2013/06 NWT trip - Fort Nelson |
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Saturday June 8th
We set off into light rain, heading for the Alaska Highway. We passed the access road for the Bennet Dam, on the Peace River. We passed it by as we both remembered taking the tour with the kids back in ’86. The nearby town is Hudson’s Hope, which is often confused with Hope. I was once stopped in the street by a potential home buyer “Where’s this address?” “It’s not here in Hope. It’s in Hudson’s Hope.” “Is that far?” “About two days’ drive north!” “Oh. Maybe that’s why it’s cheap.”
We drove down the valley of the Peace River, beautiful scenery, currently threatened by a proposed dam. I first heard about the dam on the radio and assumed the project had one of those weirdly-spelled aborigine names; “Tseitsie” was my guess. Everybody else knows it as “Site C”. There’ll be quite a battle as the dam will drown some prime farmland.
Unfortunately, the beauty on this day was largely hidden by steady rain. We joined the Alaska Highway at Charlie Lake, at about milepost 50. We’ve driven this section of the highway twice before, always in the same murky weather. Not that there’s all that much to see. At its southern end the road is a mostly straight ribbon of asphalt, bordered by a wide grassy shoulder and surrounded by a boggy forest of spindly spruce trees. This picture could be anywhere in the first few hundred miles. The view may not change for hours, especially if the mountains are hidden by clouds. We passed Pink Mountain, supposedly a mountain covered with pink fireweed, but we’ve never seen it.
We stopped for lunch at the Bucking Horse River, a pretty spot, but a thunderstorm kept us from exploring. We passed a black bear, peacefully eating at the roadside and ignoring all the traffic. Perhaps he realized that the mowers were only a few miles away and his lunch would soon be cut down. The campground at Sikanni had been a sea of mud when we camped there in ’05 with John and Edna. Yep, still a sea of mud.
The weather gradually improved, and it was sunny and warm by the time we reached Fort Nelson. Here I encountered a new type of diesel pump that required me to leave my debit card in the reader instead of just swiping it. The change of routine was too much for me and I left it there forever, not realizing it was gone until we’d covered a few hundred miles.
We stopped at the visitors’ centre to enquire about camping on the next leg up to the North West Territory border, and found that we knew more about the road than they did, rather disappointing. They did, at least, have some maps and camping info for the NWT.
We left the Alaska Highway just outside town and headed north on the Liard Highway, soon pulling off and bouncing through muddy craters to a rough and ready, and free campground at Beaver Lake (another imaginative name). We were happy to find it empty, except for the mosquitoes, but then found that we couldn’t get in the back door. Luckily, we always carry a crowbar. It freed up the door but was useless against the mozzies.
I went for a walk around the lake, and was just checking out a pile of poop (yep, looks like bear poop), when there was this enormous crack! right behind me. Yep, Beaver Lake has beavers too. It was definitely unhappy about my presence as it did it again for the camera, smacking its tail down.
By this time I was covered in mozzies so I retreated back up the hill and came out into a campsite just as a Dutch couple arrived. The young lady was horrified at the bugs on my face and began spraying herself. They were planning to drive through the Yukon and Alaska and then through Central America to Patagonia. “What about the Darien Gap?” I asked. They said they hoped to find a ferry to carry their vehicle around the Darien swamp, but admitted they weren’t too sure about that bit. They were traveling in a converted 6-wheel-drive Volvo military ambulance, capable of going anywhere, but a bit of an 
overkill for the current roads. It was also rather conspicuous; I could imagine some Mexican narco lord taking it away from them and adding cannons back and front. According to their website (at www.dutchiesgoglobal.com) they are still on the road but having problems with the bugs and the vast distances between towns.