North to Alaska

August 22, 2009

And so we begin our first day officially on the Alaskan Highway.  We camped last night at MilePost 29 at the Kiskitanaw Provincial Campground.  We met the camp… host… I guess you could say, but Alex was much more than a simple “host”.  He comes there in April or May and stays until October and really takes care of the park.  “This is my park” he told us… not in a possessive or arrogant way, but in a proud way.  He walked around the park about 10pm with his dog ‘Moose’ (an aptly named Lab/Rottweiler mix of about 125 pounds) and stopped in for a chat.  He liked our solar LED Christmas lights we had strung up on one of the smaller spruce trees in our camp.  He stayed and chatted for a while before moving on.  We are pretty deep into Canada at this point and I knew the “eh’s” would start popping up… and they have… pretty much after every other sentence.  It’s the little things that ya just seem to notice, eh?  Alex left us with a new map, his business card so we could look him up next time we were in the area and a word of advise… “Watch out for the moose, eh?”

We left right on time… 10:12am again this morning.  Been really trying to beat our record of 9-something but just can’t do it.

We made it about ¼ mile from our camp before we hade to make our first stop of the day.  No, the road wasn’t THAT bad!  The last remaining bridge still in use today from the original Alaskan Highway built in 1942 was right in our path.  It is made entirely of wood similar to railroad trestles and cool thing about it is that is curves about 7-degrees as it crosses the river 150’ below.  Of course we got a picture of Thumper on it.

Not much further up the road, we passed this big sign that said “Honey”.  Did someone say Honey?... having not seen the sign till it was too late we made a U-turn and headed back.  There we met Mr. Van Han, who was now retired and, by all means, out-of-business… that is until we showed up.  He pulled his John Deere tractor (the big kind) right up behind us and got the key to the door of the shop off the telephone pole and in we went.  We got a whole lesson on bees and honey and plowing snow on the Alaskan Highway.  So, we got our standard 15-pound drum of honey and headed on down the road, spoon in hand, scooping and savoring the new treat.  One thing before you go though… “Watch out for those moose, eh?.”

We keep Aunt Alvina’s trip journal close so we can read about what they did and saw as they traveled this road.  One of our goals was to stop at the gas station at MilePost 136 where Grandma & Grandpa knew the owners, the Warrens, from their previous trip to Alaska and spent a night there during their trip in 1974.  We did find the station, still with the campground behind it, but the Warrens were gone and the folks there now didn’t know much about them.  Still, it was neat to be there.

Now… we are really making good time!  That is until we pulled into Saint John where there was a farmers market… and a yard sale… and diesel fuel… and a sporting goods store… and this guy making wooden signs… and… let’s just say we were there for longer than we planned.

We are now camped at this de-commissioned Provincial campground at Prophet River where Aunt Alvina and crew stopped and got some spring water… and so did we.  Nice to know that they were in this same place drinking from the same spring a mere 35 years ago.

 

Oh… and for you keeping track at home… we have seen… 6 Whitetail Deer, 29 Chipmunks, 4 Bald Eagles, 1,467 Crows and one small dog…

But NO Moose!