This is post #3 in a 5-post series on our Drive to Alaska! Check out the other Days here:
Day 1 – Colorado to Montana
Day 2 – The Most Scenic: Banff, Lake Louise & the Icefields Parkway
Day 3 – Logging, Big Trucks & Long Roads
Day 4 – Crossing the Canadian Rockies & Arriving in the Yukon
Day 5 – Arriving in Alaska!
Canada’s big. It’s the 2nd largest country by area in the world, in fact. (That is if we don’t count Antarctica, which evidently isn’t a “proper” country. It would come in 2nd if it did.)
We anticipated a long 3rd day of driving, mainly because:
1) We were leaving the more populated southern regions of Canada and heading north into the unknown depths of wilderness.
2) After the ridiculous beauty of the Icefields Parkway – probably one of my top 5 most scenic mountain drives in the world – we knew the scenery probably wouldn’t be quite as good. Okay, definitely wouldn’t be as good.
At least the morning started off well. Just outside of Jasper, it was still as impressive as ever.
Mountains outside of Jasper, Alberta, Canada.
Because we were taking the slightly less-traveled tourist route along the Bighorn Highway (cutting off Edmonton), we weren’t quite sure if we’d feel like we were in the middle of nowhere.
We couldn’tve been more wrong. This stretch of highway was actually super busy with logging trucks carrying loads to and fro (though I know it doesn’t look like it in the image below).
You can tell they make use of these densely wooded areas because there were tons of highly-stacked log piles all along the road.
Very wooded roads along the Bighorn Highway Alberta, Canada.
Dawson Creek – Mile O of the Alaska Highway
After passing through logging country, we arrived in Dawson Creek, officially starting the fabled Alaska Highway, or the ALCAN.
(And even though the real-life town Dawson Creek has absolutely nothing to do with the ’90s TV show “Dawson’s Creek”, I can’t help but think of that, anyway. And no, the towns look nothing like each other. Big surprise, I know.)
Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway (ALCAN) in Dawson Creek in British Columbia, Canada.
And then the flat begins.
It had been a while since we left the mountains behind. And now we had many, many miles of super long, and mostly straight, flat roads.
Long, flat road.
Did I mention the roads were long, and mostly straight and flat?
Another long, flat road.
Alaska Highway in British Columbia.
By the end of the day, traffic had almost ceased entirely. People traveling in our direction were nearly non-existent. But wide-load trucks continued to pass us going the other direction. I’ve never seen so many in my life.
Wide-load truck in Canada.
Home, Sweet, Fort Nelson
We made pretty good time this day, so we rolled into town about 7pm. We even had time for a sit-down dinner. A luxury on the trip so far (we’re pretty good about subsisting on very little during road trips).
But early or not, we were tuckered. After checking into our hotel it didn’t take long for us all to settle in for the night. Especially Nani.
Our dog, Nani, scrunched into a nightstand.
Who knew a nightstand could also serve as a den/bed?
It’s funny how dogs find ways to make themselves at home. I was chatting with fellow bloggers Lauren & Kenin who did an even longer trek from Florida to Alaska and they were talking about how their dogs did similar things. Silly dogs.
Day 3 Stats
Total Drive Time (including stops): 10 hours
Total Miles: 600ish