Mile Zero

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22 Jul 2016: Today is a travel day. We got up early (for us) and we're on the road by 0930. We took the Trans Canada Route 1 to the Icefield parkway, retracing our drive of a few days before. Driving beyond the Athabasca Glacier we continued up to Jasper, where we had lunch. Unlike Banff, Jasper is on level ground and is strung out along the highway. The city has provided for RV parking on the right side of the road which was very welcoming.

We continued on and turned off on to highway 16 and then highway 40 just before Hinton to Grande Cache. From there we continued to Grande Prairie, entered British Columbia and thence to Dawson Creek. This was,the longest part of the trip. There were construction slowdowns and delays, the topography was hilly to mountainous and the paved road was rough. We passed a coal mining operation scraping the material right off the side of the mountain and there were numerous energy and equipment businesses hidden by trees. Logging had a big presence and we saw many installatons that seemed to be natural gas wells.
It is clear that Alberta has been blessed with a multitude of assets.

Entering BC the route changed to two until just before getting to our destination. We checked in just before 2000 hours, and that with picking up an extra hour entering BC.

During this segment we saw Deer, Elk, a herd of Mountain Sheep grazing by the roadside, a Moose and a Fox. This was our first Moose sighting just a few miles before getting to our next stop.

We have made it to mile Zero of the Alaskan Highway.

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