Along the Alaska Canada Highway

We drove west out of Edmonton on Tuesday morning, headed northwest. We got as far as Grande Prairie that night.  The road to Grande Prairie was across, well, a grand prairie.  We departed the next morning headed towards Fort Nelson, British Columbia.  It rained all the way from Grande Prairie to Dawson Creek., the official start of the Alaskan Highway.

We stopped in Dawson Creek, 2000 miles from Show Low, and wandered around long enough to see the visitor center and the Alaska Highway House for a very nice exhibit on the building of the Alcan during WWII. It seems a group of Japanese attacked Hawaii and this somehow made Alaska strategically important.  Important enough that it deserved a road.  So in March of 1942 one group of soldiers started north from Dawson Creek while at the same time a second unit started building south from Fairbanks, AK.  More than 11,000 troops penetrated 1500 miles of mountains and muskeg in freezing temperatures.  I don't know what a "muskeg" is, but they got over it and both units met only 8 months later, completing the road.  The road was bulldozed through the wilderness, using 90 degree turns and 25% grades and logs for paving.  Since then, someone paved it with regular road material. And straightened out a lot of it. Thank goodness!

Dawson Creek also had some interesting murals painted on the back walls and fences of the town. Marsha took this shot  of one of them.

Our neighbors in Show Low, Ron and Bonnie, once tried a motor home trip to Alaska but got no further than Dawson Creek, where it rained on them steady for two weeks.  We found the rain stopped a mile or two north of D.C., but that was then and this was now. Heading north we found a Y where a wide paved road went to the left while a narrow track headed to the right.  Naturally, the Alcan was on the right. The right was also windy.  Really windy.

We got only as far as Fort St. John and its Walmart parking lot, where the Canadian flag appeared to be starched straight out.  Too much work at the wheel, so we quit for the day.

We did a walking trail on the edge of town and had dinner at a Saigon Noodle place at the mall (which closed nightly at 6 pm). We briefly considered going to see Star Wars: Into the Darkness, but the 3D glasses and $13 price (senior rate) made us re-think it.  










Gas in Fort St. John was $136.9 a liter, or  $5.18 a US gallon.  We tried to top off at the Flying J but there was no one home and the pump didn't want to take my credit card, so we headed north.  Big mistake.

We got to Fort Nelson in the middle of the afternoon and pulled into the Triple G Campground.  We managed to get all this way from Show Low without buying space in a campground, since we had visits with Cousins JoLene and Steve, then neighbours Rick and Geri. Places with regular showers.  But Marsha figures we are bound for Provincal campgrounds for the next few days so she needed a shower tonight.  Cost: $40.  But it did include water.

Gas here is $6 a gallon (US) so we should have topped off in Fort St. John.  I'd never before actually seen $5 gas in my whole life, and today we sailed way past that mark.  We had the whole afternoon to see Fort Nelson, which took between five and ten minutes. But, ok, we needed some time at home to use our computers.  By the way, the weather is still really nice.  67 degrees and dry. The forests are very thick, with a mix of Fir and Aspen.  I never knew Aspens would grow at 2000 ft elevation but they do.  This area is an "energy"  boom town.  We assume that means oil. There are drilling companies everywhere.  And lots of trucks.

Tomorrow we visit the bank for a mortgage, then buy 80 gallons of gas and move on towards the west a bit.  Muncho Lake maybe.  Stay tuned.