Got up very early in order to check out and leave for Fort Nelson at 6:30 am. The hotel was owned a gas station about 600 metres away which opened at 6 am so I would gas up there.
There was a terrible burning smell as I turned on to the Alaska Highway, so I stopped and check all four tires to make sure it wasn’t one of them. Then the smell seemed to dissipate but it came back later. I must have been still half asleep because it took me a while to figure out that I was smelling smoke from one of the multitude of wild fires burning away in Alberta just the other side of Fort Nelson, on the BC/Alberta border.
As I drove past the gas station to turn in I couldn’t see any pumps, but freeze video #1 at 3:07 and there’s a pump stuck on the end of the main gas tank that it pumps from. You can see the tank/pump arrangement in stills IMG_1909 and IMG_1910. In fact, there were only two pumps, both at the end of their respective tank, one for diesel and one for gasoline. Naturally, despite them being labelled as such at ground level, I went first to the wrong one! I almost had a heart attack when I saw the “Closed” sign on it – until I also saw that it was the diesel pump. The young lady on duty saw what I was doing and came out to tell me that the other tank had gasoline. She was from the Philippines and hadn’t been in Canada very long. Like most of the Philipino’s I have met she was polite, friendly, and extremely helpful.
After gassing up I asked if there was an air line and she directed me to the back of the building where there was an airline. She opened the back overhead door so that I could get the line, then she switched on a pretty large industrial compressor. I’m glad I decided to check the tires as all of them were underinflated, with one down to 23 psi instead of the 33 psi that they should all be. When I offered her a tip for helping me so much, she flatly refused, saying she was always pleased to help anyone. I had to insist that she took it.
It was cloudy and overcast as shown in the header image of this post, with rain spitting much of the time, and the air looked heavy with particulates, probably due to the wildfire smoke. I set off still very, very conscious that I had no spare tire in the event of a puncture, but then I thought well if I get one I also get to play with my new tire plug kits. Did I know how to use them? Not really, but part of the fun in life is learning how to do new things you couldn’t do before.
It wasn’t long before I saw the first sign warning about the presence of animals. Freeze video #1 at 6:43 and you can see this sign, which prompted a few thoughts… 1. it’s a huge sign! 2. It’s a variable content sign 3. it gives the actual location of the problem – Muncho Lake. Yes…. hold on to your seats…. not a joke….. this huge sign is warning drivers of bison on the highway at Muncho Lake, a mere 170 miles further down the road. Hopefully, these bison are not travelling so fast that I can’t overtake them 😊I will remember this sign for the rest of my life.
Just after this sign I saw the first animal of the day – a brown fox. For sure, it wasn’t the last animal I was to see. At 0:14 in video #2 you can see me approach a mother bear and her cub. I said brown bear but on reflection I think they are black bears. You can see lots of stills of them from 2023 05 08 Artic Trip-01 to 2023 05 08 Artic Trip-12. They don’t seemed too disturbed by my presence, they eat some grass and cross the road in a leisurely fashion at which point the cub goes ahead of the mother into the forest. She looks around and then she too disappears into the forest. A very peaceful encounter.
At 2:20 in video #2 I came across “not one, not two, but three bears” – except that I hadn’t encountered bears at all. I even asked “who’s been eating my porridge?” Note the noise that white truck makes as it speeds down the road past these “bears”, and the complete lack of any reaction from them. That was immediately followed by another white truck that went past me at speed and then past those bears, again with no reaction, at which point I decided if noise and trucks don’t bother you then I’ll get closer, so I did.
Even though I was now pretty close to these bison, no they weren’t bears, they still didn’t move. If you look closely at the big bison’s lower jaw, you can see that he’s chewing his grass as if the world was passing him by – which of course it was! You can see these bison in the stills from 2023 05 08 Artic Trip-13 to 2023 05 08 Artic Trip-18. My guess is that the big guy is the bull, the one to the right is the cow and the small one in the grass is the calve. As I drove off I gave them a wide berth, I think more out of respect for the bodywork on my Subie than any need that the bison had. I’ve seen the damage that a pissed off bison can cause.
I had only gone up the road for 3 minutes when I spotted another black bear. The camera wasn’t rolling so I didn’t get it on video but I did stop and take some stills – 2023 05 08 Artic Trip-19 to 2023 05 08 Artic Trip-21.
At 5:33 in video #2 I pulled into a service station to get a cup of tea or coffee but it was another one closed for the season even though there were lights on the exterior of the building. As I leave there you can see the sun trying to break through on the horizon.
At 0:19 in video #3 you can see a dark animal by the side of the road in the distance and as I got I could see it was a bison and that there was another one about 100 metres further down the road. As I approached the first one it signaled its contempt by turning its back on me – charming! You can see that I drew up quite close to it and it still didn’t seem to be too bothered – clearly they have got used to things going by on the road. You can see the stills I shot of them at 2023 05 08 Artic Trip-22/23/24/25.
I’ve done some research on bison since I got home and I think these two may be two young bulls. Once bulls reach a certain age they leave their herd and roam around in a bull herd. Bull’s horns are twice as thick at the base as their eye width. Of course I could be way off the mark… I said “bye bye bison” to these two and remarked that I would go on to the next one…. if only I knew!
Then a while later I saw the next “one” up on a hill by the road, followed by a large herd of bison on both sides of the road, in the grass and some even barley visible in the forest. Did I say on the side of the road?
