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.

Long day.  Began SE of Minneapolis.  Check on traffic said 24 minute jam getting into city.  Pass.  Drove west 12 miles, thought I’d check again.  1 minute.  Okay!  Stopped at Fort Snelling.  One more fort that was never attacked.  Very impressive defenses, considering that at the time of construction the potential enemy used bow and arrow.  The state did a masterful job of reconstruction.  The friendly staff give me a free five minute overview, while they waited for a flood of students.

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.

The day began with a dirty bike, 45 degree temps, and no rain.  I rectified the first, ignored the second (wearing five layers of clothing) and prayed that the third would continue.  Then I took off on what was intended to be a quick ride to get through Minneapolis and as far west as I could before any rain fell.  The Mississippi and her history put an immediate crimp on those plans.  The road alongside had historical markers every few miles.  And “Locks and Dams”.  And nature signs.  I just couldn’t not stop.  It took two hours to go 60 miles.  All the while the Sirius weather map was showing rain in the east, creeping towards me.  I was getting hungry but couldn’t afford the delay.  Raindrops began to fall once in a while, but I was always able to get ahead of any serious rain.  But even with the constant threat, I still couldn’t not stop to look.  Indian wars.  Dipper ducks and Diving ducks.  Dozens of Locks and Dams making the river navigable, with historical commentary.  Lake City is the birthplace of waterskiing.  Winona has a wonderful war memorial.

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!