the wind blow away their new structures.

Making good time to Alaska. It is our understanding that, while there are speed limits in Yukon, they are enforced extremely rarely.

We made it!

Alaska in infrared.

End of the line. 31 1/2 hours to clinch the Alaska highway. [Dan photo.]

Things start to get a little interesting on the road to Anchorage. Around here, we’re reminded that we’re in Alaska. In the middle of winter. Who’s responsible for this brilliant operation?

First photo of the morning. Heading west at a moderate speed.

Highway 3 is the road to Haines, which is in Alaska. The road passes through British Columbia along the way. Although you’d be hard-pressed to tell from this photo, route 3′s symbol is an eagle.

Just a minute or two after the photo I led off with … here, we actually got out of the car for a bit!

Here’s what the scene looks like in infrared. Pretty similar.

The road goes into the hills. [Dan photo.]

A little bit of pink in the sky at dawn.

Approaching Destruction Bay. [Dan photo.]

Clear blue skies over Destruction Bay.

Mountains just west of Destruction Bay.

The famous winds of Destruction Bay blow snow across the road.

The road turns north for a bit.

Signage is helpful and informative.

Traditional Yukon scenery.

Distant mountains. Clouds. Those trees whose name I do not know. Yep, must be Yukon.

The first guide sign in Alaska, just past the border. The border patrol gave us minimal guff for once, and even explained why the red flags go up every time we cross. Apparently, ridiculous things like “drive to Alaska, just because it is there” is what people do when they’re 60, not in their 20s. And they say the government doesn’t profile. Yeah… right. At least, this time, they were upfront about it.

The second guide sign in Alaska. The fancy wooden sign is first, then the distance sign, then this green welcome sign.

Alaska is overcast, so here I switch to the IR camera, as that tends to give better contrast in the clouds most of the time. Alas, not this time. Blown out white skies!

Guide signs appear brown in infrared. Well, they start out blue, but I always swap the blue and red channels when processing IR. Blue ends up corresponding to about a 780nm wavelength of light, and brown is 840 or so. (The threshold between visible red and infrared is about 700nm.)

Bright lights get blown out as yellow.

The first Alaska shields we see. And also, the last Yukon. Alaska 5 turns into Yukon 9. It is the Top of the World Highway, which rejoins the Klondike Highway somewhere well north of Whitehorse. [Dan photo.]

The poor Yukon shield has a foreground that is nearly the same color in infrared as the background.

More IR. Alas, still no cloud definition!

Looking backwards at Tok Junction. Unfortunately, sometime between the last time I was here and now, Alaska switched to Clearview.

The world-famous Tok communication tower.

Only 109 more miles and we finish the Alaska Highway.

This is what happens when you overexpose in infrared.

Everyone’s favorite milepost. [Dan photo.]

Ominous dark skies.

Mile 1371 – about fifty to go to Delta Junction.

Our favorite pointy trees.

For variety’s sake, here’s one from Dan in visible light.

Looking south off that very bridge. Yep, shooting into the sun! It’s doable in infrared.

How to make great time. [Dan photo. I was busy making said time!]

Back to visible light.

A very old reassurance marker. [Dan photo.]

A close-up showing the black falling off the sign. This is the oldest sign on highway 2.

Prepare to lose rear wheel if buffalo looks directly at you.

Driving down the Richardson to Glennallen, where we will hit the Glenn Highway. The infrared does nothing against the low cloud cover.

Here is where we attempt to set some kind of land speed record. I think at one point I didn’t go below 95mph for about 20 miles.

Stratus clouds: the bane of our existence!

Old silver scotchlite shields at the junction of the Richardson and Denali Highways. The Richardson is the other half of route 2, and also route 4. The Denali is closed for the season.

What’s this? Featureful clouds! This is a very short-lasting phenomenon: soon we’ll be lost in the murk again. (By the way, that is an IR photo – the landscape is sufficiently without vegetation that it looks the same as visible light would.)

We reach the junction with highway 1, that’ll take us to Anchorage. [Dan photo.]

Looking backwards at the Tok Cutoff, which is highway 1 to the east of highway 4.

Not to be confused with the Lake Louise in Alberta.

Here, Dan takes all the photos, while I attempt to keep us on the road. This photo has had the contrast blown up 800%. The road wasn’t nearly this visible in real life!

