Leg 3 Start the Alcan Highway

The Alaska Highway officially starts in Dawson Creek, British Columbia.  You may know the story, but for a refresher the highway was built as a strategic move of great importance during World War II.  Second in magnitude and engineering only to the Panama Canal, an amazing and almost unbelievable accomplishment . Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor and had her eyes on the Aleutian Islands, a mere 700 some miles from Japan.  Control the Aleutians, get Canada, get the U.S.!  So in 1942 work started and unbelievably was completed in about 10 months.  At that time it was a crude road but military vehicles could use it and supply American air bases in Alaska. The hurdles, the toil and trouble, the mega severe cold, the mosquitoes, all unbelievable.  The road was started in Dawson Creek with mile marker “0”.  So now we will start our journey, after almost 2000 miles (1977 to be exact) to get here.  Dawson Creek is a great little town, a little touristy, but can’t see how it wouldn’t be. We stayed at Mile “0” RV Park, a decent park but not much to write home about. So here are some typical Dawson Creek pictures, some are even required – you can’t proceed up the Highway without taking certain pictures.

#1 required shot.

And the group posing as required.

#2 required shot, the monument to the mile 0 in downtown.

#3 required shot, the actual mile marker 0.

And some shots around town:

Engineer pointing the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We actually have seen a few moose along the highway, but I loved this building painting.

It was just warm enough to have Happy Hour outside.

And sometimes we call Sally our pixie, so a pixie needs a pixie chair!

More Happy hour next day.

We have been seeing some critters along the way, including moose and bears and here we didn’t see in person, but obvious signs of beaver.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little work in progress, dang that is a big tree.

 

 

 

 

 

The dam in progress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Downstream, pleasant view.

 

 

 

From mile 0 we continue to Pink Mountain (nothing to do with Break Back mountain, sorry, named for the pink hue it attains at sunset) and the Sikanni River.  Campground is just out of Pink Mountain right on the Sikanni River appropriately called the Sikanni River Camp Ground.  Very dramatic as you come down this 10% very steep grade into this canyon, through which flows the river.  We had lots of up’s and down’s today, very steep grades, yet very little overall change in elevation.  Fuel mileage is definitely deteriorating.  Some views from the cockpit again:

At the Sikanni River Camp Ground, as per usual we try to share the best spots.  Mike and Sally scored on this one.

We really were antsy to fish here but the run off made the water too fast and too muddy, but what an awesome place.

Actually we all had really very nice places.

View down river, seemed like a good black and white composition. More local views:

I hiked up river and this is the type of dense forest one runs into, virtually impassible.  We will see this a lot, but imagine the folks building this road, they saw this at every turn.

The camera just can’t capture the uncountable shades of green in all these trees.

The owner of the CG suggested we try Muncho Lake for a great CG and possibly some Lake Trout fishing.  We scrapped our plans for Fort Nelson and Liard Hot Springs. Liard has natural hot springs that are well known and were first generally acknowledged when the road builder army guys discovered them. The Collingwood’s and Walter’s stopped to enjoy and check out the springs, even despite rain and cold weather.  We all met up again at Muncho Lake at the Strawberry Flats CG, a British Columbia Provincial Park. It was a long day for us, pushing 274 miles but oh so worth it.  What an awesome CG and we all found sites that backed up to the lake.  Maybe a 15 foot walk to the lake.

We had hoped to fish for some lake trout but found there was no tackle shop nor any place to get a license within 50 miles.  We did get to talk to a ranger who tacitly gave us permission (told us when he would be back with an indication that what he didn’t see might be O.K.). We tried our luck but were not successful (well I was, but in an odd way – stay tuned). Our biggest problem was that we couldn’t quite get out far enough, either with fly's or lures. Here is the guy that had the perfect set up:

This is called a tube boat or float boat.  Two inflatable tubes with a chair/seat in between. Propulsion is via your feet wearing fins.  Worked great.  This guy would go out to the drop-off line, cast a fly and troll by kicking his fins!  And he did very well, actually “knocked ‘em dead”.  Then the odd piece of luck (as afore mentioned), he hooked a nice lake trout and after landing it offered it to me – I suppose if I had him toss it to me I could say I caught it!  At any rate I cleaned it and cooked it for a happy hour snack. Pretty nice deal!

Here I am trying with my fly outfit.

(Yea, for the experts and purists, I know my back cast is just a little past 2 o’clock :-) )

The water really is this color green.  Some sort of copper oxide gives it this intense emerald hue.

Took a nice hike the next day and were rewarded with some nice views.  Here the gals are capturing some of the view from the trail.

Here are some of our folks just enjoying the day at this fabulous lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this final view, gad what a place!

Next stop Watson Lake.  Just to help us not feel too bad about leaving it was cold and rainy this morning. 

So here we go, come rain, or shine, or whatever, we forge on….continuing on our quest, “North to Alaska”.

You know even in the rain, or whatever we are dealt, it is still exciting, still wonderful, and still beautiful.  Next stop Watson Lake and the “Sign Post Forest”. See next post.

