AlCan: Day 8 -- Tok, AK to Fairbanks, AK

It snowed overnight in Tok, and was still snowing pretty heavily when I hit the road this morning. The visibility was sufficiently poor that I got very few usable photos from my dash-cam, but here's one that will at least give you a feel for what I was dealing with.

For about a hundred miles northwest out of Tok, the road is almost perfectly straight and flat. The terrain is lightly wooded throughout this part of the Alaskan interior.

The Alaska Highway ends in Delta Junction, AK, about 1,400 miles from where it started in Dawson Creek, BC. There's not much in Delta Junction besides fuel, food and other travel necessities, but it's a substantial establishment by comparison.

At that point, my road trip from Seattle had been about 800 miles longer, with yet another hundred miles to my ultimate destination in Fairbanks. I turned right on the Richardson highway and kept driving.

The Richardson is one of Alaska's few major roadways, running from Valdez in the south up to Fairbanks in the north. I have driven this part of the Richardson many, many times before during my previous winter's sled dog escapades, so it felt very familiar to me. The sky had cleared and the road was plowed, so it was a pleasant, comfortable final leg of my road trip.



Pulling into Fairbanks actually felt a little anti-climactic, quite probably because I was pretty worn out -- even numbed -- by eight days of solid driving. Nevertheless, I was well aware that I had successfully completed my epic road trip, very happily without major incident or problem.

I hope you've enjoyed -- or perhaps I should say I'm glad you've endured! -- the journey with me.

Here is the final documentary video for Day 8: