July 1, Day 5 - Begin the Alcan Highway

Today is Canada Day, a holiday for Canadians to celebrate the anniversary of the July 1, 1867 enactment of the British North America Act, which united Canada as a single country. Most of the towns were having parades and celebrations. Luckily, we stayed out of any parades.

We left Grande Prairie about 6:30. It was very cold and dark rain clouds. On the way we stopped at Beaverlodge, a small town with a HUGE beaver statute. Beaverlodge is home to the Northern Agricultural Research Station. The federal experiment station started in 1916.

Next came Dawson Creek, often referred to as the Mile Zero City because it's the beginning of the Alaska Canada (Alcan) Highway. We expected a lot but it really was just a stopping point to get a photo. Here's a little bit of history about the Alaska-Canada (Alcan) Highway ... Upon entering the war in 1941, the United States decided to build a corridor to connect the US mainland to Alaska. In 1942, thousands of US personnel, engineers, and contractors poured into the city - the terminal of rail transport - to construct the Alaska Highway. The highway was completed in less than one year, although, it's not the highway we were on today. When it was built, it was 1,422 miles. Today, the highway is paved and is only 1,390 miles. We took a little side trip of about 3 kms to see what the Old Alaska Highway looked like. I don't think we would have made as much time as we did on the old highway.

Bill has said that riding the Alcan Highway has been something he's always wanted to do. It's been fun helping make his dream come true. He's like a little kid in a candy story. My Dad always talked about wanting to drive up the Alcan but he never made it. I'm pretty sure he's been with us as we've been travelling. I've felt a guardian angel.

We had a great lunch at Pink Mountain Restaurant in the Pink Mountains. All of us would recommend eating here if you take this trip. Good food. Continuing on, we saw 2 black bear along the side of the road. That was enough to make us turn around to get a picture. Take a look, lots of dark clouds. Shuffy also made the mistake of looking at his temperature gauge -- 40 degrees. Those of us delicate people out there (Bren, Dee, Lin), know that this is way too cold for us. I think I had about 7 layers of clothes on. They almost had to get a lift to get me on the bike. But as we kept driving northwest, we started to see blue skies. The temperature went up to at least 50 -- a heat wave. We were now in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. Lots of curves and trees.

Within 6 miles of where we were going to stop for the night, Bill ran out of gas again!! Sure glad we packed the extra gas can. We had gone over 100 miles without seeing a gas station and the one we did see was closed. We pulled into Fort Nelson about 3:30 p.m. Decided to go to the heritage museum that chronicled the history of Fort Nelson. Some of the exhibits included vintage cars, photographs of the construction of the Alaska Hwy and a trapper's log cabin.

We got some advice from people at the museum that we should stop at the hot springs near the summit (the highest part of the Alcan). Stay tuned to see if the boys will stop there.