60 miles ’til we get out of this mountain pass. [Dan photo.]

Pick a deity and praise him/her/it/tentacles! Dan processed this photo way better than I could. His photo, he’s the expert.

We made it over the mountains! We’ll visit Sarah Palin on our next day of travel – for now, it’s down to Anchorage to eat solid food and sleep in a legitimately horizontal orientation.

next up – we drive to Fairbanks and then back down to Watson Lake on the Alaska Highway.

Dawson Creek at dawn. This monument is at the intersection (BC-49 and BC-2, actually) where the Alaska Highway officially begins. 2 ends at 97 around one mile in.

Ominous wintry yellow skies, as we approach our first mountain pass since just after Prince George the previous night. Yep, it’s going to snow.

Large bovines of the Liard River Valley.

The Yukon boundary sign. This photo, of course, looks completely different than Dan’s take on the matter.

Sunset, somewhere around one of the many crossings between British Columbia and Yukon.

The bridge at Teslin.

Let’s start with the first shield set of the dawn. 29 is a bypass around Dawson Creek that reconnects with 97, and actually saves significant mileage – but we wanted to take the proper Alaska Highway, so we stayed on 97. [Dan photo.]

[Another excellent Dan photo for our enjoyment.] Here is the junction of 97 and 2, on the outskirts of Dawson. 2 is another important road – it becomes Alberta route 2 and connects to Alberta 43, which heads all the way down to Edmonton. The road was, at one point, Alberta 2 the whole way. Some say that the Alaska Highway starts in Edmonton.

here, as an example of “some”, is our friend the 1940s photograph.

Officially, it does not – but that is the way that the US Army supplies went from the lower 48 states. The mileposts, however, start in Dawson Creek.

The little park that has the official beginning monument, and also a historic mile 0 sign. [Dan photo.]

Here is a close-up of the Mile 0 sign. Many of these signs are posted on the British Columbia section of the route. Note the striped Silver Scotchlite. 1992 is a very late use of the material, as its replacement – Engineer Grade Scotchlite – was invented in 1950. However, many sign companies had invested in the heat-adhesive machine that was needed to apply the old silver stuff, so 3M kept making it for those customers as late as 1996 – once the initial cost of the machine was sunk, the actual sheeting was somewhat cheaper.

This statue of a surveyor is in the same park.

Another view of the 97/2 junction. 2 ends here. Interestingly, the BC-2 section of the Alaska Highway through downtown Dawson Creek was labeled by our GPS as none other than … US-97. Yep, in Canada.

Lots of grain elevators in this section of British Columbia.

Some trees in the last of the sunrise light.

The Alaska Highway is fully paved. This old alignment is not. [Dan photo.]

On the old alignment we find this original 1942 wooden bridge.

The first use of the infrared camera. Dan had a camera modified to be receptive to infrared as opposed to visible light, and this is what we get. Unfortunately, we had some problems with the focus, so the first few photos are going to be extra blurry.

I believe this is the first sign with the distance to Whitehorse. The figures are in kilometers, but that is still a ways to go. [Dan photo.]

(Three guesses as to how far that first destination city is from Dawson Creek.)

This is the part of the Alaska highway that goes straight for a while. Between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson, there are several of these straight sections. [Dan photo.]

Dan descends to Hell in a handbasket – and seems quite happy to accept his mystical journey. Also, his clothes are not transparent in IR.

Scenery in infrared.

Typical encounter on the Alaska Highway. I think at one point we went about 100 miles without seeing a non-commercial vehicle.

Here’s where I literally hose Dan’s ability to take photos. No, it wasn’t raining – I just had to clean the windshield.

Future Bear materializes suddenly in the present.

Here is a random hilly section of the road.

Trucks are not transparent in IR.

Future Bear journeys across space and time to join us again somewhat farther down the road.

Heading out of Fort Nelson. Yep, we got gas in Fort Nelson. 250km is not the distance to the Yukon line, where there is a gas station with similar prices ($1.17/liter at the time). No, in 250km, you are offered the chance to purchase gasoline for $1.89/liter – it’s another 150km to the Yukon line.

This is the first reassurance marker of the Liard Highway, which connects to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. In retrospect, we should’ve made the 133km-each-way spur – we certainly had all kinds of time on our hands. On the second day of the trip, we didn’t know it, though.

