1967 End of Summer Drive from Faribault MN to Anchorage Alaska. Lots of Gravel Road..THE ALCAN!!

 At the end of the summer working at the Frier's Shell Service Station at the corner of US Hwy 65 and MN 60 in Faribault, I was invited by Fred Neubert to drive with him and his wife Ellie to Alaska where he had a teaching job awaiting him.  So he purchased a Chevy 3/4 ton pickup and I took off the last two weeks of summer vacation, before heading back to Carleton College in the fall of 1967.

North Dakota bad lands, part of the landscape of the great plains.

Here is the big sky country of Montana on Hwy 2 .I recall camping outside of Havre and perhaps this is the setting on on our way across the great northern plains.

 This slide was labeled Jackson Glacier at Glacier National Park.  To get an update of how the glacier has changed over the years, check out   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Glacier

 Here is a hand written warning that the trail is closed beyond Trail Gunsight Pass - Dangerous Bear! Grizzly!

According to my notes with the slides, we left Faribault on Aug 18, 1967 and went to Beulah, ND for our first step at the house and Baptist Church of Uncle Rev George Neubert, on the plains of ND near the Garrison Reservior as I recall. Here are Ellie and Fred on the tailgate of the pick up in a campground at Glacier National Park in Montana.

This is a real slide I took of Lake St Mary's at Glacier Park.  Seems almost surreal. Wonder what the patches of ice look like these day of climate change...

Customs crossing US 89 and Canada 2, heading north...from Montana to Alberta....looks like a blue and white Oldsmobile in the parking lot. Wonder what this looks like now. 45 years later! 

Here in Dawson Creek, BC, is mile 0 of the Alaska Canada Hwy.ALCAN.

Mile 456 at Muncho Lake.  Getting used to the gravel road after 400+ miles.

Laird Hot Springs at Mile 496. Fred Neubert in the distance with a NY kid, the temp is supposed to be 110 degrees F.  I remember it was refreshing. 

Contact Creek at mile 558, where in 1942 the Alaska hiway opened up.  Here I am holding up the sign as part of my 20 yr old demonstration of sign lifting skills.

At mile 614 we came across a recent event with this VW Bus overturned after hitting the pothole in the foreground   Driving was a biologist with many animal skulls for research.  No notes of whatever happened..

Swift River bridge construction at mile 723.  

Tasty wild raspberries at mile 832...mmmm

Whitehorse, the capital city of the Yukon Territory. Mile 912. The truck is seen down the block where we did laundry.  It was here I picked up a new 1967 dollar coin of the Centennial Set of Coins that each had an animal on it. 

Here are the 1867 - 1967 Alaska Purchase Centennial Coins that I picked up in Alaska along with the Canada animal set, 1 cent bird, 5 cent rabbit, 10 cent fish, 25 cent wildcat, 50 cent wolf and $1 goose. I enjoy the history of coinage....Queen E II and George VI too.

Mile 1000 on the Alaska Hwy with the St Elias Mts in the distance.

At mile 1016, we stopped for the night with lodging at Haines Junction..Note the truck parked by the building where we stayed. 

Here at mile 1221 is the end of the Alaska Hiway when we reached the Alaska Border...

20 Miles from Tok Junction this construction worker guy, did our second tire repair on the trip. He was a great professional as he repaired all the tires for the hiway construction crew!  

Here is the Matanuska Glacier we passed by on our way to Anchorage.

Found this slide labeled Babe Ruth World Series.  Odd, I have absolutely no memory of seeing this, Yet here is the photo with the Mountains in the background...

Downtown Anchorage AK in 1967.

I arrived three years after the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964.  South on the Seward Hiway there is a change in vegetation by the high tides (tsunami and other tides)

From Wiki "The most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. and North American history, and thesecond most powerful ever measured by seismograph.^[3] It had a magnitude of 9.2"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake

Seward Harbor with a Japanese Ship docked here. Drove South to Seward from Anchorage one day.

With Fred and Ellie staying in Anchorage for the next two years, I was on my budget trip now back to Minnesota for my 3rd year at Carleton College.  I stood by at the Anchorage Airport and flew to Seattle-Tacoma Airport for $50 stand by.   I then put out my thumb and went north to Canada and the trans Canada Hiway, Route #1.  

The Canada Hiway shares the Frazer River Canyon with two railroads, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific.  Note the tunnel. My notes say I got a ride from an electrician at this juncture. 

I was picked up by a guy from Huntington BC, who was looking for a honeymoon venue for after his upcoming wedding.  Here is haze from forest fires near Yoho National Park at sunrise.

 The Canadian guy with his VW Beetle I got a ride in

Takakkaw Falls or Yoho Falls, over 1000 ft drop 

 Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park

The author at Banff National Park, on my way to Alberta and Calgary.  In Calgary I got the longest ride of the trip, with a couple of guys who had a 1965 Chevy Impala with a reverb unit in the back seat where I slept on and off, as Bobby Gentry's hit song was played twice an hour!  ""Ode to Billie Joe" is a 1967 ode song written and recorded by Bobbie Gentry (born July 27, 1944), a singer-songwriter fromChickasaw County, Mississippi. The single, released in late July, was a number-one hit in the United States, and became a big international seller. They took my all the way to Winnipeg Manitoba....I just had a day trip from Kenora back to Minnesota to back it back for school in Northfield MN