North through British Columbia - Alaska and Points North: Tips and Tales from the Road - page 53

Onto the Alaska Highway
And we are on the road again - this time the Alaska Highway! It is Canada Day and Steve
has our little flag whipping off the antennae. Proud patriots we are, we are.
So it is Canada Day and we are enjoying the drive. We always get a hankering for a coffee
mid-morning but we don't have much luck today. Each roadhouse/service station we stop at
is boarded up. By early afternoon we pull through Fort Nelson and decide to make it lunch.
The pub is more up-market looking than I would have expected but the excellent Reuben is
only $10. Stopped in at a grocery store and picked up great looking cherries for $4.99/lb,
same as at home. Strawberries were $2.99 for 2 pounds, same as home. So much for high
prices in the north.
And yes, if you noticed the reference to pounds, Canadians are a tad schizophrenic about the
metric thing. We seem to have made peace with measuring distances in kilometres but while
grocery stores might offer the price of produce in kilograms you'll always see the price in
pounds as well.
Continuing up the highway we are now heading due west for Muncho Lake Provincial Park
for the night. The highway has deteriorated some. Not a terrible road but more narrow and
worn looking. The center line is but a faded memory and you'd best keep a sharp eye out for
the frost heaves.
We spot a black bear at the side of the road and a mangy-looking brown bear suddenly tears
across the road directly in front of us. He may or may not have been a grizzly. In fact, he
may have been a she. How would I know? He/she was moving pretty fast.
There are lots of beaver ponds now. When we stopped to take a photo we were charmed to
see a fat little fellow swimming around his pond collecting sticks. A couple of gangly moose
grazing at the side of the road did not seem too concerned about us. Once into the mountains
we come on at least 50 mountain sheep licking the salt off the sides of the highway.
By Muncho Lake Provincial Parkwe discover we've traveled 609 km /380 mi today. That's
enough. Hot, sweaty and tired we back the rig into a great campsite with lakefront. We open
the back doors - voilà our shower. The water has been riding over the hot asphalt all day and