Day 6 – Alaska Highway
November 7th, 2008 Posted in 2008 Alaska trip2008-06-19, Thursday
Kiskatinaw Provincial Park, BC (08:39) to Toad River, BC (18:30)
1800 miles away from home. The weather starts out great in the morning, high 50s and sunny. It rained a bit in the afternoon, high for the day is in the 70s.
Yesterday we took a little detour to get to a short section of the “old Alaska Highway” and this morning we get to drive on the wooden Kiskatinaw bridge.
After the bridge we followed a small section of the old highway which passes mostly residential area and is not in a very good condition (potholes) to get back on the “current” Alaska Highway. On the Milepost there’s some mention of the “world’s largest glass beehive” somewhere nearby but we did not check it out. We are flipping through “The Milepost” as we go but sometimes things are pretty confusing. For example, in Canada they used metric system so they have “kilopost” vs “milepost”. Also the actual Alaska Highway has been rebuilt several time in history that some of the section is no longer following the original route, and therefore the difference between actual miles and historic miles.
The next big town is Fort St John, we stopped to use the ATM machine in the grocery store but it was not working so we went to the nearby mall to find one. The mall looked deserted, probably because it just opened… At Shephred’s Inn (“Historil Mile 72″) we stopped to pick up a cinnamon roll. This thing is huge! There are plenty of road side pullouts along the Alaska Highway but almost all of them contains only a trashcan. The Milepost is full of information like “turnout with litter barrels” but not much information on where a restroom would be. I guess you are supposed to stop at every roadside cafe/tourist attraction/gas station to use the service but we end up driving past most of them without stopping. We finally pulled into a rest stop (“Historic Mile 80″) that has picnic tables and restroom! Woohoo! The rest area looked pretty nice if not for the mosquitoes flying around. Instead of eating our cinnamon roll by the picnic table we have to settle for eating it inside the truck. There is something about cinnamon buns and road trips.
Around lunch time we looked up on the Milepost and found a park with picnic table – Buckinghorse River Wayside Provincial Park. They have nice shaded picnic tables by the Buckinghorse river. The mosquitoes weren’t too bad here and we were able to enjoy our lunch (tortilla wraps) sitting at the picture table. The local birds on the other hand are the nasty bunchs, we have to guard our food closely because they are very curious about human food. A couple next to us had their cookies stolen by the birds!
We arrived Ft. Nelson late afternoon, went to A&W for root beer float, then fill up the truck and moved on. Looking at the Milepost we decided we will probably be staying at Toad River tonight.
As we drive further west we begin to feel that we are moving away from civilization. On this section of the Alaska Highway we see fewer and fewer car on the road and towns/villages, gas stations are further apart. The road is in pretty good condition mostly, some paved, some being worked on, and some good gravel.
We pulled into Toad River Lodge around 6pm. The gas station is having a “traffic jam” as there are a few vehicles waiting to fill up, some of them probably will take forever to fill up too! There is really not a whole lot of “things” in this “outpost” – houses and airstrip on on side of the highway; restaurant, RV park, lodge, gas station, general store and greyhound station with Canada Post on the other side. While David is waiting in line to get us a room at the motel I walked around the general store looking at their large collection of hats, mostly baseball caps. According to the whiteboard they have 7480 hats here and I guess people just keep bringing them in!
The room has TV and a fridge and is right next to the lake. It is decent but has a funny smell that made me feel sick. We were told it’s sulfur because all the water smell like that around here, and sure enough even the ones coming out of the faucet smells. We opened all the window to vent the stale air out and it got better. Luckily the bug problem isn’t too bad here (sulfur helped maybe?) and we decided to make a quick dinner of dehydrated backpacking food. It’s easy to prepare and tastes pretty good. After dinner we do our usual walk around the area, the ladies who work at the lodge/store earlier were just getting off work, we watch them get into their car, drive across the Alaska Highway and stopped at one of the house across the road. Short commute!
We walked alongside the highway for a bit then head back to the room to get some rest. David checked out what is on TV but I guess he didn’t find anything interesting to watch. On the iBook I picked up a wireless signal that took me to a config screen on some Linksys access point (no password!), we think it’s probably just a random AP from some guest staying here.
FJ spotted: SF x1
Wildlife spotted: deer/elk x4, big horn sheep x4