Suppose The Finest Folks have figured out we're in for a treat tomorrow, with Mama_Bear featuring the great state of ALASKA!!
Billie, your reference to the North Country prompted a memory from December 1962..:))
We headed out at midnight of Christmas Day to move from Rapid City, South Dakota to Fairbanks, Alaska in our station wagon.
With a nearly overflowing luggage rack on top and the back flattened, we padded the latter with all the blankets and pillows we owned. It therefore was comfortable for Steve and Kevin, 7 and 8, and 2-month old Jennifer in a bassinet - and oh yes! - our two dogs - LOL.
Also aboard were numerous pots and pans, lots of food (bags, boxes and canned) and other things we'd need as soon as we arrived, rather than sending them with the movers, who were packing up the household after we left and would not deliver until after we arrived.
(Had arranged with my neighbor and best friend to oversee that.)
All the way on that trip we listened on the car radio to one of the very Top Songs of the day - - North to Alaska by Johnny Horton - over and over and over..:))
We laughed at the appropriateness of it all the way there.
It was the beginning of a truly Great Adventure that can be handled only when you are under 30 and totally trusting and not accustomed to -50 (as in below zero) temps and blizzards and ice fog and total whiteouts, going through Western Canada (Alberta) to the Alaska Highway's beginning at Dawson Creek, British Columbia - Mile Zero - and then 1520 more miles around the very top of the Rocky Mountains and the Yukon Territory to reach Alaska, and then Fairbanks..:))!!
We spent New Year's Eve in Dawson Creek, teaming up with two other American couples who traveled with us as far as Tok, Alaska, where they went south.
The 17 of us piled into the Historic Alaska Hotel opposite the Zero Mile Post to have New Year's Day Dinner before setting out.
of the photograph,
with a clear view of the Mile Post.