Alaska Highway, Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson

Dawson Creek is "Mile 0" of the Alaskan Highway! We had to drive by the little Mile 0 marker "downtown" Dawson Creek and get the obligatory drive by shot. Since it is in the middle of the road, it was a little hard to get from the passenger side, so Devin did a little driving and shooting in the RV. I bet Dawson Creek sees a lot of this!

A little history - the "AlCan" was built as a WWII military road. It was built by the US Military, through Canada, to connect the lower 48 states with Alaska. It was truly an amazing feat, building this road through the densely forested, mountainous terrain, criss-crossed with many large rivers, in a very short time, even by today's standards. It's worth reading about the history of the Alaska Highway in the Milepost and at the various historical markers along the way. They started at both ends and met in the middle!

Speaking of the Milepost, a bit of advice: don't do what we did and wait until you get to Mile 0 to buy it! Canadian prices are much higher - think of paperback prices, where they show US and Canadian prices.... You'll save about $10 if you buy it in the US. Plus, the Milepost contains valuable information about roads getting to Mile 0 in Dawson Creek, and you can read ahead some, and do some planning ahead, if you have it sooner.

As long as I'm giving advice, we learned another valuable lesson in Dawson Creek: just because our wireless broadband card worked there, didn't mean we were in our home territory. We had signed up for the Verizon "America's Choice plus Canada" cell phone plan, and assumed it covered our wireless broadband card (for accessing the internet) also. Not true. Later we got a bill for about $600 - we were being charged by the minute because we were roaming. Be sure to find out all the details of your plans in advance of leaving the country! From Dawson Creek north, we didn't get much internet or cell service, anyway, in spite of what the service area maps had shown. "No, I can't hear you now..."

Our first day on the Alaskan Highway was uneventful. As we left Dawson Creek, we passed more agricultural fields - hay and the brilliant yellow fields of canola (I think) - very pastoral. It was a bit windy, too, so it was good there wasn't much traffic and the road is quite straight, for the most part. Devin talked about our position in the tourist open... ha. He says we're winning, usually. It's good he has such a rich inner life.

Great visibility today! Fair weather cumulus clouds marching off to infinity.

After a short way we began to get into Spruce and Aspen forests with wildflowers along the road. Beautiful, but no spectacular scenery. Just miles and miles of spruce forest - mostly black spruce - fading up and down in elevation to white spruce, aspen, and pine. This peaceful monotony was broken occasionally by evidence of oil and gas exploration - 'poison gas' signs on side roads sort of discouraged stopping and picnicking.

Landmarks along the way were the Peace River, crossed by a long, uphill bridge, and Bigfoot! The Peace River Valley is a lovely area with farms and fields along the river.

Bigfoot, well, Bigfoot Crossing is apparently a truck stop. We didn't stop, but got a picture...

We arrived in Fort Nelson and stayed at an RV park on the north side of town, with a "saloon" where we ate a tasty dinner.

We camped next to a gentleman from Iowa with a large motorhome - he had a blanket across the windshield of his tow vehicle and I asked about it. He got to talking about the roads, and he said they were "worse than you could ever imagine"! I sort of doubt that... we have pretty good imaginations, and plus, we've practically taken the RV 4-wheeling... out in the Mojave Desert in Johnson Valley, when we had to go around an RV stuck in the sand - we "jumped" a sand wash and all the dishes fell out of the cabinets... but that's another story. he he.

Nonetheless, I decided maybe it would be a good idea to cover the Jeep windshield, so I took off the "Freedom Hardtop" (the front part of the roof) and put a big beach towel across the windshield, held in place by the (reattached) roof, doors, and windshield wipers. Now any stray gravel might get its impact dampened a bit, at least.