Dawson Creek to Hinton, Alberta
Following Wednesday’s touring of Dawson Creek, I spent about 1/2 an hour taking more photos around Dawson Creek on Thursday morning, then headed for Hinton, 462 km to the southeast.
By 08:40 I had crossed the border into Alberta and was well into the flat country on Highway 43.
The giant beaver at Beaverlodge is one of Alberta’s many notable roadside attractions,and I expect will be the only thing that will ever make Beaverlodge stand out 🙂
From a rise just south of Beaverlodge, the Rocky Mountains can be seen to the west.
A screaming southeast wind took wind chills into the -30s, and the cold had heaved the road enough to make it a surprisingly rough ride.
Dropping down off the plateau to Grande Prairie, the shopping/service centre for a huge region, and a community that I usually summarize as having all the personality of a Walmart parking lot. I stopped and had a leisurely lunch with a nephew that I seldom see, so I enjoyed being there this time.
From Grande Prairie, the short and scenic route is Highway 40, though I couldn’t convince the nav system in my car of that until I actually turned onto the highway. Highway 40 used to be a logging-access road, but now gas wells are the resource extraction feature seen most.
That huge tank would be an “interesting” load to see coming down the highway towards you!
I arrived in Hinton at dinner time. It was of course great to see my son and his wife, and all the fur-kids that I’ve adopted for the next 12 days. This is Conan on Steve’s shoulder.
Conan is a real sweet guy but quite a character as well. Here, he and Eaudin, a 10-month-old purebred Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, tease each other – their “discussions” are quite funny to watch.
On Friday morning, I went for a long walk in the very cold air to get some photos of the reason Hinton grew to be a sizable community (10,000 people now) – the pulp mill, turning trees into paper and vapour. When t’s very cold, the vapour turns into snow, dusting everything in town. First, the log processing plant…
…then the pulp mill.
I was hoping to be able to get a mill tour – no luck there, but I was able to get to the secured back side of the mill.
This is the water treatment pond – made me think of an industrial Yellowstone.
On a hill right beside the water treatment pond lives a large herd of elk.
This is the view that the elk above were looking at – I shot these two photos from the same spot. Anyone who thinks that industry ruins the world for wildlife needs to talk to these elk 🙂
It’s now Sunday afternoon – as you can see, I’ve got some very good weather ahead. Although the wind chill was officially -49°C (-56°F) yesterday morning, I still went out on a road trip to Jasper – that’s the next story I want to tell you 🙂
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