Driving northwest from Edmonton it is a little strange to see signs for Alaska. Technically Edmonton is the last major city that you come across when driving to Alaska however the Alaska border is still over 1500 miles away. The city of Anchorage is about 400 miles past that. To put that in perspective, 1900 miles is the driving distance from New York City to Albuquerque, New Mexico. To say it is a long drive is an understatement.
Even though we had many long days ahead of us Julie and I were super excited. From our start in early April to our massive detour to New Mexico and our travels north into Canada, we were finally on the set of roads that would lead us into the 49th state. The previous night, we had done laundry in the campground and gone to the grocery store. We wanted to be fully prepared for whatever we encountered as we traveled north.
We woke up ready to go. While the first two days of the drive wouldn’t actually be on the actual Alaska Highway it sure felt like it to us. Today we were taking Alberta route 16 to 43 to go to Grande Prairie, AB for the night. The drive was an interesting one. There was a mix of plains and forests with farm vehicles, logging trucks, and semi’s chugging along down the highway. The road here was a mix of 4 lane byways in and out of the towns that changed to a two-lane road between the towns.
Alberta Beach, Alberta
Around noon we made our only stop of the day. We had noticed that there was a lake close to the road and a town aptly named “Alberta Beach”. In the mountains there are tons of lakes but out here in the plains, there aren’t many so we wanted to check it out. The town turned out to be tiny, but nice at the same time. As it was the middle of the week there wasn’t much going on or many people walking around the town. That was ok for us though, after being in Edmonton for a few days we were ready for peace and solitude. We walked around the town for a bit stopping to look over the lake while we ate lunch.
Grande Prairie, Alberta
From Alberta Beach we continued on to Grande Prairie. Highway 43 went in a northwesterly direction cutting directly through and to the sides of small towns. We passed more farms and cows than we could ever count. Eventually though we made it to Grande Prairie. This town seemed to be the hub for everything farming in northwest Alberta. Grain elevators, trains, feed stores, tractor stores….it had it all. If you were a farmer in this area and needed something, this was the town to get it in. The town also seemed to be the basecamp for road construction crews in this part of the province. When we got to our campground for the night just outside of town we noticed a lot of our neighbors seemed to be coming back to their campers after a hard days work doing maintenance projects on area roads. (Side Note – If you are going to be going to Alaska and taking this route our campground here was great. Camp Tamarack RV Park. The sites were big, forested and the owners were super friendly and knowledgeable about the local area).
The next day we woke up ready to go to the official starting point for the highway in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. We continued west on Alberta route 43 until we crossed into BC where the road turned into BC route 2. We then continued on until we reached Dawson Creek. We arrived a bit early but this was by design. We wanted to check out the town and more importantly see the Alaska Highway museum and take our picture with the famous Alaska Highway sign.
Dawson Creek, British Columbia
Once we arrived in town we rushed over to where the Alaska Highway sign was. I had remembered when I was here back in 2007 there was a long line of RV’s, cars and motorcycles waiting to take their picture with the sign so I didn’t want to waste our time waiting. Luckily for us when we arrived there was only one other car there so we were able to get our pictures done pretty fast. This is where we truly felt that our Alaskan adventure was beginning. The famous sign reads “You are now entering the World Famous Alaska Highway”. We were giddy just seeing it!
From the sign we headed over to the Alaska Highway House, a museum about the construction and history of the Alaska Highway. This turned out to be a great little museum telling about the who, what and why of the highway. There were multiple exhibits, which showed the people who built the road, the tools and construction methods that they used. It also showed conditions and harsh reality of what it was like building the road in Canada’s north and Alaska during World War II in the 1940’s. We also watched a half hour movie about the making of the highway, which was super interesting. Overall it was well worth the small entrance fee.
From the museum we walked over to the Dawson Creek visitors center to grab a few souvenirs before checking out a bit more of the town and grabbing a coffee at Eats & Treats Java Shop. We then drove over to Browns Social House where we had a beer and split a spicy tuna roll before heading to our campground for the night.
The next morning we woke up super excited. Today was finally the day, the official start of our drive on the Alaska Highway! To start while it is called a highway it is not exactly a highway in the sense of a 4 lane limited access road. It is a simple, two-lane road cutting north by northwest. Our goal for the day was to reach Fort Nelson, a distance of 280 miles. We were off! In BC, the highway is officially named BC route 97 and today the road would go almost straight north to the northeast corner of the province. The first few minutes on the road were a surreal feeling. After deciding to do this drive back in the summer of 2018, to all the preparation and weeks of driving to get to this point we were finally here driving it! It was awesome!
One of the most interesting things about today is that the highway would go through its most populated area. While the road does eventually pass amazing mountains, lakes and vistas, today we were still for the most part in farmland and forest. The road leading out of Dawson Creek looks like any other small town road; a house every now and then, a farm, a small country store. Normal everyday life occurs.
