Some photos, titles to be added later

A moose and her calf.

More deer.

That's us in the reflection. This is often the view you get when you're in more of a hurry than others.

A little information about Dawson Creek.

Carvings from Chetwynd.

As always, click on any image to get a larger view. Some of these were incredible, and we only saw a dozen or so of several score around town.

Rear view after a day on the highway.

A view of Fraser Canyon.

Street scenes in the reenacted gold rush town of Barkerville. This picture was taken when we visited there last year.

We pulled off the road to eat lunch and enjoy the scenery. Hundreds of such spots exist along the highway, waiting to be found.

The historical site of the community of 108 Mile.

Hope hopes, Chetwynd wins

We traveled yesterday from Prince George to Dawson Creek via Chetwynd, the other "Chainsaw Sculpture Capital of the World". After viewing their displays, I tend to agree.

We decided to refuel in Dawson Creek, figuring the prices would be best there. About ten miles out of DC, we saw a 93.9 sign on a Race Trac station, but went on into town where we got to pay 96.4 instead. I remembered from a previous trip that the Race Trac station had lower prices than those in town.

Dawson Creek is Mile Zero of the Alcan Highway.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U. S. realized that their enemy envisioned gaining control of the Aleutians and the Gulf of Alaska. In order to get men and materiel within fighting range as rapidly as possible, President Roosevelt set in motion a plan to extend the highway from Dawson Creek all the way to the interior of Alaska.

Thus began the construction of the Alaska-Canadian (ALCAN) Highway, one of the greatest engineering feats in history.

The 1523 mile road was begun in February 1942, a scant two months after Pearl Harbor and was expected to take years to build. My grandfather, Leo Jewett, who was a paymaster for the Federal Bureau of Public Roads, was told to move to Whitehorse where he could do his job closer to the workers and contractors.

Much to the chagrin of my Grandmother, my mother and her siblings, they sold their waterfront home out the road in Juneau and moved to an apartment in town to await their travel to Whitehorse once accommodations were obtained.

They spent the spring and summer of 1942 waiting and then they got a call saying that the highway would be completed by October rather than much later. So they didn’t have to move to Whitehorse, but they no longer enjoyed their home of many years and settled in town instead.

After getting an oil change in Dawson Creek, we headed up the Highway, stopping at the Shepherd's Inn for a wonderful dinner. We highly recommend this stop, about 70 miles from DC.

We then drove another 70 miles to a truck stop called Sasquatch Crossing where we spent the night, hooked up to their electricity right in front of the building. Ten dollars for the night. They also had internet, but it didn't work.

Today we are heading to Liard Hot Springs, one of the nicest of its kind, about 350 miles up the highway.

Pictures to follow.

Foto Ops

Along the Fraser River.

As you'll see later, the B. C. 'ers use the sides of many buildings as easels for scenic murals. Here are a couple in Williams Lake. Click on them, or any image, for a larger view.

This was a drive-by shot....one hand on the steering wheel and one on the camera. Nice road, nice sky. The horizon really opens up in the are between Cache Creek and Prince George.

An antique store in Clinton, north of Cache Creek, should satisfy anyone's curiosity. Thousands of items of every type.

We bought a $5 umbrella to store in the RV. I wished we had room for a wagon wheel...I've always wanted one, but I'm not sure why.

Snow in May?

We met up with our friends in Cache Creek this morning and mutually came to the conclustion that they needed to go further and faster than we did, so after a short visit, headed our way.

Cache Creek to Williams Lake is Ponderosa Pine - Bonanza country. Dry, beautiful, Big Sky country.

So dry that a couple of forest fires had consumed some of the forest in the preceding days. Most of the smoke had blown off by the time we passed through.

From CC heading north, you pass through all these #Mile House places. 70 Mile House, 83 Mile House, 100 Mile House etc. It got me to wondering why they didn't change the names to 112 KM House, 162.5 KM House and so forth when they changed to the metric system years ago. Does their younger generation even know what a mile is?

Two large does crossed the highway in front of us near 70 Mile House; our first land-based wildlife of the trip.

At 100 Mile House, slushy snow began falling. Somewhere around there I also began using cruise control for the first time since we left Hope the day before. Gently rolling hills. We topped off our tank there at 90.9 per liter.

When we arrived at Williams Lake where we would lunch, we noticed a sign that said "Chinese and Canadian Food". I've never heard of Canadian food, unless you count Canadian bacon and Canada Dry beverages. Do you suppose that when the locals are thinking about going out to dinner, that they'll say, "Let's have Canadian food tonight!"?

Gas in Williams Lake was 99.9 per liter. I had remembered from previous trips that even though Williams Lake was one of the larger towns, their gas prices were higher than some of their smaller neighbors. We decided to top off again in Prince George.

The next good-sized town north of Williams Lake is Quesnel (Prounced Qwenell). Situated on the banks of a river, it is a very beautiful community with all the amenities of a larger town.

Right at the northern outskirts of Quesnel, a side road leads to the old mining town of Barkerville. Restored to its appearance during its heydays in the 1860's, it is a fee-adminssion site that is definitely worth doing at least once. Plan on several hours between the two plus hours needed to get there and back to the main highway and a few hours visiting Barkerville and another historical site, a former way-station. Gas - 93.9.

