10. Day 5 – To the end of the Alaskan Highway at Dawson Creek
Friday 12 May 2006
After a good nights sleep (we slept in) we didn’t get up until 9am. Dick cooked bacon and eggs while Pip had a really good hot shower. The shower heats from the engine and remains hot all night. We have both a diesel powered and an electric boost if we require it. Just before we left we took this photo in the gravel pit.
Our Eathroamer parked in the gravel pit at Fort NelsonDick cooking breakfast
Our GPS shows it is 3,064km to Denver which will take 33 hours and 12 minutes if we kept driving at our average speed.
It‘s 41 degrees F and raining as we head south on the Alcan for our last leg to Dawson Creek.
Raining as we travelled south
We noticed for the first time, there were plastic bags and rubbish beside the road. Every now and then we saw a white cross beside the road with plastic flowers, obviously where people have died in motor vehicle accidents – there must be lots of them. It was raining heavily as we passed through endless pine forests, cruising at 96kph on the vehicle’s cruise control. At Mile 73 on the old Alcan Highway we took a photograph of a very old roadhouse.
Mile 73 roadhouse
The mileages on the Alcan Highway all start from Dawson Creek, many of the mileposts have been removed in Canada and replaced with kilometer markings. Also the distances have now changed because of re-location of the road.
On the approach to Dawson Creek our mobile phones started working. Pip made quick phone calls to our family.
A silo with a grain elevator coming into Dawson Creek
Dawson Creek is an industrial town based very much on the gas industry.
Grain silos beside the highwayDawson Creek power station
It has an average snow fall of 72 inches per annum and the average temperature in January is –18 degrees C – it sure is a cold place. There is a lot of farming in the area with fields planted with canola and also cereal grain is grown.
Another old silo with a grain elevator now used as an art gallery in Dawson Creek
We had come to the end of our trip down the Alaskan Highway. We parked in front of the famous zero mile marker.
Dick and the Eathroamer in front of Mile 0 at Dawson Creek
We visited the excellent information centre which is located in the old railway station building and watched a film on the construction of the Highway. Amazingly it only took eight months to build because of the threat of the Japanese invasion into Alaska.
Mile 0 signFlags flying outside the Visitors Centre in Dawson Creek
Then onto Wal Mart (the second largest company in the world) for some re-supplies and we parked the night in their car park with half a dozen other RV’s. Wal Mart acts very astutely and encourages RVers to park in their car parks. An interesting fact was that a local newspaper was advertising for locomotive engineers at C$25 per hour.
We have now completed 2670 km or 6.6% of the 24,901 miles around the world.
