Betty Brewer
Moderator Emeritus
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2005
- Posts
- 4,778
Day 13, June 5, 2006 Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Canada
We departed Dawson Creek and headed North on the Alaskan Highway. Today I learned how to use the Milepost guidebook and it sat on my lap the entire 6 hour drive. Every hill and dale and river and hamburger joint is listed along the way. Interesting tidbits of history are thrown in as well as a commentary on the local flora and fauna. I was able to read aloud to Terry as a tour guide as he drove. Not far into our trip we took a bit of a side tour to the Kiskatinaw River Bridge. It is the only original timber bridge from the Alcan Highway construction still in use. It is 531 feet long, curved and high. I walked over it to get pictures of the motorhome driving over it. We were safe as it has a 25 ton pound limit as we only weigh about 20 tons.(now he tells me)
The scenery would have been considered boring today except for thinking of those men who worked so hard to carve a road down this swath of forest. The road today is thankfully cleared of trees about 50 to100 yards across. This gave us a chance to see above the tree line and to watch carefully for animals that might dart out in front of us. We crossed down a 10% grade. We passed several Natural Gas drilling operations and saw a multitude of forest service industries and logging operations working. When we arrived at Fort Nelson at around 3:30 Ned and Lorna were here and had saved us a place here in the Bluebell RV Park. As it had drizzled and/or rained most of the day I can now understand why all other travel journals I?ve read, speak so much about car washes. Our rigs are trashed with mud, dirt, dust and gunk.
First stop was to the Visitor Information Center. Here we were given interesting prospects for afternoon activities and we toured the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum and attended an evening slide show with talks from two local residents. One gal has lived here 25 years and told of the scenery and changes over the years. The other guy works as a forester and spoke of the timber industry and explained why this area is so good for raising trees. He described how Aspens and Spruce intermingle in the forests, which was ever so apparent in our drive today. This would be a beautiful fall color place near mid September when leaves change.
He spoke of the OSB made in the local big mill mostly from Aspen or cottonwood trees. It is a kind of pressed particleboard. He explained why drilling for Natural gas (quite prevalent in Northern British Columbia) has such a short drilling season. It is normally done only in winter months because when the ground thaws, all heavy equipment will sink up to the roof. The are finding ways to make wooden roads and platforms so natural gas can be pumped for longer time periods to meet the demand. Since the talks were held at the local movie theatre, when it was 8:00 the movie was about to begin so the talks abruptly stopped. We were hungry for a pizza and visited a chain restaurant called Boston Pizza. The sign outside said ?Help Wanted.? They were very busy and badly in need of extra help. The waiter explained to us it is very hard to get any help in this town for low paying jobs, as a high school drop out can earn $20 per hour working in one of the Pumping camps. It feels like winter here to me. A planned stop tomorrow will be a soak in Liard Hot Springs to warm up. This trip is fascinating and informative and I am so glad to share it with all of you who are reading it.
Statistics;
Motorhome Miles driven: 279
Fuel fill up: 56.5 gallons Cost per gallon $3.36 (US)Thanks JamesOne for the conversion table.
Temperature: High 51 Low 40 Rain, drizzle all day
Wildlife sightings: 1 red tailed hawk, one dead elk along the road, several deer along the road.
One white stuffed Moose in the Museum (does it count?)
We departed Dawson Creek and headed North on the Alaskan Highway. Today I learned how to use the Milepost guidebook and it sat on my lap the entire 6 hour drive. Every hill and dale and river and hamburger joint is listed along the way. Interesting tidbits of history are thrown in as well as a commentary on the local flora and fauna. I was able to read aloud to Terry as a tour guide as he drove. Not far into our trip we took a bit of a side tour to the Kiskatinaw River Bridge. It is the only original timber bridge from the Alcan Highway construction still in use. It is 531 feet long, curved and high. I walked over it to get pictures of the motorhome driving over it. We were safe as it has a 25 ton pound limit as we only weigh about 20 tons.(now he tells me)
The scenery would have been considered boring today except for thinking of those men who worked so hard to carve a road down this swath of forest. The road today is thankfully cleared of trees about 50 to100 yards across. This gave us a chance to see above the tree line and to watch carefully for animals that might dart out in front of us. We crossed down a 10% grade. We passed several Natural Gas drilling operations and saw a multitude of forest service industries and logging operations working. When we arrived at Fort Nelson at around 3:30 Ned and Lorna were here and had saved us a place here in the Bluebell RV Park. As it had drizzled and/or rained most of the day I can now understand why all other travel journals I?ve read, speak so much about car washes. Our rigs are trashed with mud, dirt, dust and gunk.
First stop was to the Visitor Information Center. Here we were given interesting prospects for afternoon activities and we toured the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum and attended an evening slide show with talks from two local residents. One gal has lived here 25 years and told of the scenery and changes over the years. The other guy works as a forester and spoke of the timber industry and explained why this area is so good for raising trees. He described how Aspens and Spruce intermingle in the forests, which was ever so apparent in our drive today. This would be a beautiful fall color place near mid September when leaves change.
He spoke of the OSB made in the local big mill mostly from Aspen or cottonwood trees. It is a kind of pressed particleboard. He explained why drilling for Natural gas (quite prevalent in Northern British Columbia) has such a short drilling season. It is normally done only in winter months because when the ground thaws, all heavy equipment will sink up to the roof. The are finding ways to make wooden roads and platforms so natural gas can be pumped for longer time periods to meet the demand. Since the talks were held at the local movie theatre, when it was 8:00 the movie was about to begin so the talks abruptly stopped. We were hungry for a pizza and visited a chain restaurant called Boston Pizza. The sign outside said ?Help Wanted.? They were very busy and badly in need of extra help. The waiter explained to us it is very hard to get any help in this town for low paying jobs, as a high school drop out can earn $20 per hour working in one of the Pumping camps. It feels like winter here to me. A planned stop tomorrow will be a soak in Liard Hot Springs to warm up. This trip is fascinating and informative and I am so glad to share it with all of you who are reading it.
Statistics;
Motorhome Miles driven: 279
Fuel fill up: 56.5 gallons Cost per gallon $3.36 (US)Thanks JamesOne for the conversion table.
Temperature: High 51 Low 40 Rain, drizzle all day
Wildlife sightings: 1 red tailed hawk, one dead elk along the road, several deer along the road.
One white stuffed Moose in the Museum (does it count?)
