Beaver Creek is the last Canadian settlement on the Alaska Highway, a few kilometres from the American border and the westernmost community in Canada. It is a small place of motels, a gas station and a customs post, set among spruce, willow and low hills at the northern edge of the Kluane region, in country where the winter lasts for half the year and the temperature can fall below minus forty.
The highway itself is the story. In 1942, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and invaded the Aleutian Islands, the United States Army built the road in about eight months, pushing a pioneer track through muskeg and permafrost from British Columbia to Alaska. Crews working from the north and south met at Soldier's Summit, near Kluane Lake, in November of that year. The road was rough and has been rebuilt many times, but it still follows much of that line, and the mileposts that count down the distance from Dawson Creek are a quiet monument to the effort.
The ride from Haines Junction to here runs along the foot of the Kluane ranges, past the great blue bowl of Kluane Lake and the mountain wall of Kluane National Park, which holds Mount Logan, the highest peak in Canada, and some of the largest non-polar icefields in the world. The road is mostly paved, but frost heaves and patched gravel are common, and warning flags mark the worst sections. Wind off the lake can be violent, and the weather can turn from sun to sleet in an hour even in summer. Look out for bears, which are common along the verge, and for Dall sheep on the slopes above the lake.
Services are sparse. Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay have fuel, and Beaver Creek has a couple of stations, but distances between them are long, so top up whenever you can and carry spare fuel if your range is small. The border crossing into Alaska is just ahead, and the hours and requirements should be checked before you travel, since you will need your documents in order.
If the light is right, the dark spruce, yellow aspen and white peaks make a late-September ride something quite special, but the nights are cold and frost is likely.