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.
Day 28 July 2, 2011 Travel from Hinton to Grand Prairie. 100 miles of just trees.
(Looks like I will have to download pictures in the AM, Internet very slow)
It looked like a great day again with the morning temperatures hovering around 54F. It is a great improvement from the cool 30’s and 40’s of the previous days. The day got better and ended at a comfortable 75 F in Grand Prairie in the afternoon.
The road from Vinton on AB 40 to Grand Cache is a very hilly and old road .It was the first road built to Grand Cache as it was only a trail from here to Grand Prairie until the 1960 (Grand Cache became incorporated in 1969). The journey was through large tracts of forests that have been clear cut for many years. Now the new growth is filling in the old cuts with fresh light green colors. This area is heavy with logging but it was Saturday and there were NO TRUCKS! So the road was relatively devoid of traffic and the morning went smoothly. There is a large coal mine at Grand Cache that is in full operation and they produce electricity as well. Grand Cache Coal Corporation.
We did stop at Grand Cache after seeing some caribou along the roadside and Mule deer right after that. Grand Cache (3,000+ pop.) is a town that s getting onto the 21st century very quickly, and with good infrastructure and facilities. The people seem to understand that with the new connection to Grand Prairie and a shortcut around Edmonton after the Icefield Parkway, on the way to Alaska, they can capitalize on the opportunity to grow and prosper. The Visitor Center there is as good as any we have seen with memorabilia, history and wonderful displays. We usually scan the children's and nature books in the gift shop. We gassed up at $1.16/L = $3.48/gal. (US) much better than Sascatchewan River gasoline price at nearly $5.00/gal. The remainder of the road from Grand Cache was the newer road built in the 1990’s and was still in good shape with only some frost heaves occasionally were felt. It is a different feeling to go through the solid green forests and not see anything else but rolling hills with trees. It is a rather clean feeling with no houses, or structures of any sort for 100 miles. Can’t do that very many places.
Grand Prairie is the most northern agricultural area in the world at 54 degrees north latitude. It has cattle, hay, some grains and root crops.
The last landmark before the Tamarack (note spelling!) Campground was the Wapiti River named after the many caribou that inhabit this area. This campground, like all on this weekend, was full, but we did have a reservation so got site number 2 right up front for the short timers. (See pic)
We arrived at 1:45 so had some time to write cards, download mail, upload pictures and just unwind. It felt good. Supper was taco salad and then we watched a movie for the first time as we had brought a few Net Flix movies with us. We watched “Unstoppable “ about the runaway freight train in PA.
It was a good day and although the phone connections were non existent we didn’t mind a bit.It os good to have them quiet some days.
(Forgot to add) Last night at the KOA campground in Hinton a bright red, German “self-contained” bus pulled in. It carries about 24 passengers from Germany and tours North america for 60 days. They sleep on it, and have some meals so just keep moving. They started in NYC , went through Toronto, Detroit, Ann Arbor Chicago, Glacier NP and now will head for Alaska. You may have seen some of these on the road.
Tomorrow we head for the Al-Can Highway and Fort St.John up the road 200 miles.
Peyto Lake the glacial fed 1.
(There is a day skipped and I will remedy that.)
Day 27 July 1, 2011 Enroute to Hinton,AB via the Icefield Parkway
We are going to try one more time to get to see and photograph Peyto Lake As we closed camp and headed up Hwy #1 it look propitious and a much better weather wise day than Thursday. The sun was peeking through, the Cougar did not show up in the park, and we were on our way.
It was good to see the wildlife overpasses (bridges) and the 20-30 mile long fences on both sides of the road to protect the wildlife. MOst of that project is now completed with a little finishing touches left. (Some of the bridges don’t have their trees planted yet. ) The main stop was Peyto Lake with both the Athapasca and Sunwapta Falls right behind. The weather Gods were with us as even though the temperature dropped to 37 F at 7,000 feet when we reached the Bow Summit (the look out for Peytyo Lake) the sun was staying out more than it was hiding. Ruth got her pictures and we assisted some tourists in taking a group shot. The blue green of the lake is caused by the dust particles of rock that float in the water and as the suns rays hit them they emit the blue/green colors to the eye. The walkway was icy and slippery from the overnight snow so we had to be careful.
Then it was to Sunwapta Falls where the river has cut a deep canyon through the granite-like rock and makes a very quick 90 degree turn into chasm below the falls, and there is a lot of churning water here. (Notice we are not mentioning the birds as we have not seen them at all. Maybe it is too cold?) There are two bridges that make access to the falls easy for most. The walk to the falls is a few yards from the parking lot. Most of the stops that are recommended have toilets and there are NO commercial entities anywhere on the Parkway except at Lake Louise and at Saskatchewan Crossing .(Gas and food, well, gift stores, too) . The stop at Saskatchewan Falls is similar only here the river (same name) is much larger and carries much more volume. It was probably one that undercut the rock at one time, but now slices through the hard rock and carries down the water some 1,000 yards of cataracts and drops. The old channel it cut is no longer the channel so it is dry but still cut deep into the rock. The river ends up in a frothing, white mass of water, with attendant spray, moving swiftly between two walls of resistant rock.
We found a quiet spot to eat at the side of the road and continued after stopping for gas at the only stop on the Parkway ... Saskatchewan Crossing . It was $1.65/L or about $4.95 /gallon. Whew! Remember we lose 7 cents on the Canadian dollar.
As we moved north it was obvious that the Sunwapta River which enters into the Saskatchewan is becoming wider and more like the glacial rivers in the upper BC and Yukon. They are flat , meandering, and filed with gravel. Now the valley is wide and the mountains start to get rounded , rather than with those sharp edges we have seen. The Canadian Rockies begin to move NW away from a true north to South line. We will pick them up again just inside the Yukon Territory at Swift River when the Alcan Highway moves west to Alaska. They rather parallel the Alcan Highway until that point and then the Continental divide travels north through the Yukon to the Arctic Ocean.
Technically there are two highways. First the Alaskan Highway that travels from Delta Junction AK to Dawson Creek BC and the East access route from Edmonton to Dawson Creek. The Canadian portion was first called the Canadian Military Highway. There are many good reads of the Alaskan Highway and how it as built so quickly. Today it is paved all the way with some construction improving it’s route each summer.
Back to the day’s event!
We did arrive into Hinton, stopped in town for groceries , and some reasonable gas ($1.18/L) , but when I turned into the KOA, just outside town I was directed to the “first drive” and a left turn. It happened that it was a residence and was downhill with no cul d’ sac to turn around. After about four attempts to reverse the situation I managed to get on track and turn into the KOA . We had reserved the site and it was good we did, as this was Canada Day weekend and would have been full had we not. It is an open campground but friendly and with warm host and hostesses. It is good to be off the road for tomorrow we take AB 40 for 180 miles, across a “timber and wildlife” road to get to the Alcan Highway at Grand Prairie. Hopefully we will see more than logging trucks on this potentially wildlife filled road through the wilderness. (There is one town about a third of the way.) It is a camping, hunting and fishing paradise.
