The Start of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek [260615]

(Posted 260629) It's a little odd to think that we're almost two weeks into our trip and we've only just today reached the beginning of the highway to Alaska, but here we are!

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Monday morning we were up with our 8:30 alarm, but ended up having to do some Xfinity Mobile research for our daughter during our morning routine so got a little later start than planned and finally pulled out of the parking lot around 10:15. We decided before leaving Chetwynd we'd stop at the Home Hardware Centre (sort of a Canadian Ace Hardware) to buy a hose coupling repair piece (despite having a whole bag full of them at home, thanks to Vine, which unfortunately doesn't help us here in Canada) for our Zero-G hose. While there we found that they also had a 50' expandable hose on sale for half off (CA$19.97, marked down from a CA$40 regular price) so we decided to hedge our bets and buy that too - just in case we weren't able to repair the Zero-G.

As we drove through "the other half" of Chetwynd on our way out of town we passed through another swath of chainsaw carvings, but given our already-late start we just glanced at them as we did our high-speed drive-by rather than do another walking tour. It'll leave us something to do the next time we're driving to Alaska. 😉

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Our goal for the day was to reach the Mile 0 marker for the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek. The 102 km drive east (yes, counter-intuitively we're driving east today to get to Alaska) was pretty uneventful, except for the light to moderate rain that fell on us for a large portion of the hour and fifteen minute drive. The rain wasn't a problem in and of itself - it was what the rain was doing to the roads that was the problem. While the highway itself is paved, every side road leading to/from it is dirt - and when cars and trucks come off of those dirt roads in the rain their tires are caked with mud which transfers onto the highway and dissolves into the water on the pavement. That dirty water is then picked up and thrown into the air as a fine mist by every car you follow and every car you pass, coating your windshield with a thin layer of grime that takes either a heavy rain or a lot of windshield wiper fluid to clear off. It took us a little while to figure that last part out - at first we thought that there was something wrong with our wiper blades, and then we finally figured out that there just wasn't enough liquid on the glass to wipe all the gunk that settled onto it off!

We reached the Alaska Highway marker sign in Dawson Creek just before noon, and got into the line of RVs waiting for their turn for photos by the sign. Since we were third in line, we had time to prep our tripod and cameras to minimize the amount of time we'd have to spend at the sign - and then noticed that there seemed to be an official-looking gal taking photos for folks. It turns out that the Visitor Center had set up a little satellite outpost for the gal . . .

. . . who did a really good job (unlike most of the folks that you randomly meet out and about who offer to help take photos for you, and you end up with crooked, oddly framed photos of completely different things than you wanted in the photo). She spent a decent amount of time with each set of folks, taking photos on both sides of the sign, and she knew how to use both the iPhone and the Nikon correctly. And best of all - her presence kept insensitive idiots from monopolizing the sign (which folks on the Facebook group had been complaining was happening just a week ago).

(Looking at the photos later, Tom noted that the van is facing the opposite direction than the red arrow on the sign is - but unfortunately that was the direction that the line of RVs was facing, so we didn't have much of a choice in the matter.)

Having gotten photo #1, we decided to move over to the Visitor Center a few blocks away. As we went to back out of our parking space, we realized that mud spray had completely covered the lens of our backup camera making it display nothing but a uniform tan color (with backup lines on it) on the screen; Tom had to go hit it with the spray bottle of water he keeps in the door in order for us to be able to see out of it again.

The Visitor Center is in the historic downtown, which only has long but narrow angled parking spots (which made Tom a bit uncomfortable) with a 2 hour parking limit. It also happened to be at photo op #2: the intersection where the official Mile 0 marker for the Alaskan Highway is. So we took photos there before going into the Visitor Center.

Inside the Visitor Center, we got some info and maps - and also bought a couple (because they were cheap, compared to how much pins normally cost in the U.S. these days!) of pins to commemorate the occasion.

We planned to do the walking tour of the downtown area after lunch, and the gal at the Visitor Center thought that the 2 hour parking limit wouldn't be a problem, but we decided to move back to the larger lot by the Alaska Highway sign anyway since a) it had not time limit and b) it was where the walking tour started anyway. While eating lunch, we watched the ebb and flow of folks coming to take photos by the sign: at times there'd be a short line of vehicles, like when we arrived - and at other times there'd be no one there at all, and the photo gal would retreat to her little trailer for shelter. The urge to go back during one of the lull periods and get photos with the van pointing in the correct direction was high, but we resisted.

We also noticed that there were things by the sign that - in our haste to get our photos and get out of the way - we had not noticed when we were up there the first time. So after lunch, we went back up there for a closer look when no one was there trying to get a photo. The first item was the sticker wall next to the sign. Apparently: similar to the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake, visitors bring stickers with them to leave behind on the sticker wall. We had no idea, and did not come prepared!

The stone marker under the arch also had signs on each side, which we now also had the time to read.

And off to one side, this badly-in-need-of-refreshing sign told the story of Dawson Creek's role in the construction of the Alaska Highway.

More history outside the historic grain elevator (now an art gallery).

The walking tour starts at the Northern Alberta Railway station. It was known as the "end of steel" - the furthest northwest a railway reached - in 1942, so it served as the primary southern supply depot for the Alaska Highway construction project.

From there the tour covers a few square blocks worth of the historic downtown, with plaques on historic buildings or points of interest and interesting murals on a lot of the walls. We took photos of most of the murals.

Back in the traffic circle behind the Alaska Highway sign is the Surveyor Statue, who stands in tribute to the tens of thousands of soldiers and civilian workers who arrived in 1942 to survey and build the Alaska Highway. He points northwest along the exact path that became the Alaska Highway.

And nearly back where we started, we found the least grandiose but "most accurate" Mile 0 Alaska Highway marker of the three.

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We went to the Shell station to get gas. The squeegee there wasn't stellar (had only dirty water in the reservoir - no detergent at all) but Tom decided to use it to clean off the back windows after cleaning the remaining muck off the windshield as best he could. The tan coating on the doors is what the glass used to look like too.

Next we checked out the dump station, which was down one of B.C.'s now-infamous dirt roads. The layout was odd as well - two lanes (presumably going in opposite directions) with an island down the middle with the dump holes and water supplies, with each side having two dump stations and a cluster of four potable water spigots in the center of it all. It seemed workable for the person in the front half of each lane - but less so for the person in the rear half.

Since everything looked usable, though, we pulled over into a corner (the station wasn't busy at all) and Tom grabbed a quick (cold water) shower before we dumped gray and topped of fresh before moving on.

We headed down the street a couple of blocks to Walmart, where we got permission to stay the night and then did a massive stock-up shopping trip for our upcoming 12 days in the Walmart desert.

Back in the T42, our repeater could see - but not connect to - the Walmart Wi-Fi so we had to fall back to the low speed Starlink again. It was warm, but extremely windy, so we had to lash the awning window in the dinette to the table leg for safety (a trick we learned during our Nevada trip) to get some cooling. After dinner (rice, tinned fish, and canned peas for Tom; quinoa cakes with bread and frozen peas for Christine) Tom finished and published blog post #6 while Christine worked on trip planning until bed time around 12:15.