Gas prices stayed in the 93.9 to 95.9 range the entire day, with a few exceptions. Coming in to Prince George, I remembered from a previous trip that the best prices were at a Shell stationand one across the street, just before you cross the river into PG. After filling up there and continuing into town, I confirmed that Shell's 92.9 price was better the the average 98.9 I saw at a couple stations in town.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow after I process them.

Later, I'll tell you about the biggest, best, most famous places and things along the highway.

Cache Creek and Cash

We found the only RV park in Cache Creek, the Brookside. Very nice, level, clean. A nice 10-15 minute hiking trail to a pond dammed by a beaver's home. Lots of waterfowl there.

More on the metric system:

Something you might want to pay close attention to is the difference between the metric and decimal systems.

When you see a speed limit sign that says 100 KMH in British Columbia, do not stomp on the gas right away. In our system, it is the equivalent of 62.5 MPH.

An easy way to keep things straight, short of constantly staring at the little numbers on your speedometer, is to subtract the zero from the speed limit, multiply by six and add one or two.

For example: 100 km/hr. - multiply 10 times 6 and add two = 62 MPH). Close enough to help you avoid a roadside chat with a six foot ten inch Canadian Mountie with no sense of humor, or a visit with a couple of Troopers disguised as a road construction crew with a radar gun, where you'll beg and plead that it isn't fair and that you were tricked....but enough about my experiences (years ago).

As to currency, a little more helpful detail: Our exchange rate of $1.14 yesterday translated into about $1.00 Canadian for .86 US.

The U. S. gallon of gas is 3.785 liters.

If you multiply 3.785 x 93.9 cents per liter you arrive at $3.55 per U. S. gallon. Multiplied by the .86 exchange rate, your actual cost per gallon is $3.06.

This number will get bigger as we go further north. Which we're about to do.

We are meeting some Juneau friends, Ken Hansen and his son-in-law Bob in Cache Creek. We'll caravan with them for a day or so.

Hope, the chainsaw sculpture capital

The Yale Tunnel, one of 7 along the Fraser Canyon

I'm not sure what this one is supposed to represent, but I thought it safer to take the picture from behind.


This one was a tribute to the Mounties

First Blood

We drove to Bellingham and purchased our last U. S. gas for $2.19 a gallon at Costco. We then headed toward Sumas and the border crossing on Highway 539 (follow the signs).

The Canadian border agent asked us where we lived, how long we'd been in Washington, several questions about firearms and tobacco, and how long we'd be driving through Canada. The motor home in front of us was going through a pretty thorough search.

I suspect some of it is the "luck" of the draw, and it was our lucky day. We were soon on our way and minutes later merged onto Trans-Canada 1, heading toward Hope, B.C. and the Fraser River Canyon.

We stopped in Hope for an hour or so to exchange some U. S. currency for Canadian dollars. (We got about $114 C$ for each USD.)

Petrol was $.98.9 at the first gas station. The second station was charging $93.9, about 20 cents a gallon cheaper. We didn't buy yet as we had barely depleted our 60-gallon tank.

Hope has an easily-accessable, friendly-staffed visitor center right off the main highway. We walked the six or seven blocks to the CBC Bank on 4th Street, passing intricate wood carvings everywhere. It seems that Hope considers itself the "Chainsaw Carving Capital of Canada".
Sounds reasonable to me.

I'll post some photos of the carvings tomorrow.

Hope was the setting for the first of the Rambo movies, First Blood, filmed there in 1982. Watch it again if you're really bored, and pay attention to the scenery and weather. It has been known to rain in Hope

It started to drizzle while we were walking back to our RV and by the time we headed up the Fraser River Canyon, things were getting pretty nasty. It was as if a lid of wet clouds was packed in over the canyon and shedding their excess moisture in buckets.

We worked our way up the canyon, along with scores of long-haul truckers. Fortunately, unlike many years ago, there are plenty of pull-outs and passing lanes to minimize the annoyance.

The canyon scenery is awesome. Fraser River has carved deeply into the terrain leaving a narrow waterway at its bottom. In places, the river's fury is almost scary. Tour operators offer jet boat and rafting excursions. At Hell's Gate, you can take an air tram over the river.

There are seven tunnels carved through solid rock along the sheer cliffs; one of them ranks among the longest in North America.

Gradually as we gained in altitude, the sky cleared, the vegetation changed from rain-forest to high-desert with tumbleweeds blowing around in the wind.

We decided to spend our first night in Cache Creek, about 120 miles north of Hope. We had dinner at Hungry Herbie's, home of the Monster Burger. A tasty treat, but like most food along the highway, a little more expense than in the U. S. One larger burger which we split, two citrus coolers and an order of fries set us back $17 CSD, about $14.50 USD.

It's worth it though, to get the free internet they offer.

Gas here is actual a penny a liter cheaper than in Hope - $.939.

Keep in mind that the liter is larger than a quart, so four of them (at $3.76 in Cache Creek) costs about $3.30 USD and at 1.1 US gallons per Canadian Imperial Gallon, the actual cost is about $3 per gallon. (I'll check my math later).

We're off to find an RV park for the night.

Tomorrow....