Valdez and the Top of the World Highway
Our journey’s next adventures
When we left Denali a number of wildfires burned in both Alaska and the Yukon. It also turned unusually hot. Where could we escape both the smoke and heat? God blessed us with the answer: the coast, where the cool sea breezes took care of both issues.
We traveled to Valdez, on the coast of southeastern Alaska, about 20 years ago. We found it a bit unexciting but otherwise fine. So that’s where we headed.
When we got there, it surprised us by being much improved in just about all ways, praise God. We found a good campground up on a road overlooking the restless and energizing ocean.
A colony of noisy black crows lived just across the road. They frequently made a huge racket when mobbing Bald Eagles to chase them away from their nests.
How often do we foolish humans encounter similar problems? Sadly, often we end up fighting with each other rather than having the intelligence of those crows who banded together to drive away the much more powerful eagles. Perhaps it’s because they submit totally and willing to their Creator:
Have they not seen the birds above them lined up in columns and spreading their wings? The Most Gracious is the One who holds them in the air. He is Seer of all things. (Quran 67:19)
When we left the unexpected beauty of Valdez, we headed to the Top of the World Highway. Most of the highway connects the Canadian border at Coutts, Alberta to Dawson City in the Yukon. As it meanders through the hills, valleys and mountains, this highway offers the summer traveler beautiful and, at least for me, unique Alpine scenery with an amazing array of wildflowers. The smoky air produced a wonderful range of colors in sunrises and sunsets — from pure blues to pinks, purples and an almost russet hue. All of that against the lush greens of a great variety of mostly low plants.
We also saw and heard the melodious calls of several species of birds and at least two foxes.
In spite of the heat and wildfires in the lower elevations we spent some glorious days enjoying this perfect retreat, which our most Gracious and Merciful God had created for us. Formal campgrounds don’t exist on the majority of the highway so water became a problem for us toward the end of our time there. In that way we also experienced a taste of what a large portion of the world’s population deals with every day. It made me much more appreciative of that wonderful liquid blessing from God.
Every other year our spiritual community holds a charity drive for the fine organization of Charity Water, which was initially called charity: water. For more information on this exemplary charitable organization that works to provide safe water for many, please read Paull Young’s great story right here on Medium:
And for more stories, many from the organization itself, please do a search here in Medium for Charity Water. And should you wish to contribute to our spiritual community’s charity drive for Charity Water, please click this link and thank you for supporting this wonderful charity!
Eventually we had to begin our way back down into the smoke and head again for Dawson City. When we got there we stayed in a beautiful but extremely buggy campground across from Dawson’s airport.
We spent several days monitoring the wildfires around us. At the end of a trip into town for supplies, my husband Rafe saw an athletic, dark haired young man by a white wildfire-fighting truck. He asked if the road going south was open yet. The fellow confirmed that they had begun taking convoys of vehicles through with a pilot truck guiding them.
Fortunately we had packed up everything before coming to town because we planned moving to a new site in the campground after our shopping trip. So we headed to where the firefighter indicated and we joined a forming convoy, which left not long after we arrived.
After many miles behind the dusty white pilot truck, which included some areas where the wildlife still burned, we could finally drive south on our own.
Then we drove past wonderful and sometimes huge lakes in lush forest and park land. By God’s grace and mercy, we were safely out of danger and able to find a spot to “hunker down”, as Rafe said.
Soon we must now move on, but this respite has truly been God’s blessing.
May you also be safe and blessed, especially with a new variant of the corona virus spreading.
