Day 29: The REAL Mile 0

May 13, 2014

When we left this morning we first went to a cardlock Flying J for fuel and then hooked up the truck for our short travel day. First little town outside of Grand Prairie is Beaverlodge. They have a very large beaver on a log as you enter town. 

This beaver “statue” was the work of a local business man who wanted to do something to bolster the town's spirits and encourage tourists to visit “our pretty little town.” Well – it got us to stop. It is in front of their visitor's/cultural center. The center building was formerly the first hospital in Beaverlodge, and is on the registry of historical buildings. Rooms have signage for current use and former use such as delivery room, women's ward, men's ward. Lovely old building with 2 small art galleries – one with paintings and one stain glass. From the docent there we learned that this coming weekend is “May weekend” and “everyone will be out camping” so we may need to firm up some plans on where we plan to be.

From there we drove on to Dawson Creek, British Columbia – a new province for Fred. We will be overnighting in the WalMart parking lot here as we really don't need hookups tonight and it seems to be the place to stay in Dawson Creek. A lot of businesses on the Alaska Highway allow people to overnight in their parking lot. Some Fred Myers and Canadian Tire stores even have water fill sites and dump stations at some of their locations. Dawson Creek is the beginning for the Alaska Highway. We are finally here! So far we have driven the motor home 3,034 miles just to get to the Real Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway! Alaska is a long way from home.

There are now 3 different locations signifying Mile 0 on the Alaska Highway. The picture below explains all that.

Original Mile 0 was in this traffic circle

Replacement Mile 0 Cairn

Downtown Mile 0 post is in the middle of an intersection. The nice lady who took our picture said "Go on over. Traffic usually stops for people."

We visited the Dawson Creek visitors center and museum. They have a very nice video on the construction of the highway, It was originally construction as part of the WWII war effort to protect he US and Canada. If you recall, after Pearl Harbor 2 of the Aleutian Islands were invaded by the Japanese. The highway was needed to get goods and troops to Alaska. In order to complete the highway quickly, military and civilians were used for the construction. Aunt Jean worked on the civilian side in personnel in Anchorage and Fairbanks. It is the cover of her photo album that is the header to our blog. Two of the nice ladies at the museum were really excited to see the pictures and notes in the album. 

We also visited the Alaska Highway House and Camber of Commerce. We then drove out of Dawson Creek a few miles to drive a portion of the original Alaska Highway to the historic Kiskatinaw River Bridge. It is a 531 foot long wood timber bridge and is the only original wood timber bridge still in use today. It is the longest curved wooden bridge in North America.

Tomorrow we will begin our journey on the Alaska Highway! Hopefully soon we will start seeing moose and bears on the side of the road!

Wildlife sighting for today