Williams Lake to Dawson Creek
Today was a day of driving. 644 km of driving to be precise. Or rather, to be approximate, because I got that figure from a ready reckoner in the atlas, and it won’t take into account where precisely we are, or where we started, or how we took each bend, or how much we did around various car parks and rest stops.
We were moving before 9am, and followed Route 97 (and the mighty Fraser river) to Quesnel, where we stopped at Tim Horton’s for coffee to go. Quesnel is quite the metropolis, but not somewhere the tourist would want to linger. Its main thing seems to be sawmills, with steam pouring from chimneys.
We pressed on to Prince George. The landscape around here is not flashy. It’s green, but it doesn’t tower above you like a [simile deleted], or spread itself attractively below you like a [simile deleted].
In Prince George, we did some food shopping. We even had a shopping list. We went to Save On Foods, which I thought was very good. It had a big deli section. We concentrated on barbequeable fare (and accompaniments), because most of these campgrounds seem to provide fire pits. We also filled up with petrol. “Wait a minute,” I hear you cry, “didn’t you fill up yesterday?”. Yes. Yes we did. Ouch.
It was more or less lunchtime. Within peering distance of Save On Foods, there were a few takeaway chains, and we almost plumped on Quizno’s Subs, but then we decided that we’d be better driving on and keeping an eye out for a roadside diner, of the kind we’d seen plenty of on the way. Our backup plan was to use our own supplies, and the kitchen we were driving.
North of Prince George, the MapArt atlas of British Columbia changes from 1:500,000 scale to 1:1,000,000 scale, and still it looks more sparse. As that might suggest, there were no roadside diners, and so we pulled in to Crooked River Provincial Park, parked next to a picnic table, covered ourselves in mosquito repellant, heated up a can of chilli, and ate it with bread, tortilla chips and dill pickle dip. It was a fine meal.
After this, I took over driving. We hit the Misinchinka and Hart mountain ranges (part of the Rockies), and the scenery turned spectacular again. I was forced to pull over to take in the view on more than one occasion.
Our windscreen collects bugs. That’s not unusual. One hit the windscreen a couple of inches from the edge and exploded in a bright crimson splodge - it must have feasted recently. The red streak dried to brown as we drove on.
Finally we arrived at Dawson Creek. The Lonely Planet guide wastes a whole paragraph discussing the TV programme Dawson’s Creek, despite the fact that it’s completely unrelated. The town’s main purpose is that it’s the beginning of the Alaska Highway. Really, our road trip starts here. It may sound as if I’m being scathing about Dawson Creek, but until workmen and troops arrived to begin building the road, it was a railway terminus with a population of around 200. Now it has a Walmart.
We plumped for the Mile 0 Campground, green an pleasant, and scattered with what I think are silver birch (but what do I know?).
We were keen to singe some of our barbequeable meat. Alas this campsite does not allow fires. Instead, we heated up some cajun samosas we’d bought today, and ate them with salad and tabasco sauce.
Tomorrow: Alaska Highway!