The War Department Builds a Highway
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
Almost to the Beginning
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.
Jasper National Park
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.
Fort Saskatchewan and Edmonton Tire Change
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!
Buggy Fun
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!
Oh Canada!
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.
Interstates are fast but boring
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.
The Earth is Flat!
Mill City Museum documents, in the remains of an old mill, the flour production history of the city. Excellent, though focused mostly on grade school students. Gorgeous view of the river from the top. It is a beautiful city. The arena is a work of art.
Visited REI. I’m now loaded for bear. Literally. Bought a bear can and bear spray. Plus waterproof gloves (the one thing I should have had from the start). Plus mosquito netting for my head. Now I just have to begin camping again. More on that later.
Every single person in Minnesota was kind and generous. It was a little unnerving to be greeted warmly by other customers in a mini mart.
Decided to go on the interstates westward. Rolling hills in Minnesota, slowly flattening out.
I’ve now visited 49 states! Fargo, ND, was much larger than I expected (>100,000). Had a fantastic pizza at Rhombus Guys. The city probably has things worth looking at, but I was on my way to a state park to camp. “Ignore GPS!!”, the web site says. They are so right! The mapping guys spent limited time in North Dakota. At times dirt roads are favored over paved ones. The state park was open in a limited way (no water). And empty of campers. I felt uncomfortable being the only occupant, so I checked other places. Nothing commercial was open yet for the season. Wait until May 1st. So I (again) checked into a hotel in Jamestown, ND. Birthplace of Louis L’Amour! Who knew? I’ve got things to see tomorrow.
North Dakota is flat. Ocean flat. High points are highway overpasses. Roads straight everywhere. Numbered roads: East-west are streets, north-south are avenues. Corner of 54th street and 110th Avenue sounds more like NY City than a corn field. Farmer working his field after dark with headlights. Had a brief image of Donald Trump and spouse in a remake of Green Acres. Beautiful sunset, stretching north to south along the flat horizon. Innkeeper warm and friendly. A long day. 440 miles.

Fort Snelling. Very complete. People dressed in period outfits.

My dad would have loved this Minnesota wine.

Their first business was out of a ill shaped trailer. Hence the name. Excellent pizza.
Racing the Rain. Losing.
Just a few dozen miles south of Minneapolis I gave into hunger and the reality that I couldn’t avoid the rain, which was now closing in on three sides. There was no way I was driving through the city in the rain. True caution is the art of not getting into bad situations so one need not exhibit amazing skills to get out of them. I stopped to eat, predicting to the waitress that it would start raining in less than ten minutes (it did). Wonderfully good meat loaf sandwich, though it failed to have bacon on top, meaning my mom’s still takes first place.
In heavy rain I found a hotel 11 miles away. The desk manager sounded like the characters in Fargo. Cool. (I’ll be in Fargo tomorrow. “No, wait! There’s another historical marker!”)
(By the way, I have been diligent about keeping the bike clean. This morning a person thought I’d just bought it. Locally.)

I found the comment on the left remarkable.

Read the second paragraph. That’s one town I’m not moving to.

Sadly, with the dark clouds, pictures of the river were not very good.

This is just one of six monuments, one for each war. There wasn’t one for the Revolutionary War.

The ship was named after a lake in Indiana, but the anchor given to a city in Minnesota. Odd.

No waterskiing today!