bicyclist
Guest
I was in Dawson Creek, Alberta after riding down the Alcan from Alaska. Everyone with a motorcycle and a wanderlust has been there.
Accommodations are expensive in Dawson Creek, but less so at the Sleep Inn in Pouce Coupe, five miles from there, so that's where I flopped before heading for Yellowknife. The road north runs east of the mountains through the edge of the plains where wheat and rape are grown. Rape blooms bright yellow and the seed is used to make canola oil.
After Grimshaw, Manning and High Level are the only two towns in Alberta large enough to support any services. It's a long empty road, so attention to fuel stops is important. Just south of the Northwest Territories border, Indian Cabins has a trading post with a couple of fuel pumps.
At some point, a church was built and the abandoned building remains.
At the border, there's a nice rest stop which provides respite from the hordes of black flies that swarm the traveler.
Fuel is available in Enterprise, but I took the split and went down to Hay River for the night. Hay River lies on the south side of the Great Slave Lake and has all services. The lake was named after one of the First Nations groups living in the area called the Slavey Dene.
Next day, I continued north. A new bridge over the Mackenzie River opened last year, replacing the ferry that had crossed for years. The ferry sits abandoned on the shore.
Just over the bridge lies Fort Providence, a fueling stop and the beginning of the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary. The sanctuary is home to 2-3000 wood bison, one of two herds in the Northwest Territories. The animals are free roaming and there are numerous signs warning that they may be on the road. Fortunately, they're big suckers and can be seen from a distance giving plenty of time to slow down. I encountered one group on the road and saw several along the verge. The group on the road was easy enough to move along with a lot of horn beeping.
Accommodations are expensive in Dawson Creek, but less so at the Sleep Inn in Pouce Coupe, five miles from there, so that's where I flopped before heading for Yellowknife. The road north runs east of the mountains through the edge of the plains where wheat and rape are grown. Rape blooms bright yellow and the seed is used to make canola oil.
After Grimshaw, Manning and High Level are the only two towns in Alberta large enough to support any services. It's a long empty road, so attention to fuel stops is important. Just south of the Northwest Territories border, Indian Cabins has a trading post with a couple of fuel pumps.
At some point, a church was built and the abandoned building remains.
At the border, there's a nice rest stop which provides respite from the hordes of black flies that swarm the traveler.
Fuel is available in Enterprise, but I took the split and went down to Hay River for the night. Hay River lies on the south side of the Great Slave Lake and has all services. The lake was named after one of the First Nations groups living in the area called the Slavey Dene.
Next day, I continued north. A new bridge over the Mackenzie River opened last year, replacing the ferry that had crossed for years. The ferry sits abandoned on the shore.
Just over the bridge lies Fort Providence, a fueling stop and the beginning of the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary. The sanctuary is home to 2-3000 wood bison, one of two herds in the Northwest Territories. The animals are free roaming and there are numerous signs warning that they may be on the road. Fortunately, they're big suckers and can be seen from a distance giving plenty of time to slow down. I encountered one group on the road and saw several along the verge. The group on the road was easy enough to move along with a lot of horn beeping.