Little Van on the Prairie

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Well, after an exciting week and a bit, we’re now in Alberta, the western-most of the Canadian "Prairie Provinces".

After we left Skagway in Alaska, we headed back across White Pass into Canada (the journey was just as spectacular on the way up as it was on the way into the US - some of the best scenery that we have seen so far). Once we crossed White Pass, we returned to the town of Carcross, and attempted (but failed) to have a cycle around the Montana Mountain bike trails. We’re convinced that half of the places listed on these maps & guides really do not exist in reality. We then turned east and headed towards Taglish and Atlin. Once we got passed Little Atlin Lake, though, the road turned into dusty pot-hole ridden gravel again, so we took pity on the poor van and back-tracked to Teslin and Teslin Lake.

We spent a lovely evening by the lakeside, even staying up late enough to watch the sunset just before midnight! The following day, we headed east again, back to Watson Lake. Quick stop to have the 5,000 mile service done on the van. And realised that if we’d just been driving east from Vancouver since we started, we’d have passed the UK about 600 miles ago - of course, we’d also be somewhat wet from driving across the Atlantic, but let’s not let the details get in the way of an interesting fact.

Leaving Watson Lake we headed south east towards the Liard River Hot Springs, for a bit of a lazy day. On the way we saw three Wood Bison, lying by the side of the road. They look very impressive, but (how can I put this delicately?) eating grass all day seems to give them some “digestive problems”... Ahem.

Anyway, the Hot Springs we’re fantastic. Just what we needed after a hard day of sightseeing. The Lower Pool is somewhere between 40 & 50 degrees C (depending on which end you sit at). We decided against going into the slightly cooler Upper Pool due to the huge number of leaves & dead flies lying on the surface. Now the Hot Springs were great, but there is an unfortunate side effect of sitting in an oversize natural bathtub in the middle of the forest - the water washes off the mosquito spray... So, yet again, we ended up covered in bites (Lynne, There’s no need to say it this time...!).

The following day we headed south again, this time to Stone Mountain & Summit Lake (via the very attractive Muncho Lake - which is hyped to be one of the most attractive lakes in BC. Not sure I would go that far, but it was pretty attractive). Anyway, after a lovely sunny morning (check out the blue sky on the Muncho Lake picture), we planned for adversity and donned our wet weather gear for a trek up the mountain. Just as well really, as after we’d been walking for nearly 2 hrs, and about ¾ of the way up to Flower Springs Lake, the heavens opened and we were pelted with hail. Yes, that’s right, HAIL. Some of it up to the size of garden peas. Which hurts. A lot. Despite the thunder and lightning raging around us in the mountains, we persevered to almost the end of the trail (we got to the point where we could see the lake and then turned around). Soaked to the skin we finally made it back to the van to dry out.

Wednesday, we headed south east again, towards the town of Fort Nelson. Now, it could just be that we were both feeling a bit grumpy after the soaking of the previous day, or maybe we just had the Wednesday blues, but either way, 2 hrs after we checked into the worst RV park that we have found so far in Canada, we were on the road again with a full refund in our pocket vowing never to return to Fort Nelson. If you appreciate overflowing sewers, wireless internet that doesn’t work, and fancy sharing a single toilet with 159 other campsite pitches, then let us know and we can recommend a suitable RV park in Fort Nelson!

We carried on south, stopping instead at Buckinghorse River Campgrounds (pleasantly functional), hoping so see an elusive moose. But still no dice. Thursday morning, we headed south again, down to the town of Fort St John, staying at Charlie Lake. As it was Canada Day and we got there earlier than we planned, we took advantage of the fantastic weather to do a bit of sunbathing. Before we had tea, we decided to have another wander down to the lake to stretch our legs: and given we’d already been down to the lake, we walked sans camera. So, obviously, this would be the day that we FINALLY saw a moose! Just as we were walking through the forest, we heard a rustling, and a medium sized female moose walked straight out of the bushes in front of us. We’re not entirely sure who was more startled, us or her. So we stood there (like idiots) staring at her, while she stood there, staring at us (and chewing a large mouthful of grass). After about five minutes of staring at each other, we all wandered off on our separate ways. So, we have achieved our aim of seeing a moose in the wild, but we have absolutely no photos of the event.

