Tok, Alaska

Yesterday we reached Alaska and stopped for the night in Tok (pronounced Toke). Tok is a tiny place that is just acquiring modern conveniences, so the Wi Fi was intermittent at best. I decided to wait till Fairbanks to make this entry.

We left Whitehorse and headed towards the U.S. border. The early part of the day was beautiful and soon we could see the massive Wrangell and St. Elias ranges of the Coast Mountains. We drove through mostly flat taiga with the mountains on our left. About halfway through the drive it became really, and I mean REALLY smoky, so that we couldn't see much more than the trees alongside the road. It was that way for the rest of the day.

The road was smooth to begin with, but we soon encountered the dips and bumps that come with permafrost and frost heaves. We bounced along to the US border, where we entered Alaska effortlessly. The border official told us that there were a lot of fires in Alaska, which was causing the poor visibility. Once in Alaska the roads improved.

Like I said, Tok is very small. No government, no building permits, no zoning regulations, no local taxes, no police, no lawyers. They like it that way. We were told of a show where a local man sang his own songs and played the guitar. It was free and a very good show. He was a good singer, wrote good songs, and had a young lady who was visiting play the violin. Linda bought one of his CDs. More about that later.