Travel guide
A working guide to the town where the Alaska Highway meets the Haines Road — how to get here, what the seasons are really like, and what to know before you drive into the Saint Elias Mountains.
The place
Haines Junction exists because two roads meet here. The Alaska Highway runs east to west through the Shakwak Valley on its long way from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Delta Junction, Alaska. The Haines Road turns south off it and drops through the Saint Elias Mountains to tidewater at Haines, Alaska. The corner where the two meet is historic Mile 1016, and it is the only community of any size for a long way in all three directions.
Long before either road, this was Dakwäkäda — “high cache” in Southern Tutchone — a place where Champagne and Aishihik First Nations people stored food in raised log caches while hunting and fishing the surrounding valleys. The village that grew out of the 1942 highway construction camp sits inside that traditional territory. The First Nation's Da Kų Cultural Centre, whose name means “our house”, is the largest building in town and also houses the Parks Canada visitor centre for Kluane National Park and Reserve. Its opening season changes, so check with Parks Canada before you plan a day around it.
About 700 people live here — small enough to walk end to end in twenty minutes, large enough to have fuel, groceries, a school, a health centre and somewhere to sleep. On this stretch of highway that combination makes it an unusually important town. Most visitors use it as a base rather than a pass-through, because the mountains that make Kluane worth the trip begin just west of the last street.
Getting here
Every approach to Haines Junction is a drive worth doing in daylight. None of them is a shortcut.
158 km · about 2 hours · paved, year-round
The approach most visitors take, and the easy one. The Alaska Highway leaves Whitehorse heading northwest, follows the Takhini River valley west past Champagne, then swings into the Shakwak Valley. For the last half hour the front peaks of the Saint Elias fill the windshield and keep growing, which is usually the moment people understand why a national park is out here. Two hours is the driving time, not the trip time — you will stop.
246 km · about 4 hours · international border
The Haines Road, Yukon Highway 3, climbs from tidewater at the head of the Lynn Canal over Chilkat Pass and out onto a high, treeless alpine plateau before dropping into Haines Junction. It is one of the most dramatic short highways on the continent. It also crosses an international border, so everyone in the vehicle needs travel documents, and it is exposed country that holds weather and snow long after the valleys have cleared. Check conditions on both sides before you commit to it outside high summer.
About 320 km to the border · 4–5 hours
Coming southeast from the Alaska border, the highway runs the length of Kluane Lake — the largest lake lying entirely within Yukon — with the Kluane Ranges on one side and open water on the other. It is the most beautiful stretch of the Alaska Highway and also the emptiest. Plan fuel around Beaver Creek, Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay rather than assuming something will be open between them.
| Destination | Distance | Route |
|---|---|---|
| Whitehorse | 158 km | Alaska Highway, east |
| Kluane Lake | 60 km | Alaska Highway, northwest |
| Destruction Bay | 106 km | Alaska Highway, northwest |
| Burwash Landing | 125 km | Alaska Highway, northwest |
| Beaver Creek | 290 km | Alaska Highway, northwest |
| Haines, Alaska | 246 km | Haines Road, south |
Kluane
Kluane protects roughly 22,000 square kilometres of the Saint Elias Mountains, and most of it is ice. The park holds the largest non-polar icefields on earth, and at their centre stands Mount Logan: 5,959 metres, the highest mountain in Canada and the second highest in North America. Almost none of that is visible from the road. What you see from Haines Junction are the Kluane Ranges, the park's front wall. The giants sit behind them, out of sight, and that takes a while to absorb.
Together with Wrangell–St. Elias and Glacier Bay in Alaska and Tatshenshini-Alsek in British Columbia, Kluane forms one of the largest protected areas on the planet — a transboundary site inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979 for its glaciers, its icefields and the grizzly, Dall sheep and caribou that live among them.
On a normal schedule there are two ways in on foot. Kathleen Lake, south of the village on the Haines Road, is the main day-use area, with the King's Throne route climbing the cirque above it. Closer to town, the Auriol Trail loops roughly 15 km from spruce forest up into subalpine meadow. Both are established, signed routes — but this is a wilderness park with real bears, real weather and real water crossings. Get current conditions and a safety briefing from Parks Canada, not from a trail app.
The other way to see Kluane is from the air. Flightseeing over the icefields operates out of Haines Junction and is the only practical way to grasp the scale of what sits behind the front ranges. Ask locally about who is flying, and book with room in your schedule — the weather decides, not the calendar.
The year
At 60.75° north the year is shaped by light more than by temperature. Four very different trips share one address.
