5. Back to the USA

Route of flight: CYXY-CYDB-CYXQ-KORT

June 10, 2008

After a few days out I’d finally come to my senses about food and remembered how much good food I could cook in one or two pots if I had a few more basic ingredients. We went shopping. From the little journal I kept, here's the Whitehorse shopping list:

red wine/white wine
Limes
Sugar, salt
Tomato paste
Vinegar
Butter
Tea w/ caffeine or coffee
Milkman (powdered milk)
Muselix/granola w/oats and rasins
Crackers
Cheese
Nuts & berries (gorp)
Corkscrew
Gum
Eggs
Jar/can of pasta sauce
Rubbing alcohol
Mepps spinner (black with red spots)
White gas
Mac & cheese with non-powdered cheese pack
Dried cranberries
Fresh green peppers
Tomato
Scallion

We found most of what we needed in the grocery, except for wine, spinners and the white gas for the camp stoves. Had to go to Canadian Tyre for gas. Actually, we sent Alan while we picked up the food. He wasn’t back yet when we were done shopping. So we got in a cab with our stuff and told the driver to find a tall skinny guy with a white beard and a baseball cap somewhere between here and there. It worked. We found him a couple blocks away, scooped him up and headed to the airport.

The weather was looking a lot like it looked yesterday. The Whitehorse Flight Service Station and the tarmac below were packed with pilots and airplanes waiting on favorable weather through the next set of passes along the route (including our buddies from the Teslin fly-in). Among the folks we met were a pair of pilots who were on the last third of their trip around the world. They were flying a DA-40 and had left their home in Germany headed east in the beginning of May. The account of their trip can be found at their website: Flugzeug-weltumrundung. Among their amazing stories they recounted numerous difficulties dealing with airspace in India, Japan and Russia. Let's just say it's not like flying here. So much of their trip had to do with borders and bureaucracies... but then, they were on a mission to fly around the world.

We also ran into a friend of a friend from Seattle. Herb's from DC - he and his copilot are part of a flying club in NYC. The club had undertook to fly to Alaska and back and these two were on the second leg: Seattle to Anchorage. Once in Anchorage, they'd fly home commercially and another pair from the club would continue the trek. They'd just flown up from BC yesterday, IFR over a similar route we'd taken. I have to admit, I didn't know what to make of their trip. A large part of the sprirt of our trip was to experience the landscape. This pair just flew right over it, with their view shielded by a cloud layer the entire time. But then, different folks fly with different missions. Herb's mission was to get the club plane to Alaska from Seattle, to that's what they were doing.

We hung around the Flight Service Station until early afternoon as the weather slowly cleared. We watched a float plane take off from the field with a GMC assist. This cleared up a little mystery for us. At a few airports along the way, we'd seen a few different configurations of trailers connected to pickup-trucks, or more commonly, half-pickup-trucks where the bed of the truck is sawed off and a long trailer is attached. We couldn't figure out why such a contraption would be hanging around on an airfield. Well, as it turns out - and it makes a lot of sense in an oh, duh sort of way - up north, planes are really useful on skis and on floats and a lot of pilots swap between the two. You can land a plane on skis at an airport if it's got snow, but taking off on floats requires a little assistance.

After the airport fire crews mobilized and set up their trucks at the mid-field intersection, we watched this plane fire up the prop and get towed by the pickup until rotation speed (about 50mph) then the pilot lifted off the trailer...

...and off he went.

Eventually, eastbound planes took off, then westbound. I got on the phone with US customs and notified them of our time of arrival. It's 300 miles to Northway via Haines Junction, Silver City, Burwash, Beaver Creek. None of which are reported to have fuel. Northway has fuel. 3 hours en-route, expect another hour of fuel before our hour of reserve. Gain an hour for crossing back into PST, and we should arrive to meet customs at 4:15pm.

Actually, I got in line behind several other pilots at the payphone and attempted to place a toll-free call to US Customs. About half-way through the line, I realized that I'd need a lot of Canadian Coinage to make the call, which I didn't have. So I went to the main terminal and got some at the gift shop. then I made the call and only had enough coins to get halfway through the information I had to provide to customs, whereupon the operator interrupted and started hassling the customs guy for more coins. That got nowhere and I was on the verge of beating up the payphone when I remembered seeing another payphone in the terminal that might actually take a credit card. I hung up on the customs guy and the operator and trekked back to the terminal (in the meantime the guys were pre-flighting the planes and wondering where the heck I'd gotten off to...) Back in the terminal, I did finally find a payphone that would take my credit card, and I finally managed to complete the flightplan with US Customs.

We were wheels up and westbound at around 2:00pm.

Low ceilings over the Al-Can

West to Northway We flew through low clouds and rising landscape following the AlCan west out of Whitehorse. We squeezed through low 500' gap between the mountains and the clouds. The world opened up on the other side.

Somewhere around Kluane Lake we caught up with a pair from the Teslin fly-in who were flying their Supercub approx 1000' below us. AJ was flying his cub back up from Florida for the summer. He and Benny had been dodging thunder, lightning, hail and tornados up through the great plains. I don't know if you remember, but early June saw some serious storms throughout the midwest. They'd spent days waiting on weather. Now they were pretty happy to be flying over Kluane Lake - it was their first feeling of homecoming after thousands of miles. We continued north along a long valley, crossed braided rivers streaming off the north side of the St. Elias range. The sun sparkled in the waters. We wove between a few late-day showers and took in the view.

At long last we made the border and landed at Northway.

Welcome to the USA!

Northway is an impressively decrepit place. Ancient single-wide trailers set up to form the Customs office and weather station, but seldom used as it isn't where the Al-Can crosses the border. Along with t he other planes arriving from Whitehorse, we waited for the customs agent to arrive and then waited our turn to clear customs.

the friendly customs agent questions Steve & Allen

- Are you carrying a firearm?
- Yes.
- Do you have the paperwork?
- Yes.
- Did you buy any food in Canada?
- Yes. Dried goods.
- Any produce?
- Um, No.

Then she walked around the plane with a geiger counter. Yes, a geiger counter. To ensure we weren't carrying any radioactive materials in our airplanes. And even though we weren't actually carrying depleted uranium for those alaskan rebels planning to disrupt the upcoming statehood celebrations (they were out of stock at Cabellas), the geiger counter happily clicked and twittered away. Apparently this isn't unusual since there's radioactive elements in the mountains around the area. Anyway, we refrained from the usual jokes becuase you just don't mess with customs. Especially if you've just realized that you're smuggling a tomato, an onion, a green pepper and a couple limes in from Canada.

Thankfully our contraband produce was not detected by the geiger counter and we were officially cleared to re-enter the USA. We'd made it to Alaska. It felt pretty good.