Day 48

17. June 2000, Watson Lake to Terrace

Our drive south today was long but enjoyable. The trees are getting taller and the nature is getting more and more lively. We saw a moose, porcupines, lots of squirrels and five bears! The key to see wildlife is to drive by yourself with no cars in front of you. For today's drive we finally have mostly tarmac and Karl is driving most of it apart from the last test. Terrace is a city wirh about 30,000 and we are starting to feel part of civilisation again. Although the areas still have low population the change is noticeable.
On the rally competition we would like to note that we are in rank four (!) overall now. Yesterday's test was only cleared (zero penalty on both sections) by one Ford Mustang. Four cars did like us: one minute - zero minutes. So gravel seems to be good for us. At the moment there are really seven cars who do very good times on gravel and two of those had punctures yesterday. Therefore only five managed one minute or less.

TC 148: Watson Lake OUT
7:
 19  
TC 149: Tatooga IN
11:
 49 360.58 km
TC 150: Tatooga OUT
12:
 36  
TC 151: Nass River FR IN
16:
 36 319.80 km
TC 152: Nass River FR OUT
16:
 41  
TC 153: Aiyansh IN
17:
 18 50.96 km
TC 153A: Aiyansh OUT
17:
 19  
TC 153B: Terrace IN
18:
 59 111.94 km

Overall 1 hour 11 minutes penalty

The official results can be looked up on this website

Rainbow in the morning: We are heading south now, from 60° north to below 55° north. The border between the Yukon Territory and British Columbia is 60° north. We notice the change in nature as we drive south: trees are taller, there seems to be more life: animal and human

Kaya, Karl and Sami (from left to right) riding the Tatogga Mobile on a special grassy test section.

A good day for a wildlife photographer: A squirrel, the back side of a porcupine and, yes, even the grand trophy for all wildlife photographers: a bear!
A moose also crossed our street today, unfortunately no photo of that. Again: camera too slow, moose too fast. But I just like to say that these moose are huuuge!

The test today: Nass River Forest Road, a doable gravel road with lots of one-way bridges (see front), we get zero penalty.

Having seen five different-size bears today, this last one finally agreed to pose for us by the side of the road. All of the bears were black, so we assume that they are black bears.

  

Many lakes in Canada, only few of them are inhabited.

Tatogga Lake: Hut decorated with dead elks headgear. Notice the Swiss and Bavarian flag. We have met many Germans, Austrians and Swiss here - not all of them tourists. Many have come to live here for good, I guess in German one could say that they are "Aussteiger". None of them seem to regret it as they were looking for the wilderness and remoteness of Northwest Canada.

Tatogga Lake with the best form of transport around here. Karl is inspecting his mosquito bites: Although not everywhere, in some places mosquitos can make existence unbearable. The only option is to flee back into the car.

Lava field of the Nisga'a volcano which broke out in the mid 1700's.

River passing by the road.