Yellow skies don’t look quite so ominous in infrared. But it’s still going to snow.

It is impossible to discern from the photo, but here we are doing 116mph. The car topped out at 121. We saw precisely one police car north of the Yellowhead Highway in British Columbia and Yukon.

Yep, looking a lot like snow ahead of us.

Clearly visible in the photo is the large truck that we are following through the pass. [Dan photo.]

We make our way through the worst of the pass.

One of the many, many truss bridges on the Alaska Highway.

We’re past the worst of it – that is, indeed, a patch of blue in the sky.

The sky is definitely clearing.

Uh oh, is that more snow in the distance? (Yes. Yes it is.)

Taking pictures directly into the sun.

First town in 250 kilometers. Last town for 150 more. Expensive gas, anyone?

Stick-figure horse crossing. [Dan photo.]

The first reassurance marker in a very, very long while. (Since the Liard Highway junction, if I recall correctly.) [Dan photo.]

Back into the mountains we go.

You guessed it – more mountains around the bend.

Caution: buffalo may be large enough to take up both lanes easily. [Dan photo.]

Just around the next bend…

This suspension bridge crosses the Liard River.

No more snow! (For now, anyway.)

No more mountains either. We follow the Liard River for a while.

More large bovines of the Liard River Valley.

A rare reassurance marker.

While the river goes around a hill, we go over it.

The first Yukon crossing on the Alaska highway. This isn’t an official sign – just one put up by the advertised services at Iron Creek. There are three short loops into Yukon, before a long-ish return to British Columbia, and then the road finally crosses into Yukon.

The first Yukon distance sign. The road will loop back into British Columbia once more – and that section is signed by Yukon too!

In fact, Yukon signs starting from the very first crossing. Except for this sign – this is clearly a British Columbia sign, in one of the short return loops. This is a very old sign, dating to before BC decided to let Yukon take over the signage in the loops. (Probably simpler to set one threshold, and write a check every so often.) It has the helpful “KM” reminder, dating it to the early 1970s when Canada first switched to metric. [Dan photo.]

The sign farm at Watson Lake. Thousands of visitors have all left a sign from their hometown. Some are home-made signs, others are … acquired …

Since we forgot to borrow a Capulin sign, we left the one thing we had with us.

Every Yukon route is not only color-coded, but has a corresponding pictorial designation. Those are stand-alone markers that are attached to the green signs. However, stand-alone reassurance or junction gantries are very uncommon. Nearly everything is signed with these guide signs.

The very last Liard River crossing. Here, we head back into the mountains. This photo is looking backwards because we are driving into the sunset.

Our first caribou! We had to go all the way north of the 60 degree latitude line before we encountered them. [Dan photo.]

Poor route 37 does not get a pictogram. It’s only a couple miles long before it heads into British Columbia, heading all the way down to highway 16. We will take this road on our return trip.

Sunset, as we hit the mountains.

More mountains, more sunset.

We’re passing through the mountains, and this photo is taken towards the south.

I do not know what kind of tree this is, but the arctic is filled with them.

The jack-o-lantern cloud of the Yukon.

One from the middle of the highway.

Getting there. We started the day over 1400 kilometers away.

Dan provides the last photo of the dusk.

The symbol for route 6 is a mining truck. [Dan photo.]

Route 8 does not get a symbol. It looks like both the 1 and 8 are in an older font. 8 is an old alignment of the Alaska Highway, but it is unpaved, so we did not chance it.

New control city! We are well more than halfway done with the Alaska Highway. [Dan photo.]

We are on the brief multiplex of routes 1 and 2. 2 is the Klondike Highway that heads north to Dawson City (not to be confused with Dawson Creek), and south to Skagway, Alaska. The gold panner symbol is because that was an important route during the gold rush of 1898. In fact, in Alaska, the Klondike Highway is route 98 – and there is no other numbered highway greater than 11. [Dan photo.]

The 1 and 2 multiplex is quite new – at one point, the southern 2 was numbered 5 – but the Alaska Highway and Klondike Highway used to be multiplexed for a much longer distance. The route went down 8 (then numbered 6), to Carcross, and up 5, rejoining the current road at what is now Carcross Junction, yielding a multiplex about three times as long as the current one.

Here is the turnoff to head north – featuring a black 2 and gold panner, and an orange 1 and mountain range.

