On the Al-Can Highway at Fort St. John BC

Day 29, Sunday July 3, 2011 in Fort St. John, BC.

Fort St.John was the largest camp and headquarters of the east end of the road,(Whitehorse was the west end cam)p) during the time the Al Can Highway was built in 1942. Into a town of 200 came 6,000 army men to help build the highway. Can you imagine the change for those citizens of this small outpost of a village? The Fort was established in 1794 as an outpost of the military and was the first white settlement on British Columbia.

Today Fort St. John is a bustling city of 18,000 with 55,000 in the area in the heart of the Peace River Valley. Gas, oil, timber, agriculture, tourism, hydroelectric power and consumer services are the highlights of its activity. One of the key crops is rape seed used in making canola oil. The seed is shipped to the Far East and to Alberta for processing. Honey , hogs, eggs and poultry supply much of BC with those products. It is set in the rolling hills east of the Rocky Mountains. Much of the land in the Dawson Creek area was donated to the National Government by the Province in exchange for bringing the RR into the area. After that homesteading families developed the land

We arrived here early as the trip from Grand Prairie was only 3 hours and we didn’t hustle. The entry into Ft. St.Johns was a 4 mile run down a 6 % grade hill and then the view of the Peace River and the very long truss bridge over it at the bottom. That bridge has been rebuilt three times e1942. Twice destroyed by flooding.

The campground is a Rotary Park run by the local rotarians for 30 years. THis will be a two night stay so we can explore ZCharlie Lake adjacent to the Park and two Provincial Parks that attach to the Lake. Th wind here is always very severe. Today it blew at 20 mph and gusts higher. The land is flat and nothing to stop the wind. The campground is open with no trees but is near a marshland and the Lake.

As the Al Can highway is at the edge of the RV PArk, the traffic heading for Alaska is quite heavy and steady especially in the summer. We are at the “back” of the park so that will help in sleep. I will try again to include some of those mountain pictures from the past few days. Ruth did a great job from the moving truck.