Driving with my Dog to Alaska: British Columbia
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By Donald F. Smith, Cornell University
Posted Sept 3, 2012
Five years ago my dog, Beau, and I drove from our home in upstate New York to Alaska and back. The first seven installments can be found by clicking the "Traveling with Beau" link on the upper right-hand corner of the Home Page. In the last blog, Beau and I traveled through the province of Alberta..
I woke up to the sound of a diesel engine idling on the road in front of the visitor center. Though it was just 4:30, the early inky blackness of the night was starting to be nudged aside by the dawn. Feeling me move, Beau sat upright then disappeared into some knee-high clover to pee. I followed, while peering to see if the man in the truck was concerned about an unfamiliar jeep parked where it shouldn't be.
Before I could fully analyse the situation in my half-asleep state, the truck took off, though I could see the man was still on his cell phone with his head was turned in our direction as he accelerated towards town.
By Donald F. Smith, Cornell University
Posted Sept 3, 2012
Five years ago my dog, Beau, and I drove from our home in upstate New York to Alaska and back. The first seven installments can be found by clicking the "Traveling with Beau" link on the upper right-hand corner of the Home Page. In the last blog, Beau and I traveled through the province of Alberta..
I woke up to the sound of a diesel engine idling on the road in front of the visitor center. Though it was just 4:30, the early inky blackness of the night was starting to be nudged aside by the dawn. Feeling me move, Beau sat upright then disappeared into some knee-high clover to pee. I followed, while peering to see if the man in the truck was concerned about an unfamiliar jeep parked where it shouldn't be.
Before I could fully analyse the situation in my half-asleep state, the truck took off, though I could see the man was still on his cell phone with his head was turned in our direction as he accelerated towards town.
Beau and made a beeline for the jeep and departed Valleyview. We didn't stop until we reached Grande Prairie 130 km away. A misty rain penetrated the murky dawn when we stopped for breakfast in this gateway city to the Alaska Highway. My only thought of the turn in weather was to wonder if the rain would persist throughout the Yukon route so that would not be able to see and photograph the animals in the Rockies.
The sun was starting to emerge by the time we reached Beaver Lodge an hour later. I did some grocery shopping--as was our custom now, my first stop was always the deli, where we picked up a roasted chicken--then I topped off our gas tank and photographed a reluctant Beau dwarfed beside the world's largest beaver.
.
The famous mega-beaver at Beaverlodge
near the British Columbia border.
We crossed the border into British Columbia just before noon. "The Best Place on Earth", the sign read, and many Canadians feel that way. From the temperate capital of Victoria on the luscious Vancouver Island, to Vancouver, the olympian city, the third-largest in Canada. North from the fruit groves of the Okanagan Valley through some of the most majestic mountains and glaciers on the continent, British Columbia has it all.
A few kilometers across the border sits the town of Dawson Creek, the eastern terminus of the ALCAN (Alaska-Canada Highway), more commonly known now as simply the Alaska Highway.
Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway at Dawson Creek.Stretching almost 1,400 miles or 2,200 km west, the highway gently ascends through northeastern British Columbia, crossing the Rockies and then into the Yukon just before Watson Lake. The highway reaches the territorial capital of Whitehorse at historic milepost 918.
We stopped in Dawson Creek just long enough to take the requisite photo in front of the 0 milepost, then we left the rest of the tourist trappings to folks driving RVs, and we headed west.
The first half of the Alaska Highway, from Dawson Creek
in British Columbia to Whitehorse in the Yukon.
Beau needed to loosen up at the little town of Taylor, so we ran up and down a long boulevard-like stretch of green grass next to the monument honoring Alexander MacKenzie, the first white explorer to make the transcontinental crossing to the Pacific Ocean in 1793. MacKenzie with nine men and a dog (named simply "Our Dog") made the journey a full ten years before Lewis and Clark's epic journey further south.
Alexander MacKenzie and his team of nine men and a dog
traversed the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean
ten years before Lewis and Clark's journey.
Seven hours later, we pulled into Fort Nelson and found a pet-friendly motel for the night. We had traveled 770 km (over 450 miles) in one day, but tomorrow would be longer yet as I had made a reservation at Whitehorse's famous Best Western Hotel for the night.
As we sat on the lawn eating a very late dinner, I chatted with a family that had just crossed the same route west-to-east. The two preteen children were too exhausted to speak, and clung to parents like half-hung wallpaper. "It's a magnificent route," said the father, "but the animals are all over the road in the mountains." His kind warning was music to my ears. This was, after all, what our journey was all about. The glaciers, mountains, rivers, caribou, moose, bear, bison. We wanted it all, and we wanted it up close and personal.
We went to bed that night snuggled close together. Tomorrow couldn't come soon enough.
