Day 30: Alaska Highway - Mile 0 to Mile 217

May 14, 2014

Today, since we stayed at WalMart last night that did not have WIFI, we first went to Tim Horton's to check email and post a note to the blog. Of course, the breakfast and coffee were just added benefits of that visit. Then we went to Canadian Tire and purchased our bear spray. Yes, we know that a lot of people think that the spray just makes the bear mad, but there are some parks that publish that you must have bear spray before hiking their trails. We could buy regular strength spray for $38.00 or “Bear Spray – Max” for $45.00 so we figured if we are going to have spray we would get the strong stuff. We would actually prefer to have our Circuit Judge, but since Canada decided we couldn't take it across the border, this will have to do. Hopefully, it was a total waste of money and will just get thrown way.

We started the Alaska Highway this morning at Mile 0 and are now at mile 217 at the Prophet River Wayside Provincial Park not far from Fort Nelson. It is actually only used when they need the air strip here for fire fighting so at other times campers use it. Our camp site is peaceful, quite, and surrounded by Aspens and White spruce. We have been buzzed by our first mosquitoes. In case you haven't heard, northwest Canada and Alaska are both known for their huge mosquitoes. No sitting outside tonight. It's too cold anyway.

The road today was excellent for about the first 100 miles. Actually much better than a lot of the roads we drove in Alberta a few days ago. However at about mile 125 it changed to a roughly patched surface. At that point we had the best ride at about 50-55 mph. It is actually posted as 100 km/h or 62 mph. Traffic was heavier than we expected for the first 100 miles as well. Then the further we traveled the less frequently we met oncoming traffic. The scenery is very nice, but not quite what we expected. We are again seeing snow capped mountains and there is still some snow at places beside the road. There is even some here in the campground.

Things of interest: Much of today's trip was through areas of heavy gas exploration. - more north of Fort St. John. There was also a lot of harvesting timber in some areas. These large enterprises seem to have totally taken over some of the campgrounds and local roadhouse type businesses. They bring in big trailer type pods for housing. Lots and lots of them.

They have cut access roads everywhere for their drilling. There seems to be less of that as we get further north. At some sites where you turn off the highway there as signs posted stating “No Parking, Poisonous Gas.” Guess that's a way to keep RVers from over-nighting there.

We went past “Sasquatch Crossing” Lodge with a craved Sasquatch out front. Didn't go inside but they had good WIFI in the parking lot.

Also, we went past The Shepherd's Inn who advertise their “delicious baked goods.” Couldn't pass that up so – yes, we got one of those big cinnamon rolls the Alaska Highway is known for. Haven't tried it yet. We will have that for dessert tonight.