(I’m sure the Nelson family has noted this, but – yes, Fort Nelson is a major point on the Alaska Highway. Have you also noticed that the next major place down the highway from Fort Nelson is Fort St. John? )
Today it really seems like I’m putting Alaska in the rearview mirror.
Put in a lot of miles today – 590. The first section of the drive today, between Whitehorse and Watson Lake, was highway that I went over on the way up.
The stretch of Alaska Highway between Watson Lake and Fort Nelson is narrow and winding, but it might be the most scenic stretch of highway I’ve been on since I started.
This stretch of highway goes over a couple of different mountain ranges, including some of the Canadian Rockies, and follows a couple of different rivers. On the way, I passed through Muncho Lake. The rivers and Muncho lake were all a turquoise color, from water fed by glaciers on the surrounding mountains. The turquoise, and the different greens from the surrounding firs and birches, created a beautiful landscape to follow all day long. I hope a couple of these pictures capture the greens and turquoise.
This was also a day where I bagged some new wildlife – pictorially. I saw another moose. But, I also saw a caribou, Dall Sheep,and a bison, along the side of the rode. Yes, they were all wild.
I ended the day at Fort Nelson, population 5,000. I’m staying at the Wooodlands Inn, a nice small hotel. Ate dinner at Dan’s Neighbourhood Pub. Dan's specialty is spaghetti and local beer.
Fort Nelson is a relatively large town for this part of British Columbia. It was an early Hudson’s Bay trading post. The reason this town and others around here were named “Forts” is that they really were fortified – not so much against Indians, but against rival trading companies who were after the furs stored here.
Fort Nelson used to be home to the Canadian Chopstick Manufacturing Company, the largest manufacturer of chopsticks in the world. (Owned by - guess who - Mitsubishi). Making disposable chopsticks for China and Japan. What a business model!! They were putting out 7.5 million pairs a day - 2 billion a year. They supplied most of the Orient for most of a decade until they’d run through the local aspen forests and shut down the plant for good in 1997. Turns out a good disposable chopstick requires old growth wood. Anyone think there's an ecological issue here?
Today it really seems like I’m putting Alaska in the rearview mirror.
Put in a lot of miles today – 590. The first section of the drive today, between Whitehorse and Watson Lake, was highway that I went over on the way up.
The stretch of Alaska Highway between Watson Lake and Fort Nelson is narrow and winding, but it might be the most scenic stretch of highway I’ve been on since I started.
This stretch of highway goes over a couple of different mountain ranges, including some of the Canadian Rockies, and follows a couple of different rivers. On the way, I passed through Muncho Lake. The rivers and Muncho lake were all a turquoise color, from water fed by glaciers on the surrounding mountains. The turquoise, and the different greens from the surrounding firs and birches, created a beautiful landscape to follow all day long. I hope a couple of these pictures capture the greens and turquoise.
This was also a day where I bagged some new wildlife – pictorially. I saw another moose. But, I also saw a caribou, Dall Sheep,and a bison, along the side of the rode. Yes, they were all wild.
I ended the day at Fort Nelson, population 5,000. I’m staying at the Wooodlands Inn, a nice small hotel. Ate dinner at Dan’s Neighbourhood Pub. Dan's specialty is spaghetti and local beer.
Fort Nelson is a relatively large town for this part of British Columbia. It was an early Hudson’s Bay trading post. The reason this town and others around here were named “Forts” is that they really were fortified – not so much against Indians, but against rival trading companies who were after the furs stored here.
Fort Nelson used to be home to the Canadian Chopstick Manufacturing Company, the largest manufacturer of chopsticks in the world. (Owned by - guess who - Mitsubishi). Making disposable chopsticks for China and Japan. What a business model!! They were putting out 7.5 million pairs a day - 2 billion a year. They supplied most of the Orient for most of a decade until they’d run through the local aspen forests and shut down the plant for good in 1997. Turns out a good disposable chopstick requires old growth wood. Anyone think there's an ecological issue here?
Today, there’s a lot of energy mining (gas) around Fort Nelson, and it looks like it’s thriving.
Tomorrow, I'm going to see if I can get to Prince George. From there I'll have to figure out where to go next. I'm ahead of where I planned to be in the itinerary.
1 comment:
Yes we saw this on your original itinerary. I had to laugh. I hadn't noticed the St John location.
A lot to read today and great pictures
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