Close to nineteen hours of daylight around the solstice, and twilight rather than true darkness for what is left of the night. This is hiking, paddling and road-trip season: the highway carries most of its yearly traffic and every bed in the village can be spoken for on a busy weekend, so book ahead. Mosquitoes in the forest are a genuine planning consideration. Bring repellent, not optimism.
The best-value season and the one most people miss. The tundra and the aspen turn, the mosquitoes stop, the highway empties out, and real darkness returns — which means the aurora becomes visible again while the roads are still straightforward. Nights drop below freezing. Bring layers you would not have needed in August.
Cold, quiet and spectacular. Haines Junction sits under the auroral oval and has exactly what aurora viewing needs: long dark nights, dry inland air and almost no light pollution. Walk to the edge of the village and the sky is genuinely black. Daylight shrinks to under six hours at the solstice. The Alaska Highway stays open and plowed through the winter, but travel it with winter tires, a full tank and a schedule you are willing to break.
Breakup. Days lengthen fast, the valleys clear well before the passes do, and wildlife comes down to the roadsides — the best time of year to see bears from a vehicle and the worst time to be careless around them. Seasonal services come back at different times, so confirm rather than assume.
On the road
The Alaska Highway is 2,232 km of ordinary two-lane road through extraordinary country. Nearly everything that goes wrong for visitors comes down to underestimating the gaps between things.
Stations can be a hundred kilometres or more apart, and out here an unexpected closure is not a rounding error. Treat half a tank as empty and top up in every community you pass through.
Coverage exists in the communities and largely disappears between them. Download offline maps before you leave Whitehorse, carry a paper backup, and tell someone your route and expected arrival.
Frost heaves, gravel breaks, wildlife and construction all pull the average speed down. Add margin, and try not to be driving at dusk and dawn, when moose and bears are moving and hardest to see.
Yukon 511 publishes current road reports, closures and camera images for the territory at 511yukon.ca. In winter and shoulder season, check it before you leave the parking lot rather than the night before.
A spare tire you can actually fit, jumper cables, water, warm layers and food enough for a night. Help exists out here and people do stop. It is simply not close.
Yukon stays on UTC−7 all year and does not observe daylight saving time, so local clocks never change — but the difference from home will shift twice a year. Worth knowing before you book a flight out of Whitehorse.
Base camp
Kluane Park Inn sits at 996 Alaska Highway, on the corner where the two roads meet — twenty rooms, a restaurant, a bar and lounge, a full-hookup RV park, and a laundromat and car wash open 24 hours, which matters more than it sounds after four days of gravel.
Twenty single, double and triple rooms with free Wi-Fi, a short walk from the Kluane visitor centre.
See the roomsChinese and Western dishes, plus a bar and lounge — a hot meal at the end of a long highway day.
See the restaurantFull hookups on the highway, with the 24-hour laundromat and car wash on the same lot.
See the RV parkThe hotel and restaurant are open from 12PM to 12AM. Call (867) 634-2261 to book direct, or follow the links above for details on each.
(867) 634-2261Before you go
About 158 km west of Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway — a paved, year-round drive of roughly one and a half to two hours. Haines Junction is the last community of any size before Kluane National Park and Reserve.
Yes. Kluane National Park and Reserve is part of a transboundary UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1979, shared with Wrangell–St. Elias and Glacier Bay in Alaska and Tatshenshini-Alsek in British Columbia. It is recognised for its glaciers and icefields and for the grizzly, Dall sheep and caribou populations they support.
Haines Junction lies under the auroral oval and has dark, dry skies with very little light pollution, so the aurora is regularly visible during the dark months, roughly from late autumn through early spring. Summer nights are too bright: around the solstice this latitude gets close to nineteen hours of daylight and no real darkness at all.
Yes. The Haines Road between Haines Junction and Haines, Alaska crosses an international border, so every traveller in the vehicle needs valid travel documents. Confirm current entry requirements and border crossing hours with the Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection before you travel.
The Parks Canada visitor centre for Kluane National Park and Reserve is in Haines Junction, inside the Da Kų Cultural Centre it shares with the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations. Its operating season and hours vary, so check parks.canada.ca before planning a day around it.
About 320 km northwest on the Alaska Highway, a drive that runs most of the length of Kluane Lake. Destruction Bay, Burwash Landing and Beaver Creek are the communities along the way. Services are far apart on this stretch, so refuel whenever you can rather than waiting for the next town.
Yukon is on UTC−7 year-round and does not observe daylight saving time, so clocks in Haines Junction never change. Plan connections in Whitehorse with that in mind if you are travelling from a place that does change its clocks.