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.
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