As we ventured south on an overnight trip into Atlin, B.C., rain coming down heavier with each passing kilometre, we questioned our sanity in going there although John has always wanted me to see it. At the Yukon/ BC border, we left smooth paved highway for 50+ km of slippery, muddy, gravel road. The car was a total mess when we pulled into the local cafe for a tasty lunch. As had often happened, our picnic supper was a balancing act in our motel room that night, our view – bits of a dull lake and almost invisible mountains. But next morning, once again, the fog gods took pity on us by dissipating the clouds and showing us a blue lake reflecting mountains and glaciers. After touring the town in sunshine, we returned to the Alaska Highway and turned east.
Since we had missed part of it, we compensated by travelling more of the Alaska Highway twice! New territory began with Watson Lake, YK, now a bustling town instead of the one-hotel place John remembers well, having once rousted the alcoholic doctor out of the pub to treat a worker’s broken arm. Sign-Post Forest, which was started by a homesick soldier during construction of this great highway in 1942, now boasts over 72,000 signs. At the Northern Lights Space and Science Center, Aurora Borealis danced across the screen above our heads.
Buffalo, taller than our car, and Stone Sheep (ewes and lambs) pulled traffic to sudden stops during our next travels and two caribou posed for photos just above us. Then, for a change of pace, there is nothing like soaking in Liard Hot Springs.
Further along, rain pock-marked Muncho Lake as we drove beside it, along the reportedly most expensive section of the original Alaska Highway, little changed now. From our comfy cabin at Toad River Lodge that night we watched Mrs. Moose munching slough grass at the edge of a beaver-built pond between us.
With the road now winding through the peaks of the Northern Rockies, fall colours changed along with our elevations and every sweeping bend. In Fort Nelson’s museum we saw highly polished antique vehicles inside and farm machines rusting outside. A canoe made from one piece of bark, construction process shown in photos, hung from a ceiling.
There were not many highlights on the drive southwards – unless you count arriving in oil-drilling country with its flares, trucks flying past both directions, huge camps, and new, wide, gravel roads leading into the bush. From peace and tranquility, we’d driven into down-town traffic – without any town – until reaching bustling Fort St. John, on the Peace River. Soon after, we were in Dawson Creek, and Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. We did it!
Choosing to drive home through Jasper, we turned south-east to Grande Prairie, Alberta, where approximately 60,000 residents have fine displays of dinosaurs to show off at the Visitor Centre, but we were about museum-ed out! We left them, streets and streets of city stuff, and continued south to Grande Cache in its splendid mountain-surround setting.
Travelling south to Hinton next morning, we realized we could be home that evening but still stopped for more, including a coyote feasting on a road-killed moose, reluctantly stepping away when we slowed and, near Jasper, Rocky Mountain Sheep and a couple of bull elks. Outside the park, we saw an inconspicuous historical marker, acknowledging shabby treatment of Japanese-Canadians by the Canadian Government during World War II.
Soon the horses under the car’s hood were galloping home on Highway 5. We’d been away for a month and 8,000 km – Gypsy our cat almost pretended to be happy to see us!