NORTH TO ALASKA - DAY 9 - LEAVING DAWSON CREEK AND HEADING TO FORT NELSON

We woke up in Dawson Creek at the Mile 0 Campground. Before leaving, we took care of filling up our freshwater and dumping our holding tanks. We wanted to walk through the Pioneer Village museum display located next to the campground. Even though the buildings were not open for the season, we could look in all the windows and walk up and down on the boardwalks.

Here is a link to the campground and information about the Pioneer Park next door.

https://www.mile0park.ca/

It was pretty cool walking among the buildings. Some of them are original structures that were moved to the site, others are just reproductions. But it gave the taste and the flavor of what a booming town like that was back in the days of the gold rush. 

   

They had buildings depicting various businesses from telephone operators to banks to general stores etc.

We were mostly interested in the old buildings. We admired the dovetail cuts on the corners of the logs and the chinking. As well as the overall construction of the building itself. This was a pretty large building back in it's day. It was a one-room schoolhouse, that really had quite a few desks inside.

Was a peaceful morning, because nobody was there and we had the entire little village to ourselves.

It may have been a little cheesy in the tourism sector, but it was a little step into yesteryear. Pretty educational for children to learn about the area and what went on regarding the Gold Rush and building of the Alcan. We enjoyed ourselves.

We headed back to the campsite and took off. This was our first official mile on the Alaska Highway, known as the "Alcan". 

The Alaska Highway (French: Route de l'Alaska; also known as the Alaskan Highway, Alaska-Canadian Highway, or ALCAN Highway) is a highway in North America which was constructed during World War II to connect the contiguous United States to Alaska through Canada. It begins at the junction with a few Canadian highways in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and runs to Delta Junction, Alaska, via Whitehorse, Yukon. When it was completed in 1942, it was about 2,700 kilometres (1,700 mi) long, but in 2012, it was only 2,232 km (1,387 mi). This is due to the realignments of the highway over the years, which has rerouted and straightened many sections. The highway opened to the public in 1948.[1] Once legendary for being a rough, challenging drive, the highway is now paved over its entire length.[2] Its component highways are British Columbia Highway 97, Yukon Highway 1, and Alaska Route 2.

The original pioneer road was completed in 1942, taking just 9 months to connect Dawson Creek, B.C. , to Delta Junction, Alaska.

We drove along, admiring the scenery, and excited about what was to come. 

Around the area of Sikanni we managed to overcome the challenge of "Suicide Hill" which had a very steep downgrade and lots of twists and turns. Steve took it like a pro, using our Mercedes-Benz drivetrain with downshifting to safely maneuver our way. 

Right about then I noticed a wild horse on the side of the road! There had been a sign back a few miles warning about wild horses. Sure enough, there was a wild horse! So that was really our first wildlife sighting to check off on our list.

I know it's blurry... but it was a wild horse! 

There were two boondocking spots we had in mind. The first one was around a place called Prophet River. It was an abandoned provincial park by an airstrip that you could still camp at. We checked it over but we were the only ones there and we almost felt funny being that remote. It was also early in the day so we felt we could keep going. We drove on up further north to another beautiful spot called Borrow Pit #1. 

This place was absolutely beautiful! It was only a little way off the highway, so you did hear some highway noise. But it was just a single little road in with a turnaround. There was an outhouse, picnic table, and a little fishing pier in the pond.

We walked out on the pier, and didn't really see any fish. But it sure was a peaceful serene setting.

We hung out for the afternoon, and started to cook dinner. It was very relaxing and we were going to settle in for the night.

We fired up the Starlink to make a connection and double checked the weather in the area. It turns out this crisp cool afternoon was going to soon have plunging temperatures. Yup. It was going to get down below freezing overnight. 

Although we are set up for boondocking, our holding tanks have liquids in them right now and water lines and pump all have fresh water in them. We do have some electric tank heaters, but they really eat up the battery power to have them running all night. Plus we would be needing to preserve the battery power to run the fan for the propane furnace as well. This motorhome is not nearly as insulated as our last one was, and the windows are all single pane rather than dual pane.

So, although it was a beautiful campsite, we decided that it was nice to enjoy it just for the afternoon and to make our dinner. Then we hit the road to buzz up a little bit further to Fort Nelson. 

We happened to see our next bit of wildlife along the highway! There was a big black bear grazing on the grass. He didn't even notice that we had pulled up. We were quite a far distance away and I used the zoom on the camera to film him. The last thing we wanted to do was to disturb a hungry bear who just woke up from a long hibernation! 

As we got a little closer to Fort Nelson, I swear I saw the back side and haunches of a moose grazing alongside of a tree. It was just a quick glimpse as we flew by so I don't know if that really counts as one more example of wildlife on our list to check off.

At Fort Nelson, we chose to pull into Triple G Hideaway. It was an adorable setup of a restaurant, bar, gift shop and RV park. It came highly recommended from some people on our Facebook group. 

They had plenty of empty sites and told us to choose one and get set up. The rate was $52.50 a night Canadian for full hookups, which converts to $37.30 US.

http://www.tripleghideaway.com/

While getting set up, we noticed this guy parked across in the next section. We had leapt frog with him several times as we were heading north. We would pass them, or they would pass us. We had given them a thumbs up at one point. Quite the rig! We had a chance to talk with them, Chuck and Kathy, who are from lower Michigan! I am sure we will see each other again as we keep working up in the same direction with the same plans and traveling in the same circles.

After such an exciting day, we curled up and went to sleep with lots of wonderful dreams of what is yet to come...

Here is the you tube video that goes along with today's post: 

119 mi today 

2,392 mi total