Playschool taught all children to love bears.  They are cute and cuddly, don’t say much, just nod their head and wave their big flannel paws.  But if you are bush camping in northern Canada bears take on a whole new meaning, especially when you see them so regularly on the side of the road you stop taking photos…and then you pull into an open area off the road and set up camp for the night.  These bears are cute but they aren’t cuddly and never wave at you.

Northwest Territories delivered all we expected and much more right up to the last morning we were within their bounds.  We were really taken by the huge rivers in this region and took the chance to walk through the thick forest lining the Laird River’s banks, bear whistles in the cocked position, to reach an old fur trapper’s log cabin built over 100 years ago.  What it must have been like to live through an eight month winter in these ultra-remote parts is beyond our imagination.

Heading south on the gravel road, we stopped at Fort Laird, a First Nation community of about 600 people on the banks of the river, for a few supplies and lunch.  The distances between fuel stops is huge, sometimes over 400 klms (240 miles) so even though we have all our extra fuel containers filled we top up Tramp’s tank.  Then it was onward and southward into Canada’s westernmost province, British Colombia.

This was a long and lonely drive, beautiful mixed forest, ever increasing mountains to weave through and a selection of animals up close.  On four separate occasions a huge male wood bison would be grazing on the side of the road, enjoying the sunshine and fresh grass, not a care in the world.  They would be happy to walk right past our parked car, some of their swarming insects jumping ship and joining us through the open windows.

But what really caught our attention was the bears.  Bears are notoriously hard to spot in the true wild but we saw one, then another, then another, at one stage a mother on one side of the road and the cub on another, bears everywhere.  And yes, so many bears we stopped taking photos.  Bears are very cute, even if they are not cuddly.

British Colombia, or BC as it’s referred to by all, is renowned for its stunning mountain scenery, untouched backcountry, uncountable glaciers, world class skiing and the darling of western Canadian cities – Vancouver. BC is where it’s at for people who want to get into the wilderness and see the best of the best.

BC also has the first part of the famous Alaskan Highway, the epic road first built as a rough dirt track during WWII to finally connect the remote territory (as it was at that time) with the rest of the continent and help defend its northern reaches. It stretches 1,400 miles (2,450 klms) across northern Canada and into Alaska, paved today but still one of the great road trips of the world.

The Alcan (for Alaska-Canada) Highway, as it was previously known, was also the focus of an epic family holiday when I was about 17 as the five of us kids piled into the family station wagon with Mom and Dad and drove from California all the way to Alaska.  At that time the Alcan Highway was a mix of gravel and dirt with long afternoons of constant bone-jarring washboards and frequent moose sightings from the back seat of the car.  It was a family holiday etched firmly and forever in my mind and drew a special drop of nostalgia as we left the Mackenzie Hwy from the Northwest Territories and turned right onto the Alaska Highway, north to Alaska.

And so we camped our first night in BC on the Alaska Highway after seeing an amazing seven bears during the afternoon, our private little meadow hidden off the side of the road, mountains in the distance, bear whistles around our neck, pinching ourselves for where we are and what we’re doing.

We had been travelling for many weeks, essentially since Labrador, through endless thick forests of black spruce that grew nearly to the road’s edge.  The land was flat and featureless, save the many boreal lakes and small streams that scattered the area.  But here, on the Alaska Highway, with the northern reaches of the Canadian Rockies all around us, we were overwhelmed with dramatic high steep mountains, emerald green lakes and milky rushing rivers still draining the last of the melted snow from on high.  We were speechless in wonder.

But this is a road completely unsuited to cruise control, such is the many turns and hills, and your eyes must simultaneously watch the road, admire the beautiful mountains and scan the nearby open areas for wild animals.  It was a hard job.

And what a menagerie of animals did we see!  There were bears, moose, a cute little porcupine, a herd of plains bison grazing on the roadside, a couple of caribou and a large female elk nursing her young.  The Alaska Highway delivered in spades!

The highlight of the day was the Stone sheep, an offshoot of the more famous Dall and Bighorn sheep.  The Stone sheep acts like mountain goats on the steep rocky faces and come down to the road’s edge to lick the rocks for salt and other minerals.  They are a handsome but passive animal, the males developing huge circular horns as they age, the females much more modest pointy ones.  They were on the roadside many times and we stopped to admire them up close.

We were constantly stopping to do short walks, take photos, just absorbing this grand country.  At the Laird River (yes, the same Laird River we camped on a few nights earlier) Hot Springs we went in for a very invigorating and refreshing hot springs swim.  We camped that night up on a ridge of boreal forest, having seen another bear nearby and hoping (!) for more.

The next morning we passed more bison and a uniquely brown-coloured black bear before crossing the border into the Yukon Territory and entering the thriving resupply town of Watson Lake.  The Alaska Highway had been everything we had hoped and set the table for a grand adventure in the far northern reaches of this continent.