Leg 2 into Canada

We left early a.m. (before 8a) with the thought to get to the border early.  It is Monday 5/24 which also is a big Holiday in Canada, Victoria Day. We arrived at the border about 8:40 and were delighted to find no line at all. But quickly undelighted to find out we were selected for a detailed inspection. Out of all 4 rigs, and a few behind us, we were singled out.  Some of the group thought it had to do with wearing a cowboy hat (don’t cowboys always have six shooters), some thought it had to do with facial hair. The group consensus was the beard! We were directed to drive into a bay or a big barn. The doors were shut and we were directed to get out and wait while the inspection went on, this after being asked every which way they could think of about where we hid our weapons. (Shoot, we remembered a sling shot on board and visions of the Canadian Hoosegow jumped into our heads.)  It really feels invasive to have some foreign officials searching all the nooks and crannies of your home with you not being there. At any rate about 45 minutes later we passed and were allowed to proceed.

We arrived Fort Macleod, Daisy May CG about 11:30, just in time to see a huge throng of “Victoria Day” campers heading home.  Very nice CG on the Oldman River, yep just like the song.

Looked better the next day in some sun light.

Here are all our rigs lined up:

and below getting ready to go, looks like a Le Mans start!

One of the attractions of Fort Macleod is the Head-Smashed-in buffalo jump.  This is not the only buffalo jump around, but certainly one of the better known and better displays. The museum on the site is excellent including a very well done movie. Definitely gets into the Canadian Indian culture and history.  The Indians figured a way to drive the buffalo, in a stampede mode, off a cliff and consequently harvest the meat, bones and hide. Sounds a little brutal but when you think about it no worse than McDonalds harvesting beef for a quarter pounder.  And, by the way, it was no simple task and definitely not without plenty of risk.  Here is a depiction of the cliff inside the museum.

  and here is the actual cliff they used.

We spied this marmot, actually not the first one of our trip.

And on our way back to camp we actually found a legitimate herd of buffalo (all below the cliffs – expect their relatives might have clued them in, eh?)

Our plan was to proceed to Sundre, Alberta the next day to visit with our good HitchHiker friends Jan and Al Wagner (Trap to the HH folks).  Fortunately, we decided to call and touch bass with Trap.  We discovered that somewhere along the line the dates of our arrival had been confused. Al and Jan were on holiday, their spring camping shake down trip, and camped about 40 minutes from us. They came over for a great visit, albeit not quite as long as planned originally, but certainly enjoyable.

Our journey, at the great suggestion of the Wagner's, took us along the old “cowboy trail”, highway 22.  The vast majority of travelers take the major route highway 2 up to Edmonton.  The 22 adds maybe an hour or so overall but what a great way to go.  Rather than flat farm land you travel in the foothills and ranch land close to the base of the Rockies. Very picturesque, much more interesting and tons of beautiful horse and/or cattle ranches.

Another “view from the cockpit” of the drive.

In the town of Sundre, a great little town, we stayed at Greenwood RV park, a city run park with nice trees and next to the Red Deer River. Beautiful park, nice spaces and a stones throw, short walk to the local cowboy bar (where amongst other pleasures we were able to watch the final “American Idol” show!).

While we were at Sundre and the others had stopped at the Bar U Ranch we decided to drive out and peek at Trap’s place, a great decision.  Very pretty countryside, close to town but definitely in the country. The Wagner’s have a wonderful place with great looking horses and a marvelous view.  The day was far from perfect for pictures but you will get the feel.

Wagner’s home (Roxy wishing she could go talk to the horses).

View out the front!

From the road coming in.

And couple of horse shots, sorry non of the animals would reveal their names.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Sundre, Alberta we travelled on to a small town called Entwistle. More scenic travel up the “Cowboy Trail”.  We stayed at our first Provincial Park (like a State Park) in the woods near the Pembina River.  We are discovering that Alberta, and soon British Columbia and the Yukon Territory, have a huge abundance of water – rivers, streams, lakes everywhere. When we arrived the poplars were seeding, shedding their seeds in cotton tufts (much like Cotton Wood trees do) so much it looked like it was snowing. Beautiful wooded sights, poplars, aspen, and conifers. Sites are a little tight and sometimes tricky to get into, but certainly worth it.

 

Sally standing on a big aspen, pretending to have knocked it down.  Like I said sites can be tight to get into, this tree was knocked down by someone (?) trying to get into a site, if you look close you can see tire tracks on the sign post too. (It was not Mike who knocked it down, in case you made the wrong connection. Nor, for the record, was it your author!) Here is our camp site, awesome!

 

And here is a view of the Pembina River.

Muddy with snow and rain run off, we will find clearer rivers as we travel north. Still great sights.

On May 26 we head for the town of Valleyview, Alberta. Not a very big town, just a stopping place.  Everyone but us stayed in town at a place called Sherk’s while we pushed on a little out of town to stay at another Provincial park on Lake Sturgeon, Williams Park. Turned out to be a great park with great wooded sites. This park even had free fire wood, really like these Prov parks.

And Lake Sturgeon:

Even had a nice park area for kids and I liked the color impact of the slide:

Then in the evening we enjoy a cocktail and free firewood.  (It definitely is starting to stay light quite late.)

Next stop and next post is Dawson City, the official start of the Alaska or Alcan Highway and mile marker “0”.