Hungry Hill

The Inside Passage

Links: Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS, Inside Passage)

Outbound

Tagish Lake Meteorite

By latest report, Dee and Cal are not going to Whitehorse, but were to spend the night last night in the town of Tagish, which gives me the chance to write a little about the Tagish Lake Meteorite.

"On the morning of January 18, 2000, a 150-ton space rock plunged into the earth's atmosphere, landing between the Yukon Territory and British Columbia in a remote vacation village, Tagish. The rare Tagish Lake fireball left an orange-white and blue contrail that lingered for 10 to 15 minutes as hundreds of observers witnessed the early morning events.

"The first aerial over-flights showed no crater or fragments left to demark the fireball or its impact. But fortunately for the science community, one week later on January 25th, a nearby resident, Jim Brook, found the first meteorite fragments while driving homewards on the ice of Taku Arm in Tagish Lake. He knew the frozen lake well, and had the presence to pick up the dark icy rocks with his hand inside a plastic bag. What Brook had uncovered was an extraterrestrial clue from the early solar system, a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite.

"To date, 500 more fragments have been found near Tagish Lake and hundreds have been recovered from the site - many still encased in ice. The space events of January 18th were the largest ever recorded over land by the Defense Department satellite systems. Scientifically, ;[Tagish Lake] is the find of a lifetime,' says Peter Brown, meteor scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Western Ontario and co-leader of the meteorite recovery investigation. 'The entire process of recovery of the material and determination of where it comes from makes this the scientific equivalent of an actual sample-return space mission - at a thousandth of the cost.' " (From AstroBiology Magazine.)

Teslin River, Lake, and Fault

Dee and Cal are scheduled to stop overnight tonight at Teslin Lake, which is a prominent feature in the Terrain view of this region: 80 miles long, 2 miles wide on average, and nearly linear (a favorite landmark for VFR pilots). This natural lake is on the Teslin River, which runs from south to north toward the Yukon River. The Alaska Highway runs along Teslin Lake for over twenty miles including the longest bridge on the entire Highway, the Nisutlin Bay Bridge. The road bed is reported to be a see-through metal grating, which should be great fun for the trikers. At the far (north) end of the lake the highway turns west on the famous Johnson's Crossing Bridge over the Teslin River.

All of the rivers that Dee and Cal have crossed so far drain into the Atlantic or the Arctic Ocean. Teslin River, on the other hand, drains into the Pacific Ocean (or rather, the Bering Sea) by way of the Yukon River. Remember that the Yukon is the third longest river in the U.S., behind the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers.

And of course the reason that the Teslin Lake is long, narrow, and so nearly straight is because of the Teslin Fault.

Cassiar Mountains

Dee and Cal spent the past six nights in the Liard River basin (including two nights at Watson Lake). Having crossed the Rocky Mountain Trench, they headed into the Cassiar Mountain Range today. Tonight they plan to spend the night at or near the Continental Divide.

The name Cassiar is derived from the word "kaska", a corruption of the Indian name of McDame Creek (a tributary of the Dease River, which drains into the Liard River), where the Kaska Indians assembled in summer to fish and trade. One anthropologist says "kaska" means "old moccasins", a term of scorn that Tahltan Indians applied to the neighbouring Kaska Indians in the Dease River area.

There is also a ghost town named Cassiar, which was a small company-owned asbestos mining town located at the red star in the map above. The town, which had a population of 1,500 in its heyday, had two schools, two churches, a small hospital, a theatre, swimming pool, recreation centre and a hockey rink.

Peterson Mountain

Dee said that "Peterson Mountain" was a much harder challenge than Steamboat Rock, but when I tried to find the location, nothing came up in the search engine. So I did an elevation graph of the road between Toad River and Muncho Lake. Based on this, I am guessing that Peterson Mountain must be about at the red balloon on the Terrain view above.

Watson Lake, Yukon

Awhile back I promised not to speculate about where Dee and Cal might be headed next, yet I am about to speculate where they might be now. Just can't help myself. In any case, I surely jumped the gun by talking about the Continental Divide last night, because the Divide is beyond Watson Lake, YT on the Alaska Highway, and I am pretty sure the trikers will be able to post from Watson Lake. Watson Lake is right at 200 miles from Toad River Lodge where they were Monday night, and they did say they were going to slow down and enjoy the scenery (in this stretch said to be the best anywhere on the Alaska Highway). So I am going to go out on a limb and say that we will hear from Dee and Cal from Watson Lake tomorrow (Sunday) night, or perhaps as early as this evening.

