June 14, 2025 - Driving to Alaska
Driving to Dawson Creek
From Hinton we backtracked towards Jasper a mile or two, then turned north on Highway 40 to Dawson Creek, via Grande Cache and Grande Prairie.
   
OK, let's take the scenic route to Alaska!
   
Right away we were in solid wilderness.
   
A sight picture we would become very familiar with during the next week.
   

We enter the hamlet of Grande Cache.  Notice the "cache" on stilts to the right of the welcome sign.

Grande Cache overlooks the Smoky River and is at the northern edge of Alberta's Rockies.  The New Town of Grande Cache was incorporated on September 1, 1966.  The purpose of creating a new town was to open the area for the development of coal mines.  Population is around 3,300.  In 2018, Grande Cache voted to downgrade from a town to a hamlet due to declining population.

Why such a big deal about Grande Cache?  Because it is the first civilization we've seen since leaving Hinton, about 90 miles away.
   
Grande Cache does have a very nice Visitors Center.  In fact, all Canadian towns we would visit have them. 
   

The information desk was excellent, providing us with good maps and literature.  The woman asked us where we were going.  We told her we were headed to Dawson Creek, then getting on the Alaska Highway.  She asked if were we aware that the Alaska Highway was currently closed between Fort Nelson and Toad River because of wildfires?  Uh, no, we weren't.

So, the Alaska Highway was closed with no estimate on when it would be reopened.  The only other way to get to Alaska is via the Cassiar Highway to Watson Lake.  At this point, we had three choices:  1) We could continue to Dawson Creek and stay the night as planned.  Tomorrow we could either go on the Alaska Highway and hope the blockage was cleared by the time we got there, or 2) from Dawson Creek, deviate westward to Prince George and then New Hazelton where we would spend the night, then the next day drive the Cassier Highway to Watson Lake.  This would mean two nine-hour days of driving.  On the other hand, we had planned to drive the Cassier Highway coming back from Alaska, so if we took this option, we could change plans and drive the Alaska Highway coming back.  There was a third option:  3) Backtrack right now and go all the way back to Jasper, then to Prince George, New Hazelton and Watson Lake.  This would be a few hours less driving to get to Watson Lake.

It was actually a big help having flown to and from Alaska last August because I already knew where most of these places were.  Plus having spent so much time planning the trip.

We decided we couldn't take the chance of driving all the way up to Fort Nelson and beyond, and then just have to turn around and come all the way back because of the wildfires.  But I really didn't want to backtrack all the way to Jasper either.  So we decided on Option 2:  continue to Dawson Creek, but then go to Watson Lake via the Prince George and the Cassiar Highway.  I wasn't happy about it but at least I only had to change one hotel reservation.

This affair did teach me a very important lesson.  When driving long-distances in Canada, you really need to check the road conditions beforehand.  Sort of like flying and the weather brief.  Each Canadian western province has an excellent website to do this with.

Alberta:      https://511.alberta.ca

British Columbia:   www.drivebc.ca

Yukon:  https://511yukon.ca

This Visitor Center was also a small museum.
   
With lots of stuffed animals.
   
Bears!
   
Big Owl.
   
Wolves.
   
Mountain Lions.
   
Caribou.
   
Moose
   
Native tools.
   
Turtle.  Wait, I think this animal is alive!
   
Leaving Grand Cache, it was back on Highway 40 heading north.  Another 120 miles to the next civilization:  Grande Prairie
   
Not far out of Grande Cache, we passed this big coal mining operation:  CST Coal.
   
CST Coal was the highlight.  Much of the 120 mile drive was this.
   
Pulling into Grande Prairie, passing another big West Fraser timber mill.
   
In the middle of Grande Prairie, we turn west onto Highway 43.  The sign says Alaska;  a good omen!
 
The Second World War saw the US and Canadian military establish Grande Prairie as a part of the Northwest Staging Route and for the construction of the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek to Alaska. Although Dawson Creek was chosen as the major starting point of the construction of the Alaska Highway, Grande Prairie was a major stopover point for military aircraft during the war, and benefited economically from this.
 
