Getting Started - Alaska and Points North: Tips and Tales from the Road - page 22

Camping
Camping takes us to the wild and wonderful places - the national monuments and ecological
reserves, the provincial and state parks, the world heritage sites. Setting up camp in these
places - beside the river, on the lake, overlooking a canyon - well, it's like having your own
cabin on a piece of billion dollar real estate.
Tenting? We saw lots of cyclists and car-travellers camping in tents. Make sure you have
a good bug screen and waterproof fly. It will rain, guaranteed. Another consideration of
course, is bears. Know your way around wildlife - food and toiletries storage, cooking away
from the tent, etc. That said, we were never in any way bothered by bears. In fact, we wished
we would have seen more of them.
At Telegraph Creek a native lady interrupted her work hanging salmon to dry so she could
warn us that the place we'd chosen to camp was in the direct path of a mother bear and her
three cubs. It was exactly where they liked to walk on their way to the river. We pondered
this and decided to stay, but be very watchful and scoot into the van at the first sight of her. I
wish. Never saw her or the cubs, although their footprints were clearly marked in the riverb-
ank just feet from our van the next morning.
There are basically three kinds of camping:
1. Boondocking
This is a camping free at the side of the road.
2. Public Campgrounds These are owned and operated by governments for the use of the
public.
3. Commercial RV Parks
BOONDOCKING
Alaska is an easygoing place in terms of free-camping in wilderness areas. There are even
waysides, as they call them, along every major road. They consist of a wide pull-off with a
pit toilet. They are often in a beautiful location, overlooking a river or valley. It is legal to