After Driving 3200 Miles...We are at Mile 0!

After being on the road for three weeks and putting over 3,000 miles on the van, we finally arrived at Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway on Sunday!

Dawson Creek is the official start of the Alaska Highway.  I think everyone who travels down the Alaska highway for the first time makes a stop at this location.  I talked to a Canadian fellow and he said that it seems the Americans treat this as a pilgrimage of sorts.  I think he is right.  I know I got emotional looking at the Mile 0 marker.  I have dreamed of taking this trip since my early 20s (and that is a while ago.) And we talked to another couple who were out taking pictures and I got the same sense of excitement about the upcoming drive from them.

Thankfully, it was a warm and sunny day so the drive from Grande Prairie through Dawson Creek and on up to Fort St. John was very pleasant.  This contrasted with the drive from Edmonton to Grande Prairie where it pretty much rained the whole time.  The campground at Grande Prairie was half way flooded and there really wasn’t any way to not get muddy.  I just keep thinking of the poor tent campers and am grateful for our warm, dry trailer.

The view headed into Grande Prairie

Today we drove through the northernmost section of British Columbia; from Fort St. John up past Fort Nelson and along the Rockies.  Tonight we are camping at a place next to Toad River where we were entertained by a family of beavers out playing in their own little pond.  It was cloudy and a little sprinkly over the passes, but actually very pleasant weather for traveling. Besides the beavers, we have only seen the local stone sheep.  No moose, bears or deer although there were copious signs warning drivers to look out for them.



Drove over the last remaining all wood bridge

A view from Summit Pass which is one of the highest passes on the Alaska Highway. Hazy, but on a clear day you can see  100 miles to the Canadian Rockies

The Stone Sheep seem to like eating the roads

Generally the road is smooth with good shoulders

Sasquatch laughing at a joke our little stowaway (dubbed Corrigan) just told

The days are very long.  As I write this, it is almost 11 pm and the sky is still quite light.  Mornings come early too.  I wake up thinking it must be 7 am and it is only 5 am.  It is taking some time to adjust.

The road is pretty good.  You have to watch out for potholes and, sometimes, there isn’t much of a shoulder, but overall not bad.  A lot of the original highway has been rerouted and smoothed out.  Today we were on a 132 kilometer section of road that was built in 1992, eliminating 132 curves.

It is mind boggling to see the immensity of the country and to know that there is little civilization in these parts.  Most of the areas around towns weren’t homesteaded until the early 1900’s and the towns didn’t become incorporated until the 1950’s. And the towns are few and far between.

Tomorrow we go to Watson Lake where we will stay a couple of days to see the sights.  So far we have traveled 405 miles of the Alaska Highway.  Only 1100 miles to go!

The beavers in the pond near our campsite

The view from our campsite

When You Have a Broken Tooth...Go Shopping!

A view of the river from our campground.  Filled to the brim, like all the rivers we have seen so far.

I guess Russ was brushing his teeth a little too energetically because he ended up breaking a rear molar.  A call to our dentist eased our concerns.  Basically, if Russ isn’t showing symptoms (i.e., screaming his brains out from pain), then we can wait until we get home to get the tooth fixed.

So to relax from the strain of that crisis, we spent the day shopping at the Edmonton mall. This is reported to be the largest shopping mall in North America.  I don’t know how many luggage stores, jewelry stores or women’s shoe stores one needs, but apparently this mall has them all.  And a waterpark, amusement park, ice arena, and IMAX theater complex on top of that.  Even watched a sea lion performance. Whew!

Russ could hardly wait!

Imagine a boat inside a mall!!

The pool had a wave maker and was huge.  There was another set of slides on the other side of the pool.

The campground we are staying at is about 20 kilometers southwest of the city, right next to the North Saskatchewan River. A very nice, quiet campground with lots of cottonwood trees.  When we first arrived, it looked like drifting snow all over the park. 

Our stowaway just can't figure out if this is snow - it isn't cold, but it blows around like snow.

Had nice enough weather to cook outside - a typical Scout dutch oven dinner: chicken with rice and apple cobbler.

Apple cobbler - yum!

We had a couple nice warm, sunny days, but the rain is back today.  We head north to Grande Prairie tomorrow – looks like the rainy weather will follow us. Oh well, summer is bound to show up sometime.

Airplanes and Dinos

Grain elevators along the way to Calgary

On our way to Calgary, we stopped in Nanton for a visit to their Bomber Museum. It being Father’s Day weekend, we were stopping at places that Russ has a particular interest in; airplanes and anything military.  

Russ next to a Lancaster, a Canadian bomber used during WWII

The rain hasn’t stopped for a few days and we got to set up camp in Calgary in the midst of a drenching. Have to say, this is not my favorite part of camping. But our trailer is very warm and snug, so once we got dried off, we were quite comfy. And I actually like being inside the trailer hearing all the rain coming down outside. Much better than being outside.

Calgary is a large, sprawling city. It has a nice pedestrian section downtown, but the weather was so inclement, we didn’t really explore it.

Beautiful flowers were displayed all over the downtown area.

On Father’s Day, we visited the Canada Military Museum which had displays from all of their branches; Air Force, Navy, Army and some special regiments. Lots of airplanes, guns and tanks. The day was finished off with dinner at a very nice Alberta steakhouse.

