TA-SD10 Alaska | Yukon Self Drive Tours | 14-Day Alaska Yukon Tour

A day to explore the sights of Whitehorse: The McBride Museum - Covering half a city block, this log-cabin museum is crammed with relics from the gold-rush era and has a large display of Yukon wildlife and minerals, all lovingly arranged by a nonprofit society. Within the museum compound you'll find Sam McGee's Cabin (read Robert Service's poem on the cremation of same) and the old Whitehorse Telegraph Office. The MacBride has four galleries, open-air exhibits, and a gift shop. The SS Klondike - Take a tour of the largest of the 250 riverboats that chugged up and down the Yukon River between 1929 and 1955, primarily as a cargo transport. Actually, the one on view was built in 1936 to replace the first Klondike, which ran aground. The Klondike is now permanently dry-docked beside the river, and is a designated National Historic Site. The boat has been restored to its late 1930s glory. The Yukon Beringia Center - During the last ice age, a land bridge joined Asia to Alaska and the Yukon, forming a subcontinent known as Beringia. Bordered on all sides by glaciers, Beringia was once home to woolly mammoths and other fascinating Pleistocene-era animals, as well as to cave-dwelling humans. This museum presents the archaeological and paleontological past of Beringia, with life-size exhibits of ice-age animals, multimedia displays, films, and dioramas on its prehistoric people, animals, plants, and ecosystems. Try your hand at hurling an atlatl, which is a sling and spear weapon that early hunters used in these parts 10,000 years ago. Overnight: Whitehorse

Bus transfer from Whitehorse to Carcross. Continue your journey with the famous White Pass and Yukon Railroad to Skagway. Built in 1898 during the great Klondike Gold Rush, the narrow gauge railroad is an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, a designation only shared with the Panama Canal, the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. Building the railroad was considered an impossible task but it was literally blasted through the coastal mountains in only 26 months. This $10 million project was the product of British financing, American engineering and Canadian contracting. Tens of thousands of men and roughly 450 tons of explosives overcame harsh and challenging climate and geography to create "the railway built of gold". The White Pass and Yukon Railroad climbs almost 3000 feet in just 20 miles and features steep grades of up to 3.9%, cliff-hanging turns of 16 degrees, two tunnels and numerous bridges and trestles. The steel cantilever bridge was the tallest of its kind in the world when it was constructed in 1901. The entire project was completed with the driving of the golden spike on July 29, 1900 at Carcross, Yukon - connecting the deep water port of Skagway, Alaska with the city of Whitehorse, Yukon and beyond to northwestern Canada and the interior of Alaska. The White Pass and Yukon Route became a fully integrated transportation company operating docks, trains, stagecoaches, sleighs, buses, paddlewheelers, trucks, ships, airplanes, hotels and pipelines. It provided the essential infrastructure servicing the freight and passenger requirements of the Yukon's population and mining industry. In 1982 the railroad suspended it's operations when the Yukon's mining industry collapsed due to the very low mineral prices. It was then reopened again in 1988 as a seasonal tourism operation serving about 37,000 passengers per season. Today, trips onbord the railroad are extremely popular and over 300,000 cruise ship passengers are using the train from May to September.  Enjoy the ride ! Overnight: Skagway

On July 17, 1898, the "Portland" steamed into Seattle with "a ton of gold" from the Klondike. These news electrified the world and sparked the most fantastic gold rush ever known. A few weeks later the first boats loaded with stampeder landed at Skagway and at the nearby town of Dyea were the infamous 33-mile-long Chilkoot Trail began. Thee 40-mile White Pass Trail originated at Skagway and paralleled the present-day route of the White Pass & Yukon Railroad. Although harder to climb, the Chilkoot Trail was favored because it was the shorter of the two trails into the Yukon Territory and to the Klondike goldfields. Today, Skagway is Alaska's northernmost stop on the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry system serving communities along the Inside Passage. It is also the home of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park. Skagway has a historical district of about 100 buildings from the gold rush era. Overnight: Skagway

Depart Skagway at 8:00 AM in the morning and head south through Lynn Canal, the continent’s longest and deepest glacial fjord. Lynn Canal stretches over 100 miles long and is over 2000 feet deep. Marine wildlife abounds in these waters, and our fully-narrated cruise will highlight our morning voyage. You’ll see hanging glaciers, nesting bald eagles, harbor seals, and humpback or killer whales. We’ll stop at a rookery where hundreds of Steller sea lions gather in the summer to breed and pup. Upon arrival in Auke Bay bus transfer to downtown Juneau. Time for lunch. Afternoon tour to the Mendenhall Glacier. This is Juneau's most popular attraction (and the most easily accessible Alaska glacier) is the mighty, magnificent Mendenhall Glacier, located just 13 miles from downtown Juneau and only a few minutes from the airport. The Mendenhall is just one of the 38 major glaciers that flow from the Juneau Icefield - an expanse of interconnected glaciers that sits just behind the mountains next to Juneau. The Icefield covers more than 1,500 square miles and runs from the Taku River inlet east of town to Skagway, 90 miles northwest. Overnight: Juneau