Dr. Smith invites comments at dfs6@cornell.edu
Posted Sept 3, 2012
Five years ago my dog, Beau, and I drove from our home in upstate New York to Alaska and back. The first seven installments can be found by clicking the "Traveling with Beau" link on the upper right-hand corner of the Home Page. In the last blog, Beau and I traveled through the province of Alberta..
I woke up to the sound of a diesel engine idling on the road in front of the visitor center. Though it was just 4:30, the early inky blackness of the night was starting to be nudged aside by the dawn. Feeling me move, Beau sat upright then disappeared into some knee-high clover to pee. I followed, while peering to see if the man in the truck was concerned about an unfamiliar jeep parked where it shouldn't be.
Before I could fully analyse the situation in my half-asleep state, the truck took off, though I could see the man was still on his cell phone with his head was turned in our direction as he accelerated towards town.
By Donald F. Smith, Cornell University
Posted Sept 3, 2012
Five years ago my dog, Beau, and I drove from our home in upstate New York to Alaska and back. The first seven installments can be found by clicking the "Traveling with Beau" link on the upper right-hand corner of the Home Page. In the last blog, Beau and I traveled through the province of Alberta..
I woke up to the sound of a diesel engine idling on the road in front of the visitor center. Though it was just 4:30, the early inky blackness of the night was starting to be nudged aside by the dawn. Feeling me move, Beau sat upright then disappeared into some knee-high clover to pee. I followed, while peering to see if the man in the truck was concerned about an unfamiliar jeep parked where it shouldn't be.
Before I could fully analyse the situation in my half-asleep state, the truck took off, though I could see the man was still on his cell phone with his head was turned in our direction as he accelerated towards town.
Beau and made a beeline for the jeep and departed Valleyview. We didn't stop until we reached Grande Prairie 130 km away. A misty rain penetrated the murky dawn when we stopped for breakfast in this gateway city to the Alaska Highway. My only thought of the turn in weather was to wonder if the rain would persist throughout the Yukon route so that would not be able to see and photograph the animals in the Rockies.
The sun was starting to emerge by the time we reached Beaver Lodge an hour later. I did some grocery shopping--as was our custom now, my first stop was always the deli, where we picked up a roasted chicken--then I topped off our gas tank and photographed a reluctant Beau dwarfed beside the world's largest beaver.
.
The famous mega-beaver at Beaverlodge
near the British Columbia border.
We crossed the border into British Columbia just before noon. "The Best Place on Earth", the sign read, and many Canadians feel that way. From the temperate capital of Victoria on the luscious Vancouver Island, to Vancouver, the olympian city, the third-largest in Canada. North from the fruit groves of the Okanagan Valley through some of the most majestic mountains and glaciers on the continent, British Columbia has it all.
A few kilometers across the border sits the town of Dawson Creek, the eastern terminus of the ALCAN (Alaska-Canada Highway), more commonly known now as simply the Alaska Highway.
Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway at Dawson Creek.Stretching almost 1,400 miles or 2,200 km west, the highway gently ascends through northeastern British Columbia, crossing the Rockies and then into the Yukon just before Watson Lake. The highway reaches the territorial capital of Whitehorse at historic milepost 918.
We stopped in Dawson Creek just long enough to take the requisite photo in front of the 0 milepost, then we left the rest of the tourist trappings to folks driving RVs, and we headed west.
The first half of the Alaska Highway, from Dawson Creek
in British Columbia to Whitehorse in the Yukon.
Beau needed to loosen up at the little town of Taylor, so we ran up and down a long boulevard-like stretch of green grass next to the monument honoring Alexander MacKenzie, the first white explorer to make the transcontinental crossing to the Pacific Ocean in 1793. MacKenzie with nine men and a dog (named simply "Our Dog") made the journey a full ten years before Lewis and Clark's epic journey further south.
Alexander MacKenzie and his team of nine men and a dog
traversed the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean
ten years before Lewis and Clark's journey.
Seven hours later, we pulled into Fort Nelson and found a pet-friendly motel for the night. We had traveled 770 km (over 450 miles) in one day, but tomorrow would be longer yet as I had made a reservation at Whitehorse's famous Best Western Hotel for the night.
As we sat on the lawn eating a very late dinner, I chatted with a family that had just crossed the same route west-to-east. The two preteen children were too exhausted to speak, and clung to parents like half-hung wallpaper. "It's a magnificent route," said the father, "but the animals are all over the road in the mountains." His kind warning was music to my ears. This was, after all, what our journey was all about. The glaciers, mountains, rivers, caribou, moose, bear, bison. We wanted it all, and we wanted it up close and personal.
We went to bed that night snuggled close together. Tomorrow couldn't come soon enough.
Dr. Smith invites comments at dfs6@cornell.edu
View original article: http://veterinarylegacy.blogspot.com/2012/09/driving-with-my-dog-to-alaska-british.html
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