DAY 27-28 ~ DAWSON CREEK (June 13 – 14) - MILE 0

Dawson Creek is Mile 0; the start of the Alaska Highway.  You will see mile markers all along this highway.  The official end of this highway is at Delta Junction in Alaska; Mile 1422.  We will travel this highway as far as Whitehorse in the Yukon; Mile 918.

On March 9, 1942 the first troop trains of the United States Army Corps of Engineers arrived in Dawson Creek to begin the construction of the 1,523 mile Alaska Highway.  Overnight Dawson Creek turned from a small agricultural community of 500 into a population of 10,000.  A traffic circle located at an intersection in the center of town marks the designated Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway.  So considering that the original plans for this highway was 1,523 miles, and the official end of the highway is at 1,422 miles; that means this highway is still not completed.

We spent two nights in this town.  There is nothing exciting about Dawson Creek, except this is where the Alaska Highway was born and most people vacationing in Alaska start at this point.  So it was a bit crowded.  We saw many cars returning from their visit in Alaska and they were all caked with mud and dirt.  You could not even tell the color of the vehicles.  Even though the Highway is paved, parts of it is under construction and is currently gravel and dirt (we found that out later).  There are also many roads in Alaska that are not paved.

Just outside of Dawson Creek is an interesting and unusual bridge called Kiskatinaw Bridge.  It was built in 1942 for military traffic between Dawson Creek and the Big Delta, Alaska.  The bridge is one of many timber bridges built in Canada, but it is the only one still in use.  What makes it unusual is that it curves 9 degrees along its 534 foot length.

DAY 29 ~ BUCKINGHORSE RIVER (June 15) - Mile 175

It is almost 400 miles to Toad River (our next destination), so we made an overnight stop at Buckinghorse Provincial Park (same as our state parks).

We continue north in British Columbia on the Alaska Highway.

DAY 27-31 ~ BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA (June 12 – 17)

We will continue northwest into British Columbia for another five days.  Our most northern destination is the southern tip of the Yukon Territory.  After six days we will then turn south and spend anther 3.5 weeks trailer tripping home.

DAY 22-26 ~ EDMONTON, ALBERTA (June 8 – 11)

We spent 4 nights in Edmonton, Alberta’s capital city.  We stayed in a brand new RV park.  In fact they are in the process of adding 100 additional sites.  So there was a lot of construction noise going on.  But it is a very nice place.  There is no WiFi at the sites, you have to sit in front of the office and use the office WiFi.  Maybe on our next visit the RV park will be finished with Wifi throughout. 

One great thing about trailer traveling is that most RV parks have a book exchange.  Either in the laundry room or the office there will be a bookcase full of used books.  You take one or two and replace it with one or two of yours.  I brought along a bag of several books that I have already read to do just that.  I love to read and so far on this trip (3.5 weeks) I have read 6 books.  I now have several new ‘used’ books to read.

We have visited Edmonton before and we will be revisiting some of our favorite sites.  We had bad weather during our stay.  It was very cloudy, and windy with lots of rain.  So we had to stay indoors.

Our first stop was the West Edmonton Mall.  This mall is as big as our Mall of America.  This place is amazing.  It contains more than 800 stores, 19 movie theaters, 100 eateries and 9 major theme attractions; Galaxyland has 25 rides, Deep Sea Adventure has one of the world’s largest indoor lakes with a life-size replica of the Santa Maria; Sea Life Caverns contains @ 200 species of marine life; World Waterpark has 5 acres of indoor fun with a giant wave pool; NHL size ice rink, seal lion show, 2 miniature golf courses; bowling, billiards, etc.  We visited this place a few times during our stay in Edmonton.

We spent a day exploring Art Gallery of Alberta and the Royal Albert Museum.  The art gallery was mostly modern art; some very interesting, some just strange.

 A quilt made with ribbons

Wall mural

The Royal Albert Museum had an interesting and pretty exhibit called “Western Threads”. 

On our last day in Edmonton the sun came out!  It was sunny and warm.  Now we can be outdoors and visit the University of Alberta Devonian Botanic Garden.

Can you find “Slowpoke”

DAY 26 ~ GOODBYE ALBERTA (June 12)

We did an overnight stay at a small town called Valleyview, our final destination in Alberta.  There is nothing here to view or explore.  It is 350+ miles to our next destination.  Valleyview is at the 200 mile point, so we stopped to break up the long trip.  We are now heading into British Columbia.  On our way out of Alberta we drove through Beaverlodge, whose landmark is..well it’s a giant beaver. 

