Day 6: Shortcut Through Alberta--Hello Highway 40!

as remembered by Stacy


As the morning light woke us from our slumber in our cozy tent, we could see the campsite that had been chosen for us in actual daylight...and it was pretty sweet! A stream flowed over river rocks just behind our site and trees everywhere! This campsite even offered showers...for free! Even though Jonathan and I were driving in separate vehicles, we still had to smell ourselves, so we took advantage of the shower facility. We wanted to get into town (Jasper) to find a post office to purchase Canadian stamps to mail postcards, use the internet, and to find a place to charge up all our batteries. After being greeted by the postman, "Cheers!," we purchased postage, and headed to the Visitors Center to inquire about the route we had planned to drive for the day. You see, there is this mysterious highway 40 that appeared to be a shortcut, that would take us straight north, bypassing Edmonton and saving us 500 miles. We could see the route on some maps, but not others, and whenever we mapquested or googled the route to Alaska, this route was never highlighted. I could only guess that maybe it was a road that was closed part of the year due to snow, or just a rough road that wasn't recommended. However, the friendly Park Ranger at the Visitor's Center informed us that this road would be a fine road to travel! Scenic too!
We found ourselves drawn into a restaurant by the smell of breakfast! Jonathan and I shared a breakfast of 2 eggs and fruit, granola, and yogurt in between checking our email and writing postcards. After several refills of coffee and water, we didn't end up getting on the road until 1 o'clock in the afternoon. But when we did, we soon realized how wonderfully scenic this mysterious Highway 40 would be! Also known as the Big Horn Highway, we were hoping to see several "big-horned" animals. Alas! We did not see live animals this day, but we were fully aware that they could be around, as several road signs warned us of their possible presence.














I think these are homemade!









These guys look much less scary in real life, we would determine later...





rain, rain, rain!
The last portion of our adventure on Highway 40 was in the rain. It was interesting because the road was very curvy and...wet. By this time, we were well-trained at driving through mountains, so we had no problems! The mountains in the distance soon disappeared behind the fog, so we could only see the mountains we were winding through, and the few and far between buildings on the sides of the road. Around one bend appeared a fully functioning coal mining/refining plant. And later we saw a flame from a smoke stack...still not sure what that was.




We crossed the border from Alberta into British Columbia, and yes..it was still raining. We arrived in Dawson Creek "Mile 0 of the World Famous Alaska Highway" ready to find a campsite, as the rain had stopped. With Rand McNally's help, we located a Provincial Campsite just outside of Dawson Creek, and decided to try our luck there. And luck we had! We arrived at Kiskatinaw Provincial Park to find only one campsite available. 15 Canadian dollars later, we were setting up our tent and starting a fire to roast our ever-so popular meals-in-a-box. We had set our tent up just before the rain caught up with us again, and quickly realized that we would have to relocate our tent, as a lake of water seemed to be forming with each raindrop. The advertisement on our meals, "cooks in 2 minutes" may be accurate for a microwave, but for a campfire, it is more like 10 or 15 minutes. No big deal, unless you are standing in the open rain, cold and hungry! Even after our shortest day of driving, we retired to our tent early and listened to the rain and wind blast our tent, thankful that our rainfly was strong and our seams waterproof!



Good Night!