FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- It was sunny and beautiful here last week, temperature in the mid-60s. I walked around the campus of the University of Alaska in shirtsleeves.

My wife and I stopped at the farmer's market, which was much bigger than markets in Augusta or Waterville. The summer is short but the days are very long, so vegetables grow quickly, and some reach unusual size. I bought a kohlrabi (a member of the cabbage family) larger than a grapefruit. The locally grown tomatoes are large and juicy.

All this will end soon. We had our first frost on Wednesday night. Temperatures dipped into the 20s in some areas near town.

A professor friend says we can expect the first snow in mid-September. That's before autumn officially begins!

The drive from Augusta to Fairbanks was about 5,000 miles -- a bit longer than the 4,700 predicted by Google maps.

It was largely uneventful. We drove through major rainstorms in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. We went through Canadian customs in North Dakota; that took about 10 minutes.

I stopped complaining about U.S. gas prices the first time I filled the tank in Canada. The price was $1.29 per liter -- about $4.91 a gallon. That translates to about $4.53 in U.S. dollars.

We had been warned that as we drove north in Canada the roads would deteriorate and travel would be slow. That did not happen. The roads were, indeed, two lanes, but traffic was very light -- sometimes we drove half an hour or more without seeing another car going either direction. When there was traffic, it moved along steadily. The roads had frequent passing lanes allowing us to get around trucks and RVs.

The speed limit usually was 110 kilometers per hour -- 68 miles per hour -- although traffic moved a bit faster than that. In the entire trip through Canada, we saw just one traffic cop.

Some trip highlights:

We decided to do a load of laundry at the motel in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. A sign at the washing machine indicated $1 per load. I assumed that meant four quarters and went to the front desk to get change.

"No, you use a loonie," he said. Loonie? That's a Canadian one dollar coin, with Queen Elizabeth on the front and a loon on the back.

We stopped in Fort Nelson, British Columbia, one night and went to dinner at Dan's Neighbourhood Pub, which reminded me a bit of the Liberal Cup in Hallowell. The Red Sox were playing Detroit on the TV in the bar. Made me feel at home.

But the greatest excitement was on the stretch of road between Fort Nelson and Watson Lake in Yukon Territory.

This was by far the most beautiful stretch of the trip, with soaring snow-capped mountains and lush forests. Road signs and guidebooks warned us to be on the lookout for animals. Good advice.

First came the moose. There were big moose and small moose along the road. We saw more moose in one day than I've seen in nine years living in Maine.

A bit later, a bear scampered across the road.

Then we came across a herd of caribou that wanted to play with us. It was good-sized herd -- perhaps a dozen. We pulled over to take pictures. Most of the animals scattered as we approached but two stuck around.

They paced our car, running along the side of the road, slowing as we slowed, speeding up as we did. If we made a move to speed up and go around them, they moved in front of the car in the middle of the road.

They kept this up for several minutes. Eventually, they tired of the game and ran into the woods.

A few miles later we met another herd and repeated the game.

Signs told us to be on the lookout for Stone Sheep, and we were not disappointed. They were at the side of the road. They were a little more skittish than the caribou but didn't seem afraid.

Finally, we saw buffalo -- a herd of perhaps 20 huge animals in the middle of the road and on both sides. They are truly enormous but never seemed threatening.

We stopped for pictures, waited for them to move aside and continued driving.

What an amazing day.

We continued on and stopped at Liard Hot Springs -- a natural hot water spring where I soaked briefly in water that ranged from 90 to 110 degrees. The springs turn this area into a tropical forest, with fish and game not normally found this far north.

We wanted to go to a spring a bit further into the forest, but the path was closed. A sign on the gate warned that an unfriendly bear was in the area.

We crossed back into the United States near Tok, Alaska. Customs took about five minutes. I had let the gas tank get low, figuring on less expensive gas in the U.S.

It was, cheaper, but not by much. Border gas stations are into gouging. The price was $3.98 per gallon at one station; $3.53 at another. It's about $3.14 here in Fairbanks.

Now, the travel is done and the rest of the adventure begins -- living in a place where it snows in September and the temperatures dip to 50 below zero.

I'll share those experiences with you in this column and in a blog that will start in the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel later this week. Watch the paper and the Web for details.

I'll never match Andy Molloy as a wildlife photographer, but I'll try to post pictures of "our" caribou and buffalo.

David B. Offer is the retired executive editor of the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel. He is spending a year as the C.W. Snedden professor of journalism at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. E-mail davidboffer@hotmail.com.