Mid morning flight from Juneau to Gustavus. Transfer to the Glacier Bay Lodge at Bartlet Cove. Glacier Bay National Park, Wilderness and Preserve sits at the northern end of the Alaska Panhandle, stretching from Gustavus west of Juneau north through one of the narrowest parts of the "pinch," where the state is narrowed down to about 20 miles from Mount Fairweather to the Gulf of Alaska, on to the Alsek River, one of the state's 26 national wild and scenic rivers and a favorite of rafters. The park has a long bay, which has several smaller arms, and a share of the Gulf of Alaska coastline. Glacier Bay is part of 24-million-acre block (37,500 square miles) of protected land, a World Heritage Site, that includes Wrangell-St. Elias National Park (the nation's largest) and Canada's Tatsenshini-Alsek Park and Canada's Kluane National Park. The park is a wildlife lover's dream. Humpback and killer whales patrol the waters, and the five species of Pacific salmon swim through. The shoreline is busy with migrating birds. Inland, watch for bears, both brown and black -- and "glacier" bears, which are black bears in a bluish color phase. There are also moose, Sitka deer, wolves and wolverines. The location of Glacier Bay was created by retreating glaciers. During the Little Ice Age a couple of hundred years ago, glaciers swept across the land and shoved human life southward to Chichagof, where refugees settled at Hoonah. Option: Afternoon whale watching cruise at Point Adolphus. Overnight: Glacier Bay

Full Day Cruise. Each morning through the summer, a tour boat leaves Bartlett Cove and travels 130 miles through Glacier Bay. For seven hours it will take passengers on a journey through a landscape rich with wildlife, full of human stories and still maturing from recent rebirth. Visitors explore a waterway that was under a river of ice only 250 years ago. A National Park Ranger will be onboard to help spot wildlife, provide commentary and programs to help passengers understand and appreciate Glacier Bay National Park. Be sure to have binoculars ready and rain gear handy so you can be outside to greet each new discovery! One of the first highlights of the day is a stop at South Marble Island. The vessel cruises very close to the small isolated island to observe seabirds and marine mammals. Be sure you are outside to see, hear and even smell the creatures that live here. Tufted and Horned Puffins and their cousins the Common Murre nest here alongside Pelagic Cormorants and Black-legged Kittiwakes. Steller Sea Lions haul out here between feeding because of the convenient location, flat, smooth rocks, and nearby feeding grounds. There may be over 300 sea lions clustered on the rocks together, growling and roaring as they wrestle for the best resting spot. As you continue toward the glaciers, you can scan the beach for black bear, grizzly bear, moose, and wolves. Watch along any barren mountainsides for the white coats of the mountain goats that scale precarious cliff edges. Most of this terrestrial wildlife returned recently to this landscape, recolonizing after the retreat of the glaciers that began only two-and-a-half centuries before. Mountain goats, however, may have lived on the lonely peaks that jutted above the rivers ice that flowed in Glacier Bay. Soon after lunch, you will be in view of tidewater glaciers. Be sure to have on all those warm layers you brought and get outside, if you aren’t already. You are in the presence of a river of ice many miles long, hundreds of feet thick and around a mile wide. Try to imagine how much snow must have fallen in the Fairweather Mountain range to build these glaciers! In all, you will visit up to four tidewater glaciers. At one, you will sit for at least half an hour, so you will have the chance to see and hear the ice fall (calve) into the water. It is a dramatic sight and an amazing sound. Return to Glacier Bay Lodge. Overnight: Glacier Bay

Mid morning flight from Gustavus to Haines. Pick up your rental car and explore Alaska individually. If you yearn for the wild beauty of an unspoiled Canadian landscape, Kluane National Park and Reserve is for you. Explore mountains, lakes, rivers and forests that have been home to Southern Tutchone people for thousands of years and discover the heart of their traditional culture and way of life. From scenic hiking on gentle trails to backcountry adventures in the mountain wilderness, a variety of activities await you. Kluane National Park and Reserve covers an area of 21,980 square kilometres. It is a land of precipitous, high mountains, immense icefields and lush valleys that yield a diverse array of plant and wildlife species and provides for a host of outdoor activities. The park is also home to Mount Logan with 5959 m or 19.545 ft - Canada's highest peak. (Distance 250 Miles) Overnight: Haines Junction

If you yearn for the wild beauty of an unspoiled Canadian landscape, Kluane National Park and Reserve is for you. Explore mountains, lakes, rivers and forests that have been home to Southern Tutchone people for thousands of years and discover the heart of their traditional culture and way of life. From scenic hiking on gentle trails to backcountry adventures in the mountain wilderness, a variety of activities await you. Kluane National Park and Reserve covers an area of 21,980 square kilometres. It is a land of precipitous, high mountains, immense icefields and lush valleys that yield a diverse array of plant and wildlife species and provides for a host of outdoor activities. The park is also home to Mount Logan (5959 m/19.545 ft), Canada's highest peak. Overnight: Haines Junction

Born as a construction station on the highway, Tok's role in the world has never expanded much beyond being a stop on the road. With its location at the intersection of the Alaska Highway and the Glenn Highway to Anchorage and Prince William Sound, the town has built an economy of gas stations, gift stores, cafes, and hotels to serve highway travelers. It brags of being the coldest community in North America, a dubious distinction made possible by both the latitude and the distance from the moderating influence of the ocean. Overnight: Tok