Wednesday, July 29, 2009

South of the 60th!

The wireless signal at our campsite is probably too weak to upload photos, but for now I'll do a quick update, and my guess is there's a stronger signal near the campground office.

We are in Grande Cache, Alberta, a tiny town (despite its name) on the northern approach to the Canadian Rockies just off the Alaska-Yukon Highway. It's the only town on a ~300k road between...well, between two places in Alberta. You'll just have to look it up.

We cut short our time in the Northwest Territories due to the bugs. We left Yellowknife and spent a night at gorgeous Sambaa Deh Falls territorial park, which boasts two spectacular sets of waterfalls. The bugs there weren't too terribly bad, although there was a new and unwelcome development in the form of these mean black hornets that kept stinging Toby; but The Structure served us pretty well, and we had a nice evening there after a long and dusty drive. Then we went to Fort Simpson. At last! the family homeland. The Mackenzie River is beautiful, we saw the place where the old HBC fort sat, but the mosquitos were unreal.

So, having toured the town and taken the requisite photos, the next day we booked out all the way to Fort Nelson, BC. Let's just say that the van has a few more squeaks, and our fillings are a little looser. The last part, from Fort Liard to the BC border - was a crap road.

But then we were in BC! Whose motto is Super, Natural British Columbia, but we agreed that at that particular border crossing, they could settle for British Columbia: We have pavement!

Fort Nelson is the point where the Liard Highway joins the Alaska-Yukon Highway. We stayed at a commercial campground which can only nominally be considered a "camping" experience. One of those places packed cheek-by-jowel with campers, no space or privacy, and this one was kinda dirty to boot. There are people living there temporarily, and people who make RV'ing a lifestyle, and people like us who have no other option. But it was ok - I thought of it as one of the stops on the old Silk Road, or a pilgrimmage route of yore; everyone plodding along this great road has to stop at the same place.

From there we did another long day and crossed back into Alberta. Though the southern NWT and northern BC were filled with long, rolling hills and breathtaking vistas, we suddenly found ourselves back on the flat Alberta prairie - and at an absolutely delightful lakeside provincial park, Saskatoon Island, which has nesting trumpeter swans.

And today, we did a short drive into the foothills of the Rockies, getting to Grande Cache early enough for a hike and some laundry.

It's hot as heck here, though I hear that's true everywhere in the West right now. It's a challenge to keep the dogs cool. But we're doing great. We're so happy to be back in a place where we can just open up the van and breathe the free air, no matter how hot, without having to fortify ourselves constantly against the bugs. We're only spending one night here, though we could spend many more hiking in the wilderness area that borders Jasper to the north; however, this funky little town hosts some kind of running event called the Canadian Death Race (?!?) which starts tomorrow, so there's no room in the inn. On we go to Jasper.

And so we'll spend a couple extra days in the Rockies - or maybe visit the Okanagan wine country. We'll see.

Photos later, I promise. Enrico sends his regards to all!

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