We stopped not much after. Not because we needed sleep, mind you – just because we didn’t feel like crashing the Alaska border at 3am. That’ll be in the next post!

Some photos in this post brought to you by Daniel Brim. We have an equitable arrangement: he provides talent at taking photographs, I run us off the road only occasionally.

Somewhere over the Rockies. Between Denver and Seattle for sure.

And here’s the northern lights! Just north of Prince George, British Columbia, which is well south of where such a strong display tends to usually appear. About twelve hours after landing … mission accomplished. Now all we had to do was drive the Alaska Highway!

And one more northern lights photo, this time from Dan. Hmm, I wonder which one of us has a better camera!

Utah, maybe?

My guess is I-15 and US-91 somewhere in Utah or Idaho.

A pair of volcanoes.

Heading up the Rockies.

Further north in Idaho.

This definitely looks like the deserts of eastern Oregon.

Mount Baker on the horizon, about 100 miles north of Seattle – this is a very zoomed-in shot to the north.

Remember this number well – we will add quite a bit to it.

A very old white sign in Seattle.

And some even older green ones. These square-corner signs with the narrow mixed-case font go back to the 60s. [Dan photo.]

Here’s the last remaining US-99 shield in existence. Still surviving as an on-ramp sign to the Alaskan Way Viaduct. [Dan photo.]

Seattle skyline, as seen from the Alaskan Way Viaduct northbound. The southbound lanes are directly underneath. This freeway was built in 1952 and is slated for replacement with something a tad more earthquake-proof. [Dan photo.]

Look at that, we’re successfully in Canada, after minimal interference from the border patrol – most of the questioning based on the fact that we didn’t know the difference between Prince George and Prince Rupert. [Dan photo.]

British Columbia uses cutout route markers. A lot of them have this classic font.

Others, unfortunately, use Arial. [Dan photo.]

One of each kind on this set of overhead green signs. Don’t ask me why they’re mounted diagonally. [Dan photo.]

British Columbia uses black signs in one context: weather advisory variable-message signs. [Dan photo.]

This older sign shows the narrowest of the British Columbia fonts – which looks nothing like the wider ones. And no, I have no idea what is underneath the greenout. [Dan photo.]

Older sign: all caps. (As seen in the Surrey photo several back, even the brand new town limit signs are white.) [Dan photo.]

Clearview also shows up on the newest signs.

Scenery, and more Clearview. The 3 shield (much more visible in the large version of the photo) has a crow on it, as 3 is the Crowsnest Trail – a Rocky Mountain pass.

An older non-crow sign. (All older guide-sign shields are black and white.) [Dan got this one through the back window!]

We start to go up the pass on highway 5. [Dan photo.]

Getting near dark. [Dan photo.]

The same mountain, just a few minutes later when the sun is setting.

The top of the pass. [Dan photo.]

And here we see the wide style of British Columbia marker.

An infrequently seen non-cutout marker. The Yellowhead Highway splits into routes 16 and 5 on the British Columbia side of the Rockies – 16 proceeding to the coast at Prince Rupert, and 5 connecting with Trans-Canada 1 to head to Vancouver – and both branches are signed with distinctive markers. [Dan photo.]

Dan manages to capture this old guide sign. How old? Note the striping – that’s indicative of 1960s Silver Scotchlite reflective sheeting! Also, this photo is notable as it is one of our first 97 shots. We will be seeing a lot of 97 as we proceed northward.

“100 Mile House” is one hundred miles from Vancouver on 99, and then 97.

Here is the end of route 99, which at one point was the continuation of US highway 99 all the way up from Calexico, CA. For some reason, they chose 97 to be the route that continued all the way to Alaska, even though that route stops in Weed, CA at old US-99 – never mind that all the Mile Houses were numbered along the route that started as 99.

Just some classic old-font shields at the 24 junction.

The town of Williams Lake (to which the city center is referring) is just past 150 Mile House. [Dan photo.]

Testing for northern lights. This is Dan holding the camera relatively still and doing a 30 second exposure while I find a straight stretch of road. And indeed, there be the northern lights, past the various internal reflections from the dashboard.

And you’ve seen the rest of the photos from the night at the top of this post, so this is where we leave off. We reach Dawson Creek by dawn, and therefore start the Alaska Highway proper on the second day.