The Alaska Highway

While in Dawson Creek, we saw an excellent film on the building of the highway by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1942. The Japanese threat to Alaska was so severe that the U.S. decided to build a road from Dawson Creek, BC to Fairbanks, AK, some 1,500 miles away.
They started in November of 1942 and completed the project in only 8 months! (Too bad CalTrans can’t complete something this quickly!!) During the construction period, the Japanese attacked and occupied several islands in Alaska’s Aleutian Chain, but never ventured further toward Alaska’s mainland.

Tuesday morning, bright and early, we loaded our rigs and headed up the Alaska Highway toward Ft. Nelson, some 300 miles north. We’re far enough north that the days are about 17 hours long, and it’s dark for only about 5-6 hours a night. It makes for a short sleep for those who must have it dark to sleep. It’ll get worse as we move even further north, and the days get closer to the summer solstice on June 21st.

The highway crosses beautiful country; wide valleys of grain and hay production. As we move further north, the vegetation is mostly timber, heavily forested with spruce and birch. In early afternoon, we arrived at Fort Nelson, BC, where we set up camp at the Fort Nelson Truck Stop and RV Park. We fueled up, paying the highest price of the trip (so far), $5.63 per gallon, and we’re still averaging 9 miles per gallon. It’s an expensive trip, but I doubt if it’ll get any cheaper in the years to come.

The weather in Fort Nelson was great! We’d have put on our shorts, but there were mosquitoes about, and we didn’t want to become dinner for them. The town was originally established by the North West Fur Trading Co. in 1805. It was rebuilt several times after being destroyed by fire and flood. The present town is the fifth site. It was surprising to learn that as recently as the 1950’s, Fort Nelson was still without power, telephones, running water or doctors.

We left Fort Nelson on Wednesday morning and headed through the Canadian Rockies to Muncho Lake, about 160 miles north. At a couple of spots, we saw Stone Sheep on the road. They like to lick the road salt from the highway, and are not particularly cautious of cars. We also saw several black bear and a young caribou, but were unable to take pictures of them.

On this section of our journey, we began to see more challenging road conditions. We had a 30-mile stretch where road crews were spraying oil on the road and spreading sand on the oil. This made for very dusty conditions, and since traffic had been stopped by a flag person, we were all bunched up and breathing dust. We also began to see “frost heaves”, where moisture froze under the road and the resulting ice caused bumps to appear. They are well marked for the most part, but it’s important to slow down after seeing a sign or get braced for a big bump!

We arrived at Mucho Lake about 1 PM. What a beautiful lake!!
It’s about seven miles long and one mile wide, and it has a bright blue-green color which is attributed to copper oxide leaching into the lake. We stayed at the Northern Rockies Lodge in great lake-front camp sites. Bob, Diane and LaVan unloaded their kayaks and took them out for a short ride. We had dinner in the lodge which is operated by a Swiss family. It was an excellent meal, if a bit expensive.

The next day, we moved about a mile up the lake to a Provincial Park, where we had just as nice lake-front camp sites, but at ¼ the price of the Lodge. Tom got a chance to try kayaking with Bob and LaVan, and made it without tipping over. Maybe this is a new sport to try? It was so beautiful, and the weather was so nice that we decided to stay yet another night. Of course, the next day was windy, rainy and cold, so we broke down and packed the kayaks away.

Early Saturday morning, we collected our stuff and headed for Liard Hotsprings Provincial Park, 35 miles up the road.
On this short trip, we saw several wood bison, a cousin of the prairie bison common to the American west. They look the same, but are maybe a little bit smaller. We were set up in camp at the hot springs by 9:30 AM and took a short walk to the springs. .
There are two large pools, both with changing rooms. The lower pool is about 108º and the upper one is supposedly 126º, a fact we chose not to verify. We soaked in the lower pool until we “pruned”, then walked back to camp for lunch and a short napWhile sitting in the motorhome, Debbie saw a small bird fly by the window, and run smack into our open door. When we investigated, we found the bird sitting on the doorstep, wondering where his headache came from. After a minute or so, he flew off, apparently none the worse for wear.

After a delicious Mexican dinner (RV cooked), we went to the hot springs again for a soak. Mosquitoes were much more active in the evening than they had been in the morning!!

Tomorrow we head for Watson Lake where we’ll have hookups and hopefully, wi-fi access.