July 14, 15, 16 - Fort Smith to Fairview, AB

July 14:

We left Fort Smith early, before 8:00am, with the intention of making an overnight stop at the Louise Falls Campground, in the Twin Falls Territorial Park, bout 75 kilometers from the Alberta border, on our way back towards civilization. Not that it was bad, or uncivilized out at Fort Smith. We thoroughly enjoyed our time out here and this will be a high point in this year's journey, and a really big tick mark on the old 'to do before you die" list.

We followed this young lady dog on the road out of Fort Smith. She was a bundle of energy in the back of a pick-up:

Twin Falls Territorial Park, just south of Enterprise is home to 2 huge waterfalls on the Hay River: the 25 meter drop of Louise Falls and the 32 meter drop of Alexandra Falls. The falls are about 2.5 kilometers apart and there is a lovely trail between the two. We hiked this route shortly after we set up camp for a single night.

The hike was lovely, with Dene interpretative signs along the way. The Dene (local name, means "the people") used this river to get from their winter lodgings in Alberta to their summer homes on the shores of Slave Lake. In order to pass the falls they had to portage their worldly goods 6 kilometers from above Alexandra Falls to a safe spot below Louise Falls. Generally, it took two days and the help of every family member to get past these falls.

Along the walking route, the territory has installed a spiral staircase installed so people can get down to the base of Louise Falls. 138 steps. We did the climb...it was less difficult than it sounds, but very steep. In all we hiked 5 1/2 kilometers on our afternoon trek.

Our electric hitch jack has failed for a second time, and this one sounded like permanent failure, with kind of an electric snapping sound inside the mechanism. We will try for a replacement/repair in Grande Prairie when we reach there Monday.

Both Sully and the TaJ are filthy with road dust. They need to be cleaned once we get a bit farther south.

July 15:

Our goal for the day will be Fairview, Alberta. Our Garmin tells us it is a 615 kilometer trek, so we get started early. The highway up here is empty much of the time and we cruise along at 95 kph. For the first hour we see just one transport truck northbound. We make excellent time and find ourselves in High Level, Alberta by 10:30am. We knew there was a wand wash with a big enough bay to accomodate our rig so we got in there and $11 later, both vehicles were acceptably clean once again.

We spent a full hour at Tim Hortons getting caught up on internet stuff and making some plans for our time in Grand Prairie. We'll be staying two nights with the aunt and uncle of our good travel friend, Karmen Reid, so we got off an e-mail to them for directions to their property, and we scoped out r/v dealers in town to see if we can get our electric hitch fixed on Monday/Tuesday. Grande Prairie has a population of about 75,000 so is a completely full service city. We've shopped there in the past when we lived in Dawson Creek in 2005.

We are also defrosting our fridge on the way south. It has been on continuously since we left home and there is ice build-up, so the small amount of food we had left is in our cooler for the day and a couple of tea towel are in the fridge to pick up the water from the melting ice.

Back on the road again, we switch off driving every 90 minutes and before you know it we arrive in Fairview. This is a town of about 3000 people, 100 kilometers from Grande Prairie. We stop here for the night as we want to tour Dunvegan, a historical park of note just south of here. We will do that tomorrow. We also wanted an r/v park with internet for a night or two as we have planning to do for our upcoming leg to Alaska/Yukon.

Sure enough, this park will do just fine. Small, right in town, with wi-fi. We settle in, turn the fridge back on, get a bit of food and drink from local stores and spend a bit of time finishing the cleaning job we started in High Level. At 7:30pm a massive thunderstorm started. The sky had been getting darker and darker, with the occasional rumble of thunder.

The start was dramatic with wind, rain, thunder and lightning. We were on-line with The Weather Network as the storm progressed and it was intense. They can report lightning strikes in real time and over the course of 30 minutes recorded 67 strikes in the Fairview area. We also got 60 mm (almost 2 inches) of rain in that same time period. Wow, pretty darn intense. The air was cool afterwards and the skies quite promptly cleared.

July 16:

Today is pretty well a day off the road. We have organizational issues with our stuff to take care of and that is on the agenda, as well as getting the blog up to date. Not overly much to go in today's blog entry.

We head out late morning to Dunvegan, a historical site along the Peace River.

This is a picture to show the foundation and wood work required to hand build structures back in the day:

If you recall previous posts about the voyageurs, piloting canoes from Ottawa, up the Great Lakes and then through a system of rivers and portages, this was the end of the road. The Hudson Bay Company store at Dunvegan was the end of the line, some 5500 kilometers. We learned here that there were two sets of voyagers. The set from the Ottawa end of the line, as well as from Hudson Bay, left their end laden with goods for sale or exchange with the fur trappers at this end. About 1/2 way they met the voyageurs bringing furs from the vast resources of the northern prairies. At this half way point they exchanged cargoes and returned back from whence they came. It has been interesting to intersect this trade route on our travels. It is the story of Canada's early history.

This is the factor's house. He was in charge of the Hudson Bay post here in Dunvegan:

Until 1960 the only way across the Peace River was by ferry boat. This suspension bridge was built, at a cost of the then whopping $5 million. It opened the modern days to this part of Alberta.

We stopped at a local farm market to buy some produce for a stir-fry tonight, as well as strawberries:

The Road Ahead:

Over the next 5 days we will be getting prepared to head up the Alaska Highway. We depart Dawson Creek on the morning of July 22. We were originally going to be accompanied by a friend, Debra, and her Trillium trailer. It would have bee her first serious excursion with her little trailer and the route we planned had been based mainly on the fact that she would be driving on her own, so the plan called for little more than 350 kilometers a day. The raging wildfires in the British Columbia interior have forced her to withdraw from the trip. There are numerous road closures on the British Columbia approaches to Dawson Creek with no let up in sight.

Since Debra will not be joining us we will be amending our route somewhat with slightly longer runs and perhaps another destination or two added in. We will still take 28 days to do this leg of the journey, it will just be a bit different from what we had originally planned. It is still going to almost 7,500 kilometers from Dawson Creek until we reach Prince Rupert on August 20.

We have some minor repairs to get out of the way, and some stocking up to do in Grande Prairie. We lived in Dawson Creek in 2005 and we have old friends to visit while we are there. It is likely there will be a summary blog entry of the coming 5 days, but no specific plans are in the works.