Yukon, Northwest Territories and Northern British Columbia Travel Guide

The two roads into the Yukon strike through northern British Columbia: the Alaska Highway , connecting Dawson Creek to Fairbanks in Alaska, and the adventurous Cassiar Highway , from near Prince Rupert to Watson Lake , on the Yukon border. Though the Cassiar's passage through the Coast Mountains offers perhaps the better landscapes, it's the Alaska Highway - serviced by daily Greyhound buses and plentiful motels and campsites - that is more travelled, starting in the rolling wheatlands of the Peace River country before curving into the spruce forests and sawtooth ridges of the northern Rockies. While the scenery is superb, most towns on both roads are battered and perfunctory places built around lumber mills, oil and gas plants and mining camps, though increasingly they are spawning motels and restaurants to serve the surge of summer visitors out to capture the thrill of driving the frontier highways. Equally popular are the sea journeys offered along northern British Columbia, among the most breathtaking trips in all Canada. Prince Rupert, linked by ferry to Vancouver Island, is the springboard for boats to the magnificent Haida Gwaii , or Queen Charlotte Islands - home of the Haida people - and a vital way station for boats plying the Inside Passage up to Alaska.