The drive was long but the scenery varied lots. Forests, plateaus, hills, mountains, and rivers and ponds. We saw horses grazing free, a Grizzly and her cub, Moose, sharp edged to smooth, rounded edged mountains, and rivers – clear and red coloured. The red is from the high mineral content that attracts some animals to supplement their nutrient level.. Some of the mountains looked like piles of crushed stone, in fact at two of them it looked like a front end loader 
just dug into the bank. Many old gravel pits lined the highway as well, likely the source of the road. The road surface was ok to bad. The recent (still burning) forest fire burnt a vast area of both sides of the highway. The odour was still pretty strong in places. We stopped at the Tombstone Park Information Centre for a break. It is at the base of the mountain range, has some campsites around it, and has quite a bit of information of back country camping in it.
From there the road led us to up a switchback to a long wide drive along a flat valley of sorts. Would have been beautiful to spend a few days on horseback. The hills were steep at times and the rough, narrow road made it seem worse. We drove on past Eagle Plains, a town on the map, a gas station, hotel/restaurant on the planet, and 40 minutes later we were standing at the Arctic Circle. We stood, stared, smiled, took photos, and looked back the way we came; holy crap that’s a long drive back. And off we went back the Eagle Plains (more of a plateau) and stopped for a late lunch and to fill up the truck with gas. The 480 Km used a little more than a half tank. The food was good and the gas attendants were cha
tty. They spoke of the grizzly yesterday that refused to get off the road until almost pushed by the water delivery truck and the cyclists that were picked up and driven down the road past it. We were glad we didn’t drag the trailer but a couple did go by us at the “circle” as the locals call it.
On the way back we got to see the reverse side of what we saw on the way up. It was just as impressive until we reached the north side of Tombstone Park Information Centre where the tree lined highway started again. We were stopped by the Grizzly and her cub and back on the highway to Dawson we were stopped by a Moose standing on the road which seemed to be reading a sign, gave us a look and then walked off. Along the side of the highway are long rows of river stone mounds left over by the gold dredges that scooped up the riv
er beds looking for gold. Now it looks like a mess that needs to be cleaned up. Here and there along the way from Tok, Alaska to here there were little gold mining operations, all are placier (blast water at the ground to wash the dirt and hills away to get at the gold) mining. And we can’t protect our Lake Erie shoreline from erosion cause that alters nature – governments.