Mostly dismal weather. Cold. Some freezing cold rain, but not a lot. Two patches of gravel and one construction section. Lots of wood bison. Brown bear and black bear. The lake was very beautiful. 370 miles. A crown came out this morning. No pain yet. Headache all day. Sunset 9:48, sunrise 5:12.Sunshine tomorrow, they say. Famous Whitehorse tomorrow, only 258 miles.

After 11,036 miles, I got to mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway. Background: The road was built in 1942 by the Corp of Engineers.  Over 1,400 miles in eight months. An incredible feat, but only a footnote in a decade of monumental events.

Dawson Creek has totally embraced its role in the highway’s history. An excellent museum.  I had a great time with the curator once we got past his canned lecture and went into the details. (I already knew its broad history.)

Due to progress there’s two other towns north of Dawson Creek which disturbs the transition to wilderness road. But eventually you’re allow with nature. The road is less harrowing than when originally built, but it still has some awfully steep sloops.

A wooden curved bridge. Very rare.

Fire

Fire

The acknowledged starting point for the Alaskan-Canadian Highway (the “AlCan”) is Dawson Creek.  It famously begins the (now unofficial) mileage to Alaska with “0”.  I almost got there today.  I’m about 80 miles away.  But the rain last night made me uncomfortable with the condition of my tent, so in Grande Prairie I checked for an inexpensive hotel and found one.  The tent and ground cover are now drying out in the bathroom.  I think they would have been fine tonight. Lesson learned.

The drive was unremarkable.  Wonderful mountain views.  Some interesting aspects on the route, such as logging sites and a coal-burning power station immediately adjoining a coal mine.  But overall it was just a road.

From Edmonton to Jasper the land slowly shifts from farmland to rolling hills to forest to mountains. Arrived in Jasper as clouds were rolling in. I first confirmed that there was no low cost lodging, then headed to the campsite. Rain wasn’t forecast until midnight, but raindrops were already falling intermittently. Finished setting up the tent, then headed back to town. It’s clearly not the tourist season yet. Mostly empty. Typical tourist town. Had some Canadian wine.

In a weird coincidence, friends Debbie and Steve also arrived, by train. Fancy train. Fancy hotel. Dinner was a bit above campsite food. Excellent time, swapping stories. The waiter was also very talkative, giving tips and telling his own stories of the area.

(I’m well south of that Canadian fire.)

Quick drive from Lloydminster to Fort Saskatchewan, which, true to it’s name, has a fort.  As of two years ago (rebuilt; still has that New Fort smell).  Extremely interesting.  I received a personal one-on-one tour; I appeared to be the only visitor.  Originally built in 1875 by the forerunners of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Not to be confused with Fort Edmonton, which was built by the Hudson’s Bay Company.  History of their hats and saddles are funny.  (There was another fort further south to combat alcohol smuggling from the United Staes. I mention it only because its name was Fort Whoop-Up.)

The site was a prison from 1914.  No walls, but it did have a hockey rink.  It’s less than ideal security caused it to have the nickname “The Sieve”.  Story goes that petty crime in the area would increase with the onset of winter.  The prison was a fine winter-over location.  There is also a period village as part of the museum that I didn’t have time to tour.

I passed a Ukrainian Heritage Museum that sadly doesn’t open until Victoria Day weekend (May 24th for those of you sadly lacking in colonial history).

Took the bike to Riverside Honda for service and new tires.  It’s now ready to go North to Alaska.  Met a couple of Goldwing owners from Goldwingowners.com: handles Budoka and edmKC.  Budoka bought my dinner, which I’ll have to reciprocate someday.  Interesting story about a well known eatery (Earls) in Canada had just been outed as buying their meat from the U.S.  Tried some lame excuses that only worsened their reputation.  As of today they’ve seen the error in their ways and have returned to Canadian beef. Too funny.

Tomorrow I visit Jasper National Park, Alberta.  Rain is forecast overnight, but I’m camping, dammit. (I may have difficulties keeping this blog up to date in the next few weeks.)

The personal tour was so interesting I forgot to take pictures!

Regina has the standard park with statues.

Route 11 north bypasses most towns, by design. But each town has some consistent artwork at the bypass. They need more historical context, but it’s a good start.

Visited the Western Development Museum.  First open day of the season.  It is very large, but didn’t really tell me much that I didn’t know. Lots of old farm machinery and buildings.  It needs more historical context.

It was hot.  And as the title suggests, buggy. Very buggy all day.  I stopped once to simply clean the windshield. At one stop I cleaned the windshield, my helmet’s visor, its sun visor, and my glasses.  Add to that, a bug flew up my nose.  My bike is extremely dirty.

Ditched the plan to camp.  Too hot.

This is the only hill I saw. Might be man made. It’s a ski slope!

It was soooo cold last night.  High humidity did it. Went to the toilets this morning. Came out to find a buffalo 30 feet away, staring right at me.  I packed the bike with one eye on the job and one on my neighbor. Ranger said buffalo tends to gather around the toilets.  Doesn’t know why.

T. Roosevelt National Park is worth a visit. Besides buffalo, they have three prairie dog colonies.  Thousands of dogs.  Nice museum.  The town outside the gate is also interesting

Boring drive. Canadian customs agent asked me a battery of questions,  including “have I brought any brass knuckles?” He eventually warmed up, but the entire process took 15 minutes. I was the only person using that point of entry. The road north of the border was even more boring. On either side though, oil is king.

Found the desired RV park in Regina that happily takes tenters. The only other tenter is riding his bicycle across Canada, making me appear less crazy.

Yes, the Title is intuitively obvious. Drove I94 all day.  75 MPH, seemingly getting nowhere.

Jamestown has some very interesting thoughts about intersections.  No four way stops.  Few two way stops.  They have two way yields.  Some residential intersections had no signs at all!  Very unnerving for a guy on a bike.

For being the hometown of Louis L’Amour, Jamestown has precious little to say about him.  The largest buffalo statue in the world gets more attention.

As the pictures show, North Dakota has a thing about large statues of animals.

I struggled all day to pay attention.  Stopped at every rest stop, took five hour energy, sang songs, etc.

I’ll camping(!) at Theodore Roosevelt National Park for $3.50.  (I’m using a cellular iPad linked to a Macbook to post this.) There are buffalo pies around the site.  Midnight trips to the restroom will definitely be cautiously done.  I’ll drive around the Park tomorrow.  Canada tomorrow! Hotels cost more there.  A left wing plot to take money from the rich, no doubt.  I’ve got to find campsites.

My hotel last night. The innkeeper was very interested in my travels. The wife thought I was crazy.

Jamestown War Memorial

Where is the road going? Twilight Zone.

The building looks very New York-like. I’d expect a large teepee.

The “largest buffalo statue in the world!”

North Dakota certainly has a thing about large statues.