REMOTE ALASKA ROAD TRIP TURNS INTO A NIGHTMARE // Hasta Alaska // S05E02

Last time on Asta Alaska, after many years of driving north we finally arrived at the final frontier and in the town of Haines experienced everything we had ever dreamed of for our Alaskan adventure. However that was only part of the story so now let us show you how this Alaskan dream turned into a nightmare. We pick up our story in the tiny rural town of Haines, Alaska. The month is August and Haines is enjoying a particularly good salmon season. We'd been staying with Chad and his family learning about life in Alaska and how they maintain a subsistence lifestyle in the far north. Chad was currently in the process of filling his freezer in preparation for winter. These are Alaska king crab. And had provided the Kombi crew with some truly unforgettable meals in the process. So the Kombi crew decided to combine our collective fishing skills to see if we could put a meal on the table. Let's go exploring. Because they're all houses. Let's do this. How much more space do you have in here? Nooooooo. Noooo. Angela what happened? Noooo. The salmon run is super important to any subsistence fed Alaska family. In Alaska as a resident we have a privilege to go out and harvest what Alaska and the land and the ocean has to to give us. So the salmon run would have to be the greatest of our subsistence lifestyle in that we depend on it so heavily. The salmon is here for a reason and they're packed full of the nutrients, the vitamin, vitamin D, everything that we need to sustain through the winter. It's a huge part of our diet. It feeds us three or four times a week. And without that salmon run then we're devastated as far as our winter foods go. Wow that's a big one. That's a very big one. Yeah. Chad told us that this was a big male pink salmon also known as humpies for the way their bodies change as they're beginning to spawn. Most Alaskans don't eat these as they can catch better fish but we weren't Alaskan and this was the best we could do. I'm sorry. Disappointed with not catching a salmon myself I went in search of an easier target. That kind of fish. Wait, wait, wait. Didn't you just pick it up? Yeah. Didn't see that coming did you buddy? He's strong man. Being finally caught a fish. No I smell like that. As you've probably guessed these salmon are not good to eat. They've already spawned, expended all their energy and are waiting for nature to take its course. It's part of nature's natural cycle but it's kind of sad. I wish I could have rescued them all. All of this good clean Alaskan fun was a welcome distraction from a serious problem that had recently developed with our Kombi and it was a problem that we wouldn't be able to ignore. So your van all busted up? Mine is always busted up. That's part of having a Volkswagen isn't it? Yep. Volkswagen. Turning owners into mechanics for over 60 years. But the cool factor. My truck has a cool factor. It's true our Kombi was in need of some serious attention. Let me bring you up to speed. Things actually began to turn bad for us pretty quickly after crossing the Alaskan border in the first town we came to which was Skagway. We just had a lot of noise coming from the transmission. Checked the there's an oil leak under underneath the car. I thought it was just regular Volkswagen oil leak but it's a different coloured oil. This is the first time I've seen this problem. I'm assuming it's coming from our gearbox. That's engine oil and that's transmission oil. Bad. Okay. Bad is the problem. To get to that seal we have to take the engine out. I don't want to do that but it is leaking pretty badly. You're not going to believe this there's no mechanics in town. The closest one is right here. No it just came from my home. There's no mechanics in town how is that possible? That means that there's going to be some very resourceful Alaskans that are going to have to talk to somebody to do this job. We were disappointed but hardly surprised at this new problem manifesting itself after tackling the Alaska highway. The best we could do in Skagway was top up the oil and pray to the Kombi gods that the problem was solved. By the time we arrived in Haines we knew that it wasn't. Beer time. Everything will be okay. It's just a bump in the road. There's a lot of bumps in the road Leo. This will be funny one day when you look back on it. No. There's a saying that says it's only an adventure when something goes wrong but I've had all of those kind of adventures now. I've had lots of things going wrong and yes it's been a crazy adventure. I just want some regular kind of getting to where we were intending to get to kind of adventure. That would be nice. Luckily Chad also owned a Volkswagen and you can bet that any VW owner who lives in rural Alaska is a pretty good mechanic. There was a small chance the strange shady noise that we'd been hearing was coming from our CV joints. So we ripped off the failed boots for the 100th time and went about inspecting and re-greasing them. This is a job I've done many times on this journey and it's probably one of my least favourite. Dirty work. The good news is that Chad was less of a pansy than myself and made short work of the job and our CV joints turned out to be just fine. The bad news is well pretty friggin bad. I wish it was the engine that was broken this time. You can usually fix that. The only thing that hasn't broken on this bus so far since I left Chile is the transmission. So obviously the transmission is broken now. We've only just arrived in Alaska and there's big chunks of metal coming out of the transmission. It sounds terrible. It's a time bomb. The distances here are huge. It would have been foolish to ignore this problem and attempt to tackle the most remote section of this journey so far as the chances of becoming stranded was extremely high. But finding this rare transmission we needed was proving impossible and we looked everywhere. Alaska no. Lower 48 no. Canada no. UK no. Australia no. We've looked everywhere. We knew owning a South American Kombi could sometimes be difficult and being this far north would also present new challenges but we were fast running out of answers and we were also fast running out of time to explore Alaska. The fireweed had already begun to turn to seed which is a universal sign across the north that the seasons are changing and winter is coming. Even if I fix this thing now I'm not going to have enough time to explore Alaska and I've spent almost four years driving here so I kind of feel like I should explore Alaska. This is going to be probably the most expensive and difficult repair that I've had to do so far right at the end when I'm just about to give away the bus. With not enough time and still no solution it's fair to say this was a nightmare but I wasn't the only member of the Kombi crew that this would affect. My hands all over the place. What are you thinking about? Leaving you in Alaska again. It's so hard. If we can't continue our journey right at the bottom of Alaska we can't get to the top and we all have to split up. There's no way for anyone to get north from there's no public transport. I'll try traveling hitchhiking mostly. I really think that's my only option actually. I'm trying to go up to the arctic circle. I have my tent and my camping stuff with me. I don't have a home, you don't have a home. I don't know where to go. I'm not allowed to be in the states anymore either on my visa so I have to leave North America and I'm trying to pack my backpack which I haven't seen since I arrived in Chile. It's been stashed away in this bus since then three and a half years ago. I'm just trying to see what I need to take with me. I don't know where I'm going whether it's going to be tropical or it's going to be cold whether I'm going to the other side of the world. I have no idea. I've just got to get out of here before winter comes which it is coming quick. Can I take the dog with me? I don't know. And you? I found a job and a house in Canada I think. I don't know anybody. Start all over again. 31 single homeless and jobless. It was an extremely sad day to have to split up the combi crew. We'd shared many miles on the journey north and we had hoped to make it to the arctic circle as a team. The seasons are against us now. Snow's coming soon. It's going to snow and Capito is going to get buried and we're not going to be able to drive anywhere so we have to wait until spring to go exploring in Alaska. And here lies Capito, famous V-Dub traveler and pain in the butt. We now find ourselves in a logistical nightmare. Somehow we have to go and find a transmission that only exists in South America. We have to leave the combi here in Haines to fight the harsh Alaskan winter alone. We still don't know what we're going to do with Alaska the dog but now I have to leave North America. Leah has to get to Canada and right at this minute we have no way of escaping from Haines.