Took a day and went out to the Royal Terrell museum which is a world class dinosaur museum. Alberta is a hotbed of dinosaur finds from the Crustaceous period (this is the last period of dinosaurs, before they were all killed off) and this museum is the center for the dino research. I really enjoyed the write-ups for the displays and read nearly every one of them. This is unusual for me since I usually lack the patience, but these were so well written, like reading a story about the animal. The research lab area had a window in the museum so you could watch the researchers doing their work on current finds. I have never seen dino fossils presented in such an interesting fashion– some were setup in scenes showing how the various critters might have interacted (that is, usually attacking one another.) They had one gallery that was setup like an art gallery with the fossils framed.

The world's largest T-Rex model - over 80 feet tall!

This is a fossil of a shelled creature.  The mineral is ammolite, which is used for jewelry

This is an Albertosaurus, an ancester of a T-Rex and much bigger.

A raptor, of Jurassic Park fame

Our litttle stowaway carefully checking out his roots (he found out that birds derived from dinos)

Our visit to Calgary was finished off with a visit to Canada’s largest quilt shop, of course.

Next stop is Edmonton.

Oh Canada...Oh Canada!

We have finally entered Canada!  We took a scenic route recommended by one of the quilt store owners in Great Falls.  Highway 89 skirts Glacier National Park and passes through the Blackfoot Tribe reservation.  It was beautiful, but also much slower than the more direct route on I-15. 

The view from Highway 89

On the way, we stopped at the Remington Carriage Museum but only had an hour to tour.  Still it was worthwhile.  I’ve read descriptions of carriages such as a hanson cab and a four-in-hand, but had not actually seen them.  It was nice to see that my imagination wasn’t too far off from reality.

An older version of a gasoline tanker.  Notice where the driver sat - alot of concern for safety in those days!

Drove over to Lethbridge to buy a pre-paid cell phone for our stay in Canada (iphone charges are absurd).  Also visited the Lethbridge bridge and walked through the nature reserve that is directly below the bridge.

This is the longest and tallest trestle bridge in the world.  While we were there, two trains passed over....very slowly.

Spent a rainy hour going through Fort Whoop-up.   The fort owners, Americans, had been banned from trading whiskey in America, so they moved to Canada. It was quite rowdy in the area since there were no law enforcers.  This was a primary reason the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were formed. The fort is actually a replica, but there were great interpretive displays and audio.

A couple of residents at Fort Whoop-Up.

Lots of wildflowers everywhere

Today, we visited the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.  Aboriginal people had hunted buffalo by stampeding them off the cliffs for thousands of years. It was an amazing site with lots of great displays and videos.  Hard to get my mind around how “modern” man was able to almost completely wipe out a species that numbered 50 to 60 million within two generations.  Of course, this destroyed the lifestyle of the aboriginal people because the buffalo was at the core of their livelihood and culture.

The cliffs were originally 60 meters high, but the carcasses of the many buffalos piled up over the centuries so that currently the cliffs are about 30 meters deep.

There is a sizable herd of buffalo right near our campground.  They look pretty mangy because they are losing their winter coat.

Also took a drive out to Frank’s slide.  This is west of Fort Macleod, in an area that has a lot of coal mines. In 1903, part of a mountain slid, partially burying  the town of Frank and killing at least 90 people.  Today there is an interpretive center with displays of the event as well as a geological explanation of what happened (the coal mining was a contributor, but not the whole cause.)  Along the way we passed many, many wind turbines.  They are harnessing the energy from the Chinook winds that frequent the plains area.

It took about 90 seconds for this mountain side to tumble down in 1903, leaving a rock bed over 30 meters in depth.  Geologists are monitoring the mountain using a very sophisticated set of instruments in an attempt to be able to warn of another slide in the future.

I have to say that all of the Canadian interpretive centers we have visited so far are top notch.  They have been designed to keep you interested with a variety of interactive displays and videos.  All have been well maintained and the staffers have been more than friendly.

Well, tomorrow we head to Calgary and then on to Edmonton.  Making progress towards Alaska but there are so many neat things to see and do in Canada.  Definitely enjoying our trip, in spite of the less than ideal weather.  Except for Las Vegas, the weather has been cool and in many places, rainy. By the way, the new bathroom sink is working wonderfully!

Great Falls is not an overstatement

Painted buffaloes are all over the city (like the cows in Chicago and the angels in LA.)  This one is a buffalo trout, I guess.

The Missouri River is running at max volume in this area. We were able to get down to the riverbank when we visited the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center and see it at close range. Viewing nature's power is a humbling experience.

There are five falls on the Missouri at Great Falls.  This caused Lewis & Clark no end of trouble because they had to portage their stuff around the falls.  The interpretive center did an amazing job of depicting the difficulties the group had during their travels.

Russ exploring what kind of energy it took to pull a canoe upstream.

I appreciated that the center also provided alot of information on the native tribes's cultures, lifestyles and challenges.

The area along the river provided lots of lookouts to view the falls. They are really spectacular because of the river level.

All but one of the falls now has a dam atop it.

 

The sound of the falling water was thunderous!

This is not snow!  The cottonwood trees are "shedding".

Took a day to enjoy the local culture and visited the C.M. Russell art museum. Known as the "Cowboy artist", Russell's home and log cabin studio are also located on the museum's grounds.

Lilacs are everywhere!

Visted a couple quilt shops in the city.  The people are very friendly and offered some tips on what to see as we travel north into Canada. Hopefully, the sink gets fixed tomorrow and we will be on our way on Wednesday.