Alcan at last!

In order to get to Alaska by vehicle there is only one road in and out – the Alaska Highway or the Alcan (Alaska/Canada Highway). Although we didn’t need to start at mile marker zero, Dawson Creek was only about a half hour out of our way, so we decided to start our slog there.

On the way to Dawson Creek we stopped in Chetwynd, the chainsaw carving capital of the world. We had been here the last time we visited Alaska, but the carvings are always new, and the sight of the hundreds of them lining the highway is a visual treat. We stopped here for lunch at A&W and the Woman wanted deep fried cheese curds, something all US A&W’s serve. So, I ordered cheese curds, and when we opened the to go bag back at the coach, we found a plastic wrapped handful of chilled curds – naked, not breaded and deep fried. The Woman was deeply disappointed.

In Prince George we found the town had been flooded by hundred-year rains and was only just drying out when we arrived. We managed to find the bike trail along the Fraser River, but could only do part of it. The Fraser, because of the heavy rains, was historically high and had swallowed up huge chunks of the trail.

We also hit the local movie theater in Prince George as many of the small towns we are hitting don’t even have them. Although we didn’t go to see it, that day happened to be the opening of Jurassic World. They sure know how to put on a party up here.

In a Provincial Park outside Fort St. John we spotted our first Ptarmigan. The only place we had ever seen Ptarmigan was in Alaska, referred to up there as the Alaska Chicken. I guess it is fitting that if we spot a Ptarmigan outside of Alaska that at least it is along the Alaska Highway.

We dodged a huge bullet in Fort St. John. Pulling out of a gas station there were barriers to limit turns, and they were in no way large vehicle friendly. Running up on the sidewalk, a depression resulted in the axel resting on the curb, and Colectiva was totally stuck, drive wheels off the ground. At least a half dozen Canadians helped me to use the leveling jacks to raise up the rear of the coach, place a bunch of jack pads under the rear tires, lower the jacks again and drive off the curbing – in the mean time pissing off dozens of Canadian drives as we totally blocked half the road. Then, getting back to the RV Park we were staying at, we had to contend with the normal things you contend with living in RV Parks.

We are starting to see a fair bit more wildlife the further north we get. On the Alcan between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson we managed to see a huge black bear. We had seen bear on the road to Barkerville, in fact a couple of them. But we had yet to see one just nibbling along the side of a major highway – bonus!

I had to pull over when I spotted this but stopping 10 tons of motorhome and toad is no easy matter. So, I had to run back quite a ways in order to get a close up look. But it was worth the run. We passed this spot on our last trip to Alaska – no other way around it. But I guess I wasn’t looking very carefully back then.

Outside Fort Nelson the Woman suddenly spotted some very large water birds. I said they looked oddly like Sandhill Cranes. Turns out that they were. It turns out that Sandhill Cranes migrate annually through British Columbia between their nesting grounds in Alaska and their wintering grounds in the southern United States. We had seen them in Texas before, but really didn’t expect to see them way up here!

Talk to you soon!