8/11
Continued down the Alaska Hwy ( Rt 97BC – Rt 2 AB). Took a detour along a portion of the original ( 1942) hwy and drove across the Kiskatinaw River Bridge, the original, and only remaining, timber bridge on the hwy. It is also the only curved bridge (curving 9° along a 540′ length) on the hwy. This part of Alberta, and perhaps the rest as well, is a beehive of petrochemical activity – many drilling camps and most of the traffic consists of support vehicles for the oil and gas fields. Ft St John, which when we passed through it in 2003 was a sleepy town of perhaps 5000 is now a rip roaring gas town of 50,000.
We stopped in Dawson Creek, BC to take a picture at the signpost commemorating mile zero of the Alaska Hwy and then drove on to Grand Prairie, AB where we camped at the very nice Rotary Club Campground.