DAY 30-31 ~ TOAD RIVER (June 16 – 17) - Mile 422

We spent two nights at Toad River Lodge and RV Park.  This area was populated during the building of the Alaska Highway.  Today it is just a lodge and RV park.  There are a few homes and some highway maintenance buildings.  But that is it, except for the river.  It is a place to relax and perhaps do some fishing.  We had great views of the mountains and saw a lot of wildlife in the river.  Every evening we saw moose in the river looking for food and nearby there was a family of beavers dragging branches and chewing on them.  You can see their lodge from our RV site. 

View from our RV site

Beaver lodge in view of our site

This bull moose came out both evenings.

There is an interesting story about how Toad River got its name.  This is just a story.  Don’t know how true it is.  Around 1942 when the Canadian and US armies started building the Alaska Highway, there was no bridge yet build over this river.  So people and equipment had to be “towed over the river so the proprietors of the lodge adopted “Towed River” as the name of their lodge.  The rest is history.

Another fun and interesting story about this lodge is their hat collection which began in 1979.  “One evening after a stressful day at the lodge, the proprietors were having a brew or two.  One had to leave to see a man about a horse and the other tacked his hat to the ceiling.  There you have it.  It doesn't take much to get something started around here.”  There are now over 8,000 hats from all over the world.  “Do not leave your hat unattended!”

We got a real treat on our first evening here.  After we arrived and got settled into our site, and after seeing the bull moose playing in the river (our first moose sighting during this trip); we were greeted with a sudden rain shower and the most beautiful double rainbow ever!!  It was a perfect double arch over the river, right outside of our trailer.  You could clearly see both ends.  Unfortunately there were no rewards of a pot of gold.  Several people invaded our camp site to observe and take pictures of this rainbow.  We met some very nice people that evening.

We have been traveling north for the last couple of weeks and the further north we go the daylight lasts longer.  In fact it never really gets dark.  We have found ourselves staying up past midnight simply because it is still light outside.  It is really confusing and very hard to get used to.  We have to force ourselves to go to bed.  We cover up all the windows to make it darker and simply do not look outside.  We look at the clock, see it is midnight and then we yawn....time to go to bed.  At 3:00am in the morning it is daylight again......

 Sunset at 10:25pm

It is now 11:15pm