The End | Lost & Found EP.15
This is it! The final installment of Lost & Found. Thank you all for being here for it and all the previous episodes!
View from our last camp spot in Alaska
After leaving Canwell Glacier is was time to start making our way out of Alaska towards the lower 48. Sadly, we had a few pressing “hard dates” on our calendar that forced us to compress our timeline. However we made stop in Fairbanks to have some much needed time with our family!
Family photo at the site of my parents new cabin in Alaska
Can’t take us anywhere
While visiting my brother, my parents fell in love with Alaska (sound familiar) about two years ago and decided to buy some land. They’ve been in the process of building a small, off the grid cabin. We all made the trip out to check the progress of the foundation and took the opportunity to take our annual Christmas card photo!
With negative COVID tests in hand, we headed for the border but stopped just shy to spend the night in a wilderness preserve on the edge of a beautiful lake. We arrived just as the last light of day was fading from the sky.
We woke to the most incredible last morning in Alaska. A heavy fog had rolled in overnight and was putting on quite a show over the lake. We spend a few hours taking it in and watching the ever changing landscape. We were both reluctant to get in the truck that day. Neither one of us wanted to leave.
MAK paddling Lake Kluane
For the first time in months, we were no longer in Alaska. We chose not to drive far that day and instead opted to camp along side Lake Kluane. We’d first driven past it on our way north when the border was still technically closed. So we used this opportunity to stop and take in the incredible area for a little longer.
We enjoyed a quiet few days of paddling on the lake, catching up on our omnipresent work, and moving slow in preparation for the long days of driving ahead of us. Lake Kluane, in our humble opinion, should be on everyone’s bucket list. Its rugged surroundings are a stark contrast to the brilliant clear blue water.
Night sky over Lake Kluane
Roxanne on the long drive south
We were treated to the first milky way we’d seen since coming north. The lack of night didn’t make for many opportunities to get our beloved night shots, so we made up for lost time by getting up at all hours of the night managing two camera’s doing time lapses.
No idea where this was taken, one of many camp spots on our drive south
MAK checking out a roadside dock
We made it to the famous Sign Post Forest!
Eventually we made it to Watson Lake, which is home to the famous sign post forest. Everyone that knew we were headed north asked if we’d be stopping here, and to be honest, neither one of us thought this stop would be anything of note. We’ve seen our fair share of road-side attractions from balls of yarn to rock stacks painted in bright colors… But this was something else entirely.
Roxanne & Owen in front of the Sign Post Forest
I’m not afraid to admit when we are wrong, and we were absolutely wrong about the sign post forest.
Owen taking in the over 50,000 signs in the forest
Started my a US Army soldier that was helping build the road to Alaska, he left a sign stating the distance to his hometown in the Midwest. Ever since, travelers have left signs of their own to their hometowns, signs documenting their trip, and memorials to loved one’s who are no longer with us. It was a joy to be surrounded by so much optimism. It was the reminder we needed as we’d been carrying around some end of trip gloom.
Our view from camp in Squamish
Our last stop in Canada was in beautiful Squamish. We found an incredible camp spot above the tree-line with unbroken views of glaciers across the valley.
Having spent days sitting, we found a lovely hike that climbed high into the mountain to get our blood pumping and to give us views of the sound below.
When we crossed the border back into the US, we were heavy with emotions. It’s not uncommon for us to fall in love with places we visit, but Alaska was something different. We were sad to be gone but happy to know that Alaska is not going anywhere. This will absolutely not be our last trip to The Final Frontier, but for now, we have so much more left to explore.
We can’t thank you all enough for being here with us for this series. It was equal parts challenging and rewarding to bring to life. We hope that you’ve enjoyed the series and I promise that you have not heard the last of us yet!
We have a few exciting things that I wanted to quickly share before I let you all go. We’re started a Patreon page! If you’d like to support our travels and filmmaking. That will be a space where we will be sharing the more intimate details of life on the road and announcing new projects and things to come. We also are hosting a group trip to Alaska next summer, which will likely be the first time we return since filming the series. Last but not least, we have prints available for purchase from the series if there are any that spoke to you. You all are the wind at our backs, thank you from the bottom of our hearts! This has been an incredible journey!
Love, MAK (& Owen)
Thank you to our sponsors
These brands made it possible for us to document our travels through Alaska and turn it into this series. Without their support none of this could happen. We are forever grateful to have brands we already use and love on our side to help us create something we’re proud of!
Our work life is powered by Battle Born. They make the best lithium batteries on the market and are a crucial part of our power system that enables us to work from the road! It took an incredible amount of power to create this series, and we have Battle Born to thank for making it possible.
Power and power management are key to living and working full time from the road. Our mobile lives run on a Redarc Manager 30. It’s a state-of-the-art battery management system that charges and maintains auxiliary batteries by incorporating AC, DC and solar inputs. We’re not sure where we’d be without it!
We’ve now been living out of our flat-bed Four Wheel Camper for 3 years. FWC builds comfortable and durable campers that can fit on any truck. We can confidently say that our FWC is the most comfortable and livable rig we’ve had in all our years on the road!
Maps are your best friend when you’re on the road. On X makes it easy to find open routes and trails no matter where we are. On X allows us to access saved maps offline so we can locate ourselves in the wild when there’s no service.
Main Line Overland is the shop that built our rig, Roxanne. They are incredibly knowledgable on everything overlanding. We chose to work with them because they build thoughtful, reliable and durable vehicles that can get you anywhere you want to be!
Tires can be some of the best insurance when you are out in remote places. We love and trust our Toyo ATIII’s to get us in and out safely, no matter the terrain. They’re amazing in mud, moon dust, loose rocks, slick rock, you name it!
We’ve trusted our Jetboil cooking systems for years. Our favorite, the Flash Cooking system is lightweight, compact and perfect for any trip!
