Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

We left Grande Cache Municipal Campground at little after 8:30. We had a great view of Grande Mountain as we were leaving town.

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

We had driven about 15 minutes north of Grande Cache when we passed by the Grande Cache Coal Corporation. Coal mining and oil drilling are two major industries in this part of Alberta.

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

We saw these deer that had come down near the highway and were going back up the hill.

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

We also saw a number of places near the highway where people had parked their RVs and were camping for free. If you had a large RV you would have to be very careful parking in some of the places we saw because the ground didn't look like it would support the weight.

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

We stopped for lunch at the Wal-Mart in Grande Prairie and did a little shopping also. We saw these RVs parked in Wal-Mart's lot and they looked like they were staying there for more than a day.

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

After lunch we drove through the town of Wembley and saw this 1956 Chevrolet cross the highway in front of us.

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

A little farther on we saw a small herd of elk grazing on farm land.

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

Then we saw dark rain clouds ahead of us. One storm was to our left

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

and one was to our right.

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

So which rain storm did we get caught in? The one that was between the 2 dark clouds.

We drove through the town of Beaverlodge and saw this giant Beaver sculpture. As part of the town's 75th Anniversary in 2004 they had this 15 foot high, 28 foot long and 3000 pound sculpture made.

From Grande Cache to Dawson Creek

We arrived at Dawson Creek at 2:00. Dawson Creek is Mile Zero for the Alaska Highway. In 1942 Dawson Creek had a population of 600 and by the time the American troops came to build the highway, the population had grown to 10,000.

From Dawson Creek

We got in here at the Mile 0 Campground at 2:20. Two other motorhomes had pulled in to the campground ahead of us. When I went in to the office to register, I heard the people who were ahead of us request pull-through sites. But they were told that there weren’t any available today. Thank goodness Mike had called yesterday to make a reservation for a pull-through site.

We are in site #67. We have full hookups (30 amp electric). There is wi-fi here and we can pick up the signal in the RV. We did manage to tune in our satellite dish, but we’re not receiving all of the stations that we normally would get.

We’re staying here for 2 nights. After dinner I walked the short distance over to the laundromat and washed our bedsheets. Tomorrow I’ll catch up on the rest of our laundry and we plan to do some sightseeing, too.