Rough & Tumble of the Alaska Highway
Once we got about halfway into the journey is where we really started to see the rough and tumble of what the highway had to offer. The landscape had transitioned from farmland into forest and with that came logging companies and their trucks. The logging trucks in northern Canada are massive like semi trucks on steroids. We passed logging road after logging road just waiting for the inevitable. Then it finally happened. As we were coming around a long turn a logging truck was coming the opposite way. At some point in that turn it either hit a rock or the rock dislodged from the truck itself and hit Bubbles. When a rock hits your vehicle from one of these logging trucks it sounds like a shotgun went of. It scares the hell out of you. As half of Bubbles windshield is glass we were well aware that we would probably get a few rock chips in it but were not ready for it to happen on day 1 on the highway. Luckily this one wasn’t terrible and only resulted in a small chip and crack in a corner of the windshield. It could have been much worse.
We reached Fort Nelson a few hours later and checked into our campground. The campground turned out to be really nice – The Triple G Hideaway. As there was a restaurant on site we decided to let someone else cook for a change, sat at their bar which were horse saddles and had a few cocktails and a nice dinner. It was a good first day on the Alaska Highway.
The next day we woke up ready for another exciting day. At this point we were heading in more of a western direction and starting to get back to the Rocky Mountains. Today we were heading to Liard Hot Springs, BC, a distance of 190 miles. When people think about driving the Alaska Highway the part of the highway from Fort Nelson to Liard Hot Springs is what they imagine. Mountains, lakes, forests and animals, it has it all.
We had a lot of firsts today. We managed to navigate around all the logging trucks without incident. We also hit our first bit of road construction. Road construction in the extreme north is a bit different than in lower parts of Canada or anywhere in the USA. As the roads here are extremely remote it’s quite normal for the construction crews to live right by the area that they are fixing. It makes sense as a repair job normally lasts for a summer season. Since repair jobs can only take place in the summer and they have to be done, wait times to get through the construction can sometimes be lengthy. It’s not uncommon to have to wait 30 minutes to an hour before you are lead through a construction area. As there is nothing to be done once you reach a construction area you pull up to the car in front of you, turn off your engine to save gas and grab a book or turn up your music and relax.
Alaska Highway Roadhouses & Gas Pumps
Some of the more unique non-natural features of the highway once you get to this point are the roadhouses and gas pumps. A roadhouse is an establishment catering to travelers needs. Normally they include a restaurant, small grocery store, gas pump and if they are a bit bigger, some sort of lodging. They are all independently, mostly family run and date back to the opening of the highway in the 1940’s. Most looked pretty quirky so we thought we should stop at one. The one we decided to stop at was the Toad River Lodge. This one was pretty large, it even had its own private grass landing strip! The quirkiness of Toad River came in its gift shop. Here people pinned their hat to the ceiling writing their name and where they were from on the brim. There were hundreds of hats pinned to the wall and ceiling. We were not sure that anymore would fit there were so many. It was a fun sight to see!
The gas pumps are also generally different in northern Canada. Actual multi-national gas stations are hard to find (Exxon, Shell – that kind of thing…even Petro Canada stations are rare). As people do need gas on this road most pumps are independent. Some have credit card readers on the machines themselves but most are the older style. First you must go inside and tell them to turn on the pump (yes just 1 pump, either gas or in our case diesel). Then at the pump you are able to put the nozzle in your vehicle and lift the handle to turn on the pump. Once finished go back inside to pay.
Northern Canada Animals
As we were leaving Toad River we had our first big animal sighting! Not 30 seconds down the road we spotted a moose hanging out in a big parking area. We pulled to the side of the road to check it out. If you have never seen a moose in person you would be surprised to find out how tall they actually are. A normal adult moose is almost 7 feet tall and 10 feet long. It is a big animal. We hung around for a bit watching the moose eat some grass and look at us for a bit before it felt like it had eaten enough and wandered into the woods.
Shortly before making it to our campground at the hot springs we encountered a huge herd of buffalo hanging out by the side of the road. In total there were about 30. From what we had learned while at Yellowstone a few years earlier that buffalo are not an animal that you get near or mess with in anyway. While they may look docile they can turn and charge at you running up to 30mph for short distances. If you (or your car) gets hit by a Buffalo neither is going to walk away injury free.
We did however slow down to a crawl taking pictures and video’s of these majestic animals. This was a really neat experience as we had only seen buffalo before in either a National Park or on a farm. This was just out in the woods in northern BC. It was a really cool experience driving among these animals, one that we won’t soon forget. After leaving the buffalo it was a short drive down the highway to Liard Hot Springs where we would be staying the next 2 nights.
Next up…The Alaska Highway heads north into the Yukon Territory!
I hitchhiked the Alaska highway to Whitehorse and back in 1969.The road was unpaved past Fort Nelson.I had to sleep outside by the road for 4 nights.I was worried about grizzly bears..
That sounds fun but a little scary if you were worried about grizzly bears.