Watson Lake is a community of 1000-1500 people, a small town by most standards, but in this region a booming metropolis. It lies along the Liard River in the upper Rocky Mountain Trench and, obviously, is near a small lake by the same name. It is known as the Gateway to the Yukon. The town is also famous for its Sign Post Forest.

Near Watson Lake is a small community called Upper Liard and another called Two Mile Village, both home to the Liard River First Nation.

The Liard River

Since the Verizon service seems to have disappeared for a few days, we don't know for certain, but by now Dee and Cal should have crossed the Liard River via the famous Liard Suspension Bridge (mile 496) in the Hot Springs vicinity. Had they stopped there, rented a canoe, and floated east on the Liard, they would have been in for the ride of their lives. The Grand Canyon of the Liard is a 20-mile stretch of Class IV and higher rapids. After descending into the foothills the river levels out and is joined by the Fort Nelson River on its way to the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories and on to the Arctic Ocean.

Instead of canoeing east, however, the trikers will have continued west on the Alaska Highway, which follows the Liard River for considerable distance (past the mouth of the Kechika River on the other side, for example). Eventually they will cross the Liard again as it swings north into the Yukon in the northern end of the Rocky Mountain Trench. The source of the river is the Saint Cyr Range of the Pelly Mountains. The name "Liard" comes from the French word for Eastern Cottonwood, which grow in abundance along many sections of the river. Because of the abundance of wildlife, the Liard River Valley and the surrounding area vies for the title of Serengeti of North America.

The Rocky Mountain Trench

On the High Plains and into the Canadian prairie, the Terrain View of the map has, with notable exceptions, been mostly monotonous. Not so now. I have been watching the terrain ahead as Dee and Cal approach the Northern Rockies, and for a few days now I have noticed a feature that seems highly unusual, a deep valley in a perfectly straight line for hundreds of miles, the orientation of which is an almost uniform 150/330 degree geographic north vector. Today I discovered that this is the Rocky Mountain Trench, primarily the result of faulting (with minimal glacial carving). What you see in the image above is the northern half of the Trench, beginning at the Yukon/B.C. border. It continues at just a slightly different angle to the southeast all the way to Montana.

For orientation, Fort Nelson is in middle of the upper right quadrant (at the confluence of three rivers). The town of Watson Lake would be at the top edge (or barely above it) and toward the left. Prince George would be just off the bottom edge and toward the right. The large lake in the middle of the Trench is Lake Williston on the Peace River. To the northwest, the Tintina Trench continues on through the Yukon to Alaska.

The mountains east of the Trench are the Rocky Mountains, but to the west of it are the Cassiar Mountains in the north and the Omineca Mountains a little further south. We will check out the Trench again when the trikers come back through it a little further south on their way home.

Canadian Rockies, Terrain View

This is the Google Maps Terrain View of the British Columbia Rocky Mountains ahead of the Trikers.

Little Mo -- Terrain View

The Terrain View in Google maps shows the ruggedness of the Little Missouri River valley even better.

The Dakota Hogback

Back to plan A. The Mickelson Trail was a great idea, but Dee and Cal received an email this morning from the S.D. Department of Parks indicating that the majority of the trail is still snow covered, so they will be going to Rapid City after all (presumably via SD 79). I am still curious about their route from here to Belle Forche, but apparently there is only 8 miles on I-90 and the highway patrol has blessed this.

Maybe the rest of this entry should wait until Dee and Cal are actually in Rapid City, but since it is on my mind, I will go ahead post it now. When I was looking at the Terrain view on the Google map this morning, I zoomed in close on Rapid City. The interesting thing about this is that the city is cut in two by a ridge of mountains. This ridge is called the Dakota Hogback. There is a break in the hogback on the north end, through which Rapid Creek runs. The ridge takes its name from the Dakota Formation, a sandstone formation that underlies the ridge. The Dakota Hogback also goes past Hot Springs, which accounts for all the sandstone buildings.

Then zooming back out, it is also fascinating to see how the Black Hills stand apart from the Rocky Mountains like an island of mountains and trees in a sea of prairie.