“The "Beaver Project" was initiated by a local entrepreneur Alex Lojczyc, who had always dreamed of giving Beaverlodge something to bolster town spirits and encourage tourists to visit our pretty little town.  It all began in February, 2004 when the idea took shape.”  It took 90 gallons of polyurethane to coat, approx. 13 gallons of paint, and 18 blocks of foam to make the sculpture.  The beaver & log each weigh 1,500 lbs.  The beaver is 18’ long & 10’ high.  The log is 20’ long & 5’ high.

Next stop; goodbye Alberta, hello British Columbia.

DAY 18-21 ~ JASPER, ALBERTA (June 4 – 7)

There are 5 National Parks in this area.  Banff and Jasper are the biggest.  Jasper NP is north of Banff NP.  It is 180 miles between the cities of Banff and Jasper.  The journey is on Icefields Parkway; a two lane road through the forest with scenes of snow capped mountains, waterfalls, and lakes on both sides of the road.   It is a very nice 3 hour drive.  

Looking down on the road we just traveled on.

Cliff with many waterfalls

This sign was posted nearby the above cliffs....interesting.

They call it a Wildlife Jam and every national park and state park has it.  When someone sees some wildlife on the side of the road they stop.  Sometimes they pull over and sometimes they just stop in the middle of the road (on both sides).  So everyone has to stop.  Just outside of Banff NP we came upon a Wildlife Jam and of course we stopped to see (we had no choice). It  was a big Grizzly bear, just strolling alongside of the road, minding it’s own business, sometimes stopping to sniff the ground.  The trouble was that all the two legged viewers moved with it, along with their cars, so it took a long time to clear the Jam.  But it was okay.  We were in no hurry.  We’ve seen a lot of black bears but this is our first Grizzly.  It was a highlight of our day.

We spent 4 nights in Jasper.  We visited several sites in the park.  The highlight was visiting the Columbia Ice Fields where we boarded the Ice Explorer and drove up onto Athabasca Glacier.  We drove through a fog bank to reach our stopping point on the glacier.  But it wasn’t fog, it was snowing and brrrr was it cold.  We walked or rather slipped around for 20 minutes taking pictures and trying to stay warm.  

Dave took this picture...

...the same time I took this.

Mountain goats.  See the baby under the mom..

The Athabasca Glacier is 400 years old and the ice is 1,000 feet deep.  It is slowly disappearing.  It is predicted that in another 100 years it will be gone as well as all the other glaciers flowing from the Columbia Ice Fields that sits in a bowl on top of this mountain range.

Athabasca Glacer in 1919,

Athabasca Glacier today.

We had several sightings of wildlife.  We saw Big Horn Sheep, lots of Elk, Mountain Goats and we saw black bears a few times crossing the road and once on the side of a hill.  And we saw one Grizzly bear.  We saw one Moose, running across the road in Glacier National Park.  I grabbed the camera and got a pic of it’s butt just before it disappeared.

Big Horn Sheep

Black Bear

Moose butt

We also saw some harmless wildlife.  With those we could get close up and personal.

We viewed some waterfalls.  This one was quite beautiful.  It had no name but it flowed into Tangle Creek.  It was just on the side of the road.

Athabasca Falls

We enjoyed some short hikes.  The Valley of the Five Lakes was a strenuous hike with lots of rocky steep trails.  It was supposed to be a two hour hike, but after two hours we’ve only covered a quarter of the trail, so we took the short cut trail back.  But we saw all 5 lakes.  All the lakes were different depths so each had a different hue of blue and green.

We hiked 9a and 9b loop

The trail was rocky and steep.  See the turtle??  "Slowpoke" has traveled all over the world with us.  You will see her in several of our pictures.

Lake #5

Lake #4

Lake #1

We viewed Maligne Lake and did another short hike at Maligne Canyon.  This is a beautiful canyon with Maligne Creek raging through it and it has many waterfalls.  You can hike the length of the canyon and cross over to the other side.  We only did the short version of the hike but saw some beautiful sights.

Maligne Lake

We hiked the ‘blue dots’ loop.

Looking down into the canyon

Maligne Creek flowing into the below waterfall

                             

We ended our last day with a cup of coffee and something sweet at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. 

The next day we leave the beautiful snow capped mountains, waterfalls, wildlife and scenic roads and venture into EDMONTON, the capital city of Alberta.  Here we will view a more dangerous kind of wildlife...the two legged kind.