A Good Start
Day 1
My cousin Paul first mentioned Alaska about two years before we actually left for Alaska. Well, this was the year. With the odometer at 73,400, I left home, Victoria, B.C., and caught the 1:00 PM ferry on June 15, 2007, with a light rain. Once away from Vancouver, you head up the Fraser Canyon with some of the most spectacular scenery. This includes about seven tunnels hung on the side of the mountains. Train tracks also follow just above the river. At this time of the year, the river crashes its way to the ocean. Once out of the canyon, the land becomes more arid. The road still has plenty of twists and turns and the views become more expansive.
Now at the corner of Cache Creek, you go east to see the rest of Canada or north to Alaska. This is where I spent the first night.
Day 2
From Prince George you now head into the interior of the province between mountain ranges. The road gets to have more sweeping turns while running from small valley to small valley with lots of farms. Next is the Clinton area, which is more of a plateau area to 100 Mile House, known for a lot of cross country skiing. A lot of pine forest with pine beetles which is as harmful as it can be. The pine forests show much beauty even in their deaths caused by the pine beetle. At Quesnel, there is a turn off to the once gold mining town of Barkerville, now mostly for tourists. I have been up this road, but not today. Then I continued on to Prince George where I met my cousin at a friend’s house.
Day 3
We leave Prince George for Fort St. John and the Alcan Highway (Alaska Canada Highway).
The road, at first, has a lot of flat areas with some farming. Still, no roads in B.C. are very straight or flat. As you approach the next range of mountains, the roads get more sweeper turns and low rolling hills. We now start following along beside the Pine River and large valleys with scattered farming.
Next, we stop at Bijoux Falls. It was right beside the road.
From here we headed up the side of a mountain to Pine Pass.
We then took a side trip to the Bennett Dam.
On this road we see five deer. Then off to the fast growing town of Fort St.John were the oil patch starts.
We are now heading north on the Alaska Highway to Fort Nelson and the start of roads I have never been on before. This area becomes big country with wide open spaces. It remained me of areas in Utah, except it has trees. There are hardly any people here just the odd farm and dwarf spruce trees mixed with tall white birch trees.
This day we saw two moose along here and stayed in Fort Nelson, a one road town. The odometer now was reading 75,245 (1800 km so far).