A weekend trip through the recently accessible Canadian border

The South Klondike Highway from Skagway to Whitehorse is one of the prettiest stretches of road in North America, but it’s been off-limits to most Americans since the pandemic-related border restrictions were announced last spring. Beginning on August 9, however, fully vaccinated U.S. travelers are now allowed to cross into Canada. 

Once the weekend arrived, I packed up my camper/truck, grabbed my passport and vaccine card, loaded up my adventure dog Charley, and hit the road.

When I arrived at the border station in Fraser, B.C., the Canadian border guard asked me questions about my job, where I live, what kind of bear protectant I had; and since I had everything in order, he let me through after about 10 minutes

Downtown Carcross was our first stop, (AMBI) and I didn’t get out of the parking lot by the visitor center before I ran into Michelle Phillips, a dog musher from Tagish.

“This place has been so quiet and so empty for so long. It’s really nice to drive into Carcross today and see all the cars and the campers and different license plates and see people walking around,” said Phillips.

Apparently, Yukoners are just as excited to get to Skagway as I was to get to Canada.

” I would love to go see friends in Skagway and go to Starfire. I miss Skagway. So yeah, I really hope they open the border,” said Phillips.

And there’s something to that cross-border food craving. Phillips was craving Thai food from Starfire in Skagway and I was excited for sushi in Whitehorse.   

I stopped into Matthew Watson General Store and talked with co-owner Ron O’Conner who was working his first shift since the fall of 2019.

He said his wife and daughters had been running the store, but the girls took the weekend off, so he had to cover. 

“This is our Discovery Day weekend. Monday is the holiday but there’s a lot of people from British Columbia and Alberta up here visiting right now. And then the Whitehorse crowd comes out here on the weekends,” said O’Conner.

I said my goodbyes and headed up to Whitehorse where I ran into Tom Ely from Haines who was driving the Golden Circle. The loop goes from Haines to Skagway via ferry, a drive to Whitehorse, then down to Haines.

“Well, I’ve been waiting since the border closed to get back to the Yukon and see my friends and do some mountain biking,” said Ely.

He says flashing his passport, negative test result and vaccination card was pretty straightforward. 

“So it’s pretty much about five minutes to cross. It was great,” said Ely.

I asked him what he was most excited to bring home. 

“My thing is the hot banana pepper rings and Bix, dill pickles the extra garlic ones, minis,” said Ely.

Charley dog and I camped on a friend’s property and on Sunday we went to visit the SS Klondike – the old sternwheel steamboat that used to run freight along the Yukon River.

That’s where I met Terri Bishop from Vero Beach, Florida. She stopped with her Rhodesian Ridgeback – Boone –  on her way to interior Alaska. She says she had to Google where to get a test in Montana before she could cross into Canada. 

“If you did it on Friday, and then they don’t give you the results until Monday like that’s 72 hours right there. So it was like, okay, how’s this gonna work? But it worked,” said Bishop.

In order to get through the border, you need your passport, your vaccination card, proof of a negative COVID test within 72 hours, and a completed ArriveCan application.

When coming in the app asks you to say where you’ll quarantine if necessary, and since Bishop is traveling in a tricked-out Sprinter van, she used the Border Station address. She says the Canadian border guard had a laugh at that.

“And the only thing he asked me was, ‘Do you have any weapons?’”

There have been some changes in the Yukon since I last visited, a new Canadian border building, the Westmark Hotel is now the Sternwheeler Hotel, and some of my favorite restaurants have changed. But some things always stay the same. Tim Horton’s had Timbits and Canadian Tire had long lines and good dog toys.

Many of the people I met wondered when the U.S. border will open to Canadians, but there’s still no official word on when that might happen