Unfortunately in Northrend, you are pretty much obligated to do some gather quests, or you'll miss some epic quest lines. I couldn't figure out why my "Wrathgate" line wouldn't open up on my Draenei team until I went to Wowhead, and found a couple gather/vehicle quests that originally I didn't want to do. It was the same with opening all of the airship dailies, there's a few gather quests there as well.