The construction and paving of Highway 43 (originally sections of Highways 2, 34, and 43 from the BC border to the Yellowhead Highway just west of Edmonton) in 1956 cut down on the travel time by road significantly, further enhancing Grande Prairie's accessibility and economic status.
 
The town of Grande Prairie was incorporated as a city in 1958. At that time, its population was approximately 7,600.
 
The opening of the Procter & Gamble kraft pulp mill in 1972 and the discovery of the Elmworth deep basin gas field spurred an economic boom. Grande Prairie's population went from just over 12,000 in the early 1970s to over 24,000 by the time the oil boom went bust in 1981.
 
In the five years from 2001 to 2006, Grande Prairie was one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada, growing from 37,000 to 47,000 people.  After 2006, and with another recession, the population decreased slightly, followed by a slow increase to just over 69,000 by 2018.
 
   
14 miles west of Grande Prairie, just off Highway 43, is the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum.  Let's check it out!
   
Very scary.
   

The Museum is located near the Pipestone Creek bonebed, part of the Wapiti Formation which contains fossils from the Late Cretaceous to early Paleocene epoch.

The bonebed was discovered by local school teacher Al Lakusta in 1972. Lakusta found the bones belonging to Pachyrhinosaurus, a type of horned dinosaur which was named Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai after Lakusta.   The Pipestone Creek bonebed was found to have thousands of fossils and is considered one of the densest fossil sites in the world, and subsequently the area would come to be known as The River of Death.  Other fossils found in the bonebed include hadrosaurs, tyrannosaurs, nodosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pterosaurs.

The museum opened in 2015.
   
The Pipestone Creek bonebed contains fossils from the Late Cretaceous to early Paleocene epoch.
   
The lab where they work on the fossils.
   
Lynnette pretending she is some kind of prairie dog being stalked by a meat-eating dinosaur.
   
A re-creation of Pipestone Creek, where a dense layer of bones, mixed with mud and plants, washed into this spot over 72 million years ago.  They think a herd of Pachyrhinosaurus was caught in some sort of disaster with at least several dozen other dinosaurs, if not hundreds or thousands, dying all at the same time.  The bones were covered with mud and sand, preserving them.
   
An artist conception of a herd of Pachyrhonosaurus.
   
Amazing fossil of a Pachyrhonosaurus skull.
   
 Flying dinosaurs.
   
Fossils of an adult Pachyrhonosaurus and a baby Pachyrhonosaurus.
   
Hmmm.  Can you imagine encountering a meat-eating dinosaur weighing 2.8 tons?
   
Fossil of the Gorgosaurus Libratus.
   
Highway 43 turned northwest towards Dawson Creek.  Soon after the turn we came to the small town of Beaverlodge where the big attraction is their Giant Beaver.
   
The Giant Beaver is a must see; that goes without saying.   The Giant Beaver statue was unveiled in 2004.
   
Remarkable.
   

And then we arrived at tonight's destination:  Dawson Creek, where the Alaska Highway formally begins.

This is Dawson Creek's famous sign.  It turns out this is the only interesting thing in Dawson Creek, which is an industrial town and very little in the way of nice restaurants or hotels.
   
Mile marker zero on the road to Alaska.
   

We checked out the airport where I had landed last August to fuel up.  It has a nice, little pilot lounge where I guess you could spend the night if you had to.  I didn't see the inside of the terminal at the time, so we did that now.  It seems to me this is one of those airports that has a terminal but it gets very little use.  It does have a restaurant though.  We wanted to try it for breakfast the next morning but it didn't open early enough.

You could probably walk from here to the nearest motel in town, about 1.5 miles.  Or Uber or taxi.  I will say this for Dawson Creek, the motels are not very expensive.
   

We stayed here at the Aurora Park Inn.  It was clean but spartan.  A good rate though.  When we returned from Alaska, we stayed overnight again here in Dawson Creek, but I tried for a nicer quality place.  And failed.  If I were doing it again, I would not stay overnight in Dawson Creek.  I'd go further up the Alaska Highway to Fort St. John.   There's nothing in Dawson Creek except for the sign, which takes five minutes to see.

For the pilot flying through, Dawson Creek would be a good stop though.  Self-service fuel, the pilot lounge, inexpensive motels relatively close, the on-field restaurant.
   
 
   
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