Friday we spent the day in the town of Fort St John itself, walking a couple of nature trails, doing the shopping, etc. Saturday, we headed west along the Peace River valley to visit the W.A.C. Bennett hydro-electric dam, and the Peace Canyon hydro-electric dam. (Well, I think that hydro-electric power stations are interesting, even if no one else does! Does the fact that the man-made lake behind the W.A.C. Bennett dam is 250 miles long sway anyone? No? It’s the ninth largest man-made lake in the world, you know. OK, I give up with trying to make it sound interesting).

Overnight at a very busy Moberley Lake campground just outside the town of Chetwynd, then we headed east again, to Dawson Creek. Starting point of the Alaska Highway. Apart from one 20-mile long section (which we missed out because of our trip via Chetwynd), we have managed to drive all of the 1,221 miles of the Alaska Highway in Canada. Plus, of course, the section between the US border and the City of Tok in Alaska. (another 100-odd miles or so). I’m strangely proud of that! (Perhaps I need to get out more...?). We had a quick look at one of the old wooden trestle bridges that was built during the construction of the highway in 1942 at a place called Kiskatinaw. It’s one of the few curved wooden bridges that were built, and the only one still in use as a road today. We were planning to spend the night at Kiskatinaw, but as there had been less to do in Dawson Creek than we anticipated, we decided instead to push on towards Edmonton, and crossed the BC/Alberta border. Overnighting at a place called Moonshine Lake.

The following day we headed further into the prairies. Now, I wouldn’t say that the prairies are flat (mainly because their not - they are more rolling than we thought: sort of like the Vale of York), but the roads are somewhat straight. We managed to drive for 45 km down one particular road without a single bend. Lots of corn & oil seed rape fields. And grain elevators. And oil wells. If you swapped the oil wells for coal mines, it would be an awful lot like Selby. But without the Abbey.

Anyway, we tried to stop at Peace River. But we didn’t like the campground (this is becoming a habit...), so we continued instead to Winagami Lake, which was far nicer. A huge (and I really do mean huge) Amish family was staying there too. The 12 or so girls (all between the ages of 8 and 13) looked like something out of the Stepford Wives with their matching dresses and blonde hair in ponytails. We watched a big old thunderstorm rage across the prairie. Well we watched it until it started raining on us at any rate.

Tuesday we drove to Lesser Slave Lake. (Even though its over 100km long, it’s dwarfed by the Greater Slave Lake, which is about 8 times as big). The thunderstorm of Monday evening definitely had a cleaning up affect, so lots of time was spent lazing in the sun on the lakeshore, trying to avoid the sandflies. No mosquitoes, though, which was a blessing.

Wednesday we carried on our journey towards Edmonton. We started off with a bike ride up the local mountain. About 6km up what felt like a vertical cliff. To be honest, it was more of a bike walk, than a bike ride. But the journey down was fun. Leaving Slave Lake behind, we headed further into the Alberta countryside. A couple of quick stops at lakes on the way, before getting to the town of Athabasca - named after the river, which begins at the glacier in the Rockies that we plan to visit in a few weeks time.

In town we took advantage of "Toonie Wednesday" at the local swimming pool - mainly because spending $2 for an hours swim and a free shower is better value than spending $1 for 30 seconds in the not-exactly-spotless shower in the campground. (Who says we're tight?)

And finally (what do you mean, "At Last...!"?), we set off from Athabasca this morning (after a brief walk around the Musteg Trail - once we found it... don't get me started on those Canadian cartographers again...) And now we are in Edmonton. The provincial capital of Alberta and the sixth largest city in Canada. We spend a couple of hours wandering around the Edmonton Mall - allegedly the largest shopping mall in the world. Tomorrow we're planning to spend the day wandering through the city centre, and then at last, we're going to start to make our way to the Rockies.

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