One degree shy, but we'll be back Travel log Journal date: Dec. 3 Route: Whitehorse, Yukon Territory; Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory; Fairbanks, Alaska Miles today: 656 Total miles: 3,522 Weather: partly cloudy, cold

High noon near the Arctic Circle   FOLLOW THE JOURNEY Choose a day: Day 1 Day 2, 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Day 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14 Day 15     MESSAGE BOARD Share your observations and questions about the trip. Jack and Leslie periodically will post their responses.

December 10, 1999
Web posted at: 11:53 a.m. EST (1653 GMT)

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the last installment of CNN correspondent Jack Hamann's travel journal covering more than 3,500 miles on the road to just to the south of the Arctic Circle. Please join Jack in a chat about his trip at 12 noon (ET) on Monday, December 13, at CNN.com/chat.

By Jack Hamann and Leslie Hamann

Journal date: December 3
Installment #15

(CNN) -- If we could do it in New Zealand, we could do it in Alaska.

A few years back, while on New Zealand's South Island, we realized we were as close to the bottom of planet Earth as we had ever been. We dipped our toes in a lake to mark the occasion, hoping we'd someday make it as far as Antarctica.

It took 656 miles and plenty of eye-straining hours to travel from Whitehorse to Fairbanks in just one day. Fairbanks is the end of our road, and our plane ride home was just a few hours away. We looked at a map, pointed the car compass north, and headed toward the Arctic Circle, traveling as far as the icy roads and ticking clock would allow.

The long last leg of our Far North adventure gave us plenty of time to reflect. We traveled 3,522 miles in 17 days -- 452 by Alaska ferry, the rest in our Ford Expedition. We hopped time zones six times, from Pacific to Mountain to Pacific to Alaska to Pacific to Alaska to Pacific. We visited two states, two provinces and one territory, and crossed the U.S.-Canadian border four times. We covered as many miles as if we had driven from Seattle to Miami.

The weather was shockingly beautiful almost every single day. The thermometer hit 35 on the first day of the trip; after that, it was rarely above freezing. Our record low was 20 below in Haines Junction, Yukon Territory. After awhile, plus 18 felt comfortably balmy. It only rained twice.

The nights grew longer the further north we traveled, but the full moon was outrageous over the Canadian prairie, and the stars in the Yukon were screamingly bright. On our next-to-last night, we saw the Northern Lights.

We slept in luxury resorts and a Super 8 motel. We enjoyed two nights in a cabin, comfortably warmed by a sturdy wood stove. A few meals were exceptional; a couple were bad. Jack sampled caribou and moose. We needed more time to exercise. We never got to ski, but had a fantastic day on dogsleds.

Our setbacks were minor. Jack fell into an icy creek. We lost the trail while deep in the woods. The main water pipe at our Seattle home broke just as we boarded an Alaskan ferry -- on Thanksgiving night, when plumbers' rates soar. We needed to get a doctor's prescription while in one of the tiniest towns on the entire trip. In every case, we plowed ahead, and everything turned out fine in the end.

We saw mice and moose, eagles and whales. We watched elk lock horns and sheep butt heads. The deer were fat, the coyotes fatter, and a porcupine waddled furiously on the ice near a glacier. Ravens were everywhere. We never saw a bear.

We cherished the dwindling daylight hours. We sat on a knoll as a black storm roared through the mountains to the south, while the low winter sun drenched the Canadian prairie to the north. We soaked in the scenery along Alaska's Inside Passage, on days so clear that the galley crew pulled each other outside to see the soaring snow-covered peaks.

We saw a lot of snow-covered peaks.

We spent a lot of time laughing, often at ourselves. We were often asked what the heck we were thinking, daring to travel north during this season of cold.

The answer was always easy. The scenery was killer, the roads and sidewalks and trails were uncrowded, and the people we met always had time to talk. The people were the best part of the trip.

There was the guy in Hinton, in northern Alberta. We were struggling to attach winter windshield wipers in a freezing wind. With a toothless grin and gnarled fingers, he stepped in and finished the job, then disappeared into the darkness.

There was the long-haul truck driver in Pine Creek, near the Yukon/Alaska border. As we sipped coffee by a wood stove, he shyly shared a giant notebook of his poetry -- sweet, simple ramblings about heartbreak and homesickness and loss.

There was Tiny -- an oversized man with a heart of gold who proudly gave us a tour through the belly of Alaska's newest ferry. There was William Hopkins, the captain of the same ferry, who awoke us at 3 in the morning to let us watch his crew pilot the giant ship through the most treacherous narrows along the Inside Passage.

At bed-and-breakfasts, most hosts shared a slice of their lives. One couple waited anxiously for the birth of their first grandchild (and e-mailed us news of his birth the next day). Another host told how he lost the fingers on both hands in a climbing accident on Denali. We ran into that same man many days later -- in a remote Yukon town -- and learned that we had a mutual acquaintance in, of all places, Katmandu.

In many ways, we saved the best for last. We loved the Yukon, and can't wait to head out on the Dempster Highway toward the Arctic Ocean someday. Whitehorse was a great town, and the people of the Yukon seemed the most at ease with themselves. We were embraced by Anne Tayler and her husband Frank Turner, owners of a dog sledding kennel. Their kitchen table -- surrounded by interesting people -- was the warmest place on the entire trip. We can now say we've mushed a champion team of dogs in the Yukon. Leslie says she is thinking of becoming a Canadian.

Many times on this journey, we've talked about what we'll do and where we'll go the next time we head to the Far North. But for now, we find ourselves at the 65th parallel, just one degree shy of the Arctic Circle. With time running out, we watch the midday December sun creep barely above the horizon, and dip our fingers into the ice and snow. It's the furthest north on the planet Earth we've ever been.

But we'll be back.

Jack Hamann is a correspondent with CNN's Environmental Unit and CNN NewsStand.

Previous story: Day 14: Real mushers don't say 'mush'

Coming next: CHAT - 12 noon ET, Monday, December 13: Join CNN's Jack Hamann in a chat about his trip on CNN.com/chat

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