North to Alaska- We Start the Alaskan Highway

We left Dawson Creek and started our first leg of the Alaskan Highway. We had recalculated our driving times and distances to even out the remaining days, so that we didn’t have some days that were going to be really long.

Working on the Kiskatinaw bridge

The distances were not necessarily so great, but the driving times and effort needed to complete some of the legs was becoming challenging. It was not easy to complete each leg, and Capt. Larry had to do all of the driving as Jane was just beside herself on some of the obstacles the roads presented. We made our way to the town of Fort St. John which was one of our originally planned stopping points. We found all of these small communities to be just vibrating with economic activity, mostly due to oil exploration. Oil fracking is big in these parts and it was easy to see that things are booming by the high local prices and the help wanted signs. The challenge of building the Alaskan Highway was in constructing the 133 original bridges over various rivers and creeks that had to be crossed. We met a present day delay at the Kiskatinaw River bridge due to maintenance. These structures are subject to severe springtime water flows and erosion, and have to be constantly repaired.

Outside of Ft. St. John we came to the Peace River Bridge which was one of the primary obstacles that faced the engineers in the original construction of the Alaskan Highway.

8-10% grades to Peace River

The original bridge was dismantled from a site in California in 1942 under a wartime priority order, and quickly reconstructed over the Peace River. Haste makes waste, however, as this bridge collapsed in 1957.

Peace River valley

The current day approach to the Peace River bridge is a driving challenge on a 4-mile, winding approach with 8-10% grades. We could not imagine driving it at night!

Current Peace River bridge

When the road settled down, we spotted some more wildlife along the road, spotting a couple more deer, and another moose standing right by the roadside. We slowed down to get a picture of the moose, but will leave it up to Jane to explain why the picture is not in this blog!

Driving the Peace River bridge

We drove on until we came to Pink Mountain where we needed a rest stop. In this area we found a number of spruce trees that had been killed by an infestation of pine beetles. There are vast sections of dead trees interspersed with patches of live ones. We are not sure how this challenge can be fought, but we’re sure efforts are underway.

An example of pine beetle infestation

Further along the way we came to a rest area where we pulled in to have lunch. To our amazement, there was a mowing crew mowing the highway’s roadside. This is not your normal roadside mowing job, as there are many hills, gullies, and small streams and sloughs that had to be negotiated.

Pink Mountain rest stop

We watched the mowing operation while we ate our lunch, then headed on to Ft. Nelson. We arrived at Ft. Nelson and stopped at the visitor’s center to check out the lodging possibilities.

A more challenging way to do the highway

We checked 3 establishments and found them to be all booked, and we started to feel a tinge of panic. Ft. Nelson didn’t have that many motels. We ended up getting a room at a really nice motel.

At the Ft. Nelson historical museum

After we checked in we went to the Ft. Nelson Historical Museum which pretty much was a collection of really old junk that was donated and made into a museum display.

Museum exhibit- 1959 Hillman Minx

But it was something to pass the time. We turned in early to get ready for our next leg of the highway which was going to be a little longer.