Thursday 21 August 2008: Round trip from Fort Nelson, BC to the BC/Northwest Territories border via rental car

This morning I drove a rental car about 215 miles round trip from Fort Nelson (which lies at mile 300 on the Alaska Highway) in northeastern British Columbia up the excellent Liard Highway to the border with the Northwest Territories (NWT) at the 60th parallel (60 degrees north latitude). Incidentally, the photo of me at the 60th parallel was taken by balancing my camera on my sweater on the hood of the car and using the camera's ten-second timer.

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Below is a link to a 55-second video clip I took at the border. As it begins, we are looking from the BC/NWT border along the paved highway back into BC. The camera then swings counter-clockwise approx. 250 degrees. You will notice that at this point the highway turns from good blacktop pavement into a good gravel road. There is an official welcome sign into the NWT another 1/4 mile along the highway. That white sign is just barely visible in the video clip. I wanted to film at this point where the road surface changes.

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My car was rented from National Car Rental at the Shell station in "downtown" Fort Nelson. The cheapest rate was CAD 70 per day plus taxes and CAD 0.40 per km with no free kms!

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Round trip driving time from Fort Nelson was about four hours, including many stops for photos along the way. The Liard Highway is signposted for 80 km/hour (49 mph) but no one I saw was driving that slow. On the Liard Highway itself I passed only nine vehicles while heading north and eighteen vehicles when returning south.




After returning to town I toured the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum. There I saw a 35-minute video about the construction of the Alaska Highway (then called the "Alcan Highway") by soldiers in only eight months during 1942-1943. That seems like an incredible feat!
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Before returning to my hotel I took photos of the nearby Thriftlodge which had burned down.

Wednesday 20 August 2008: Whitehorse, YT to Fort Nelson, BC via Greyhound bus

This morning I toured the MacBride Museum of Yukon History in Whitehorse. The museum contains a number of stuffed animals representative of the Yukon as well as a heavy dose of local Whitehorse history.

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At 2 PM I boarded a Greyhound bus for a 12 1/2-hour ride along the Alaska Highway from Whitehorse to Fort Nelson in northeastern British Columbia. Being one of the last to board, I was lucky to get a very good seat in the second row. My seatmate was a student at a college in Whitehorse. We chatted for a bit and then both put on our ipods. That technology is perfect for long-distance bus travel! I believe that this may have been the first time I have ridden a Greyhound bus in more than 30 years.
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I could have flown from Whitehorse to Edmonton. However, I chose to take the bus via Fort Nelson because I was curious to see what the countryside looks like. As it turns out, the Alaska Highway is beautifully paved; and the scenery is lovely but not spectacular, based on what I saw during the daylight portion of my journey. This evening I spotted moose twice (one animal each time). We also saw about a dozen wood bison along the roadside in a single sighting. The photos I got of the wood bison through the bus window are blurry, so you'll have to use your imagination. Sorry!

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Because it gets dark so late at this latitude of about 60 degrees, I was able to see the countryside until after 10 PM. Dinner was a Subway foot-long tuna sandwich on honey oat bread (with no cheese, of course) which I ate at the recreation center (which also doubles as the Greyhound bus station) in Watson Lake, YT. This town is famous for its "forest" of over 50,000 signs. The first signs were erected by a homesick soldier during World War II. It is said that he nailed three signs onto a single post. The interesting thing is just how many Kilroys have brought their signs with them from Europe and elsewhere.

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Upon arrival in Fort Nelson, I looked unsuccessfully for the Thriftlodge where I had reserved a room for two nights (and one day). I had the address, and the location was only a block or so from the Greyhound bus station. But, after walking back and forth along the dark street in 37 F. weather for about half an hour, I concluded that the Thriftlodge must have burned down! So I booked into the Lakeview Inn (a Canadian chain of hotels) down the block and got to sleep about 4:30 AM.