First Stop–Fort Nelson

Day 36 – Thursday, July 18
Today we departed for the adventure to Alaska!  It is 1,320 miles from Dawson Creek just to get into Alaska, so it will be several days of driving though British Columbia and the Yukon before we hit Alaska.  It will take about 34 hours of actual drive time.
Today we drove about 285 miles which took about 6 hours from Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson, BC.  There were several steep grades and curves…probably more up and down and around and around than we saw in the mountains!  I am surprised at the sparseness (if that’s a word) of civilization along this corridor.   We went through a couple of towns whose population was 100 or 200!  We arrived at Fort Nelson, a big city, whose population is 6,200.

We passed through Taylor, which has the annual world invitational gold panning championship.  And, we went through “The Cut” one of the few rock cuts necessary to construct the Alaska Highway.

 

 

We saw the oil pipeline alongside the Peace River bridge, which is a metal grate bridge—supposedly so snow and ice will drop right through!

We just “happened” to stop for breakfast at Shepherds Inn, a restaurant that comes highly recommended as “An Oasis on the Alaska Highway”.   I enjoyed the best blueberry pancakes!!!  (I ate almost the whole plate, and was so full I was able to resist the giant chocolate chip cookies as we left.)

We toured the heritage museum which was a huge collection of antique “stuff”, and kind of scary because I recognized a lot of it!  They had a lot of old equipment that was used to build the highway, and a garage full of cars, tools, license plates, etc.  Entering it reminded me a lot of my dad’s garage when we were growing up…even the smell was the same! 
The guide in the garage was an elderly gentleman who loved having an audience to share info about the museum, garage and the cars.  He then showed us his bicycle and rode around the parking lot…note that the rear wheel is not connected—it swiveled around—pretty wild!
The visitor center provided a program for our group in the evening..it’s an interesting area…the wildlife outnumbers the population here.
Tonight we had our caravan briefing for tomorrow’s journey to Liard River Hot Springs.  I am hoping to get an early start so we will have plenty of time to soak in the hot springs!
Weather here is a little unpredictable.  It is cool in the mornings (say 54 degrees), but yesterday heated up to 84 with lots of humidity.  It was warm when we left this morning, but temps have dropped, and now it is about 72^oF and just started to rain.