Mile 0

Official start of the drive to Alaska

We are on our way. Dawson Creek is known for being the start of the Alaska Highway. It was called the Alcan for Alaska-Canada when the US Army built it as a way to access Alaska during World War 2. It’s one of two roads that lead to Alaska. The other is the Cassiar Highway, which we plan to take on the drive home.

Dawson Creek is pretty close to Alberta. It is nowhere near Massachusetts where the similarly named TV show was based. We thought about driving over to Alberta to add a new Province but we didn’t make it. We just waved at Sandy from the BC side.

Today we started heading North and West. Our main stop was at a bridge that was an original part of the Alcan highway. It is closed to vehicles now, but the road is a wooden bridge that curved around a bend. The road surface is also tilted. It has been replaced by a more modern bridge for travel. But it was fun seeing the old one.

Much of the drive is through natural gas fields. We passed through the town of Wonowon which has dorm like housing for gas workers. It’s a really basic room with food included for $158 CAD a night! Those jobs must pay well.

The scenery was pretty similar for the day. The road is in great condition and is mostly a two lane highway. There were a few steep grades of up to 10% and we got stuck behind a tanker truck that couldn’t handle the hills for a while. But the drive was pretty easy. There were a lot of trees being grown for timber. You can tell because the heights are all similar to the others in the same section.

The scenery looked similar to this today.

Not a lot of wildlife. We spotted one Coyote. There were lots of signs warning about moose and Black and Grizzly bears, but none appeared.

Tonight we are staying in Fort Nelson, which has a museum called the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum. We decided to stop by. It has the most eclectic collection: Everything from vintage cars to model trains to old telephones and engines. They even have an old plane that crashed at the local airport.

Tonight we are boondocking at the river and we will continue on the drive tomorrow.