Day 8: Up the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse
Friday night was a fairly short one – I went to bed at the top of the Sikanni Chief hill, and was back on the Alaska Highway well before 05:00.
I don’t think that the people protesting a new pipeline in BC have any idea how many hundreds of thousands of miles of pipeline run through the province now, and how many new ones are being built right now. Was it just the size of the Northern Gateway that got it such publicity?
Although the highway was quiet, by 06:15 I was pretty much out of the oil/gas field region and knew that it would stay that way.
There was thick fog in the Muskwa River valley at Fort Nelson, where I stopped for a very good breakfast at the Woodlands Hotel at 07:30.
At the northern edge of Fort Nelson, a few thousand acres of agricultural land appear, just before starting up into the Northern Rockies. Over the past 25 years there have been elk and bison farms along here, but more and more yards of oil, gas and forestry equipment are moving onto the farmland.
The first of 4 construction delays north of Fort Nelson – this one just a fairly short re-surfacing project.
At the long-abandoned Steamboat Lodge, we sat for almost half an hour waiting for a pilot car.
At 10:30, I reached the start of the longest section of construction, perhaps 20 km of major rebuild.
As the miles went on and on and on, I felt sorry for the motorcyclists and especially the cyclists we met – on a bike, this would go on for hours.
I thought briefly about going for a hike in Stone Mountain Park, but really wanted to be home Saturday so pushed on. It was quite warm, so most of the bison around Liard Hot Springs were off in the forest, but there were still enough along the roadside to thrill tourists 🙂
Tire repairs used to be a significant part of an Alaska Highway lodge’s business, but both the road surface and tires are much better now, so shops like this one at Contact Creek Lodge, my final fuel stop, get little if any use now.
At about 8:00, I reached home, after 8 days driving 3,400 miles from Phoenix. What an amazing Adventure! Cathy wanted to go camping this weekend, but agreed with me that camping in the driveway, getting the dogs and cat used to the new “cabin” before turning the engine on, would be a better idea. Next weekend, we’d be off to Atlin for our first trip with the whole family 🙂
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