June 23-28, 2018
Dawson Creek- “0” milepost for the Alaskan Highway- this road, about 1500 miles, was built during WWII to protect Alaska from Japanese attack (they were already in the Aleutian Islands). 16,000 US soldiers, 11,000 civilians and more built this road in 8 months in temps from minus 50 to 90- it was said it could not be done at all, let alone in 8 months. Google it if you want to see some great photos and videos and read the details.
The visitor center in Dawson Creek is pretty cool! The college women hired to run it are smart, informed, friendly and helpful. They station one outside to take your picture with the Alaska Highway sign (she even went into the road to take Rhylee’s pic at the 0 milepost).

The original 0 Milepost has been moved to the middle of the intersection of downtown, and another visitor center person comes out of the museum to take your pic there, too! It is a hoot! And the locals all seen tolerant of tourists in the middle of their busy streets!
Remote, desolate and isolated…have I said that before about other places? Not even any side roads, an occassional truck stop- thank goodness! and oil/gas/logging roads. The road has been well paved 2 full lanes with breakdown lanes down to 2 narrow lanes, no edges, no lines and gravelled tar- It is a feat of engineering, however not meant for fast travel. The speeds are 30 to 100kph.

However, there are a lot of people here on the Alaska Highway- lots of semi- trucks as this IS the road to AK, motorcycles, SUVS and RVs. So many that at our last fuel stop (services are actually fairly frequent!) there were at least 30 RVs gettting fuel or food!
We had hoped to drive up into the Northwest Territory and camp for one night at Fort Liard- just to say we’d been there- we knew the NW side would be a gravel road, so the rain convinced it was not worth the stress and strain! Which will give us a couple extra days somewhere else.
Summit Lake at Stone Mountain a beautiful little mountain lake campground, right off the road. 24 hours of heavy rain and temps in the 40s- we’ve been looking for snow on the mountain top. This is when remote gets scary- the travel van in the next site has a dead battery- no cell service here, no park staff here, cold and rain. We can’t get to him with our truck to jump him…he is in a pickle. The park staff was here last night at 8pm to make sure everyone had self registere;, don’t expect him back until tonight. He can’t get the battery out of his rig for us to charge it off our truck. I suggest he go over to the really big 5th wheel- they look like they may be backcountry types- and yes, he has a portable battery charger. We are well prepared, well informed, tank up often and stay alert…not so for so many others we see.

And this is what was on the road in the morning. In one place a boulder was in the middle of our lane on a curvy, downhill section of the road!
Bears and Wood Bison are the roadside wildlife, so far.

Liard River Hot Springs- a gift of nature. Beautiful hot springs- 127 degrees at the source- at a small provincial park. We’ve had 48 hours of rain, and another day or two of gray, so soaking in the hot springs is quite a treat! Most everyone is headed to Alaska, however we met a young woman that is a BC traveling nurse working remote hospitals in the north here. Some people are doing the “quick” trip, driving long, long days to spend 2-3 weeks in Alaska, others are more like us- taking our time with time to spare.

 

Although the original highway is still what is used today in all but about 35 miles of the entire length, we do keep seeing old sections of it:

And one more beautiful mountain lake- Muncho Lake