All but one…. Big Bertie Bull was on the road and wasn’t going to move any time soon for anyone or anything. This was HIS territory. I counted more than 30 in this herd, the largest I had seen yet or was to see.
I saw two more about 100 meters further down – almost as if Big Bertie had set up a front and rear guard to protect the herd. I saw more bison at intervals.
Remember the warning this morning shortly after I left Watson Lake that bison were on the road at Muncho Lake? Well that’s still a 100 miles away.
If you freeze at 5:57 precisely in video #3 you can see a dark object on the right side of the road just under the vehicle on the horizon. If you can, walk the video by frame and you will see it run across the road. I called it a bobcat in the video but later on some folks I met at a rest stop told me it was a lynx. The only lynx I had seen before was a helicopter (Westland-Augusta) so this was a first for me.
At 6:28 in video #3 you can see some change in ground cover with taller, darker trees, intermingled with lighter trees which I think may be Aspen.
At the start of video #4… it’s mid morning and I pull into the Coal River Services for a cup of coffee and to gas up. It’s called Coal River Service because…. well, it’s right on the banks of the Coal River! But only just as a couple of hundred meters downstream it joins the much bigger Liard River. The Alaska Highway had been following this river for the last 100 miles since Upper Liard. What I didn’t realise at first was that this wasn’t just a café and a gas station – it’s a hotel, RV park and airfield too.
I was greeted by two docile curious dogs and the owner of the site. It turned out that there offered nothing to eat but candy bars as the “season” had not yet started so there wasn’t a chef on site. But I had a pleasant rest and a great cup of coffee. Shortly after I arrived an elderly couple came in and said “You must be Ian?”.
This isn’t as unusual as it sounds since the licence plate on my Subie is IAN (I had the same plate in Texas for 20 years), but it did trigger a conversation. It turns out that they were driving the white Ford F150 that had been overtaking a few times that morning. I would then find something to video or photograph and while I was doing that they would catch up and overtake me. I would then get back on the road and overtake them! They were from Alaska and were on their way to see their new grandchild in Montana. They asked me what I was doing so I explained the journey and mentioned the wildlife I was seeing for the first time, including that bobcat. They had seen it too and it was them who told me that it was actually a lynx. What a pleasant couple to share a cup of coffee with!
Since Watson Lake I had left the Yukon and gone into BC, entered the Yukon again for 40 miles, and the gone back into BC. I would remain in BC for the rest of the journey.
At 2:51 in video #4 you can see some dark shapes up on the left side of the road. Stay with it once that group has been passed as the main part of the herd if further down on the right. If you free at 3:24 you can see Big Bertie Bison’s brother, Big Billy Bison, and again he’s right on the road, as if to protect the herd from those things that move up and down it. The herd was stretched out over 300 – 400 metres and although one or two had their heads down eating grass, the majority were heading West at a steady pace.
As a boy I read all about the “buffalo” (i.e. bison) hunted on the Great Plains of America so I thought that was the only place that they lived. But in doing research for the trip I discovered that there are two type of bison in North America – “plains” bison on the plains, and “wood” bison who mange very well in forests. It’s the latter type that I have been encountering. Herds of wood bison were reintroduced into Canada’s Western boreal forests in 1996.
Why do these bison stick to the road? It seems that where the vegetation has been cut back on the side of the road, the grass left behind is not only tasty, but easy to get to as well, the lack of trees means better visibility to spot predators and, in the summer, the increased wind (as opposed to in the forest) reduces the number of insects bothering the bison.
If at this point you need a little humour, then go to 4:49 in video #4 and listen for details of the song I will compose when I get home.
Those snow capped mountains you can see in the far distance at 5:59 in video #4 are the Northern Rocky Mountains, a.k.a. the Canadian Rockies since they are in Canada. The Alaska Highway (BC 97) doesn’t actually go through these as it heads East after Muncho Lake to Fort Nelson and then South skirting down the East side of the Rockies.
At 7:28 in video #4 I approach a wide river on the right – that’s still the Liard River which the highway has been running alongside for the last 130 miles. Look at how close the road gets to the river itself. Soon, we’ll cross the river and then follow one of its tributaries, the Trout River South down to Muncho Lake.
Decades ago when I was training to be a pilot there were (and still are) two sets of rules under which pilots fly, VFR (Visual Flight Rules) and IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). My flying instructor John Ferris had a sense of humour so when he was training me on what to do if you get lost in the air, he recommended FRR (Follow Roads & Railways)! You could be forgiven for thinking that on this trip I was following a slightly different version of FRR – Follow Roads & Rivers!
At 0:51 in video #5 you can see yet another herd of bison up on the right side of the road, including a very young calf that looked like it wasn’t born very long ago. You can see some nice stills of the herd at 2023 05 08 Artic Trip-26/7/8/9. Note that even though I am approaching the herd slowly, there is still engine noise, but they don’t seem too bothered by it.
Soon it was time to stop for breakfast. Look from 2:56 in video #5 and you can see the approach to a beautiful genuine Canadian log cabin style building. There was nothing fake about this building – it was logs and just logs through and through. Like many of the establishments that I visited on this trip, it was a gas station, restaurant, and hotel all in one. I treated myself to something I had not had in years – a massive fry up for breakfast and it was incredibly tasty.
I mentioned that I was hoping to get to the electronics shop in Fort Nelson and the reply was “you won’t get to it today – Covid did for the place two years ago”. I really would have to wait until Prince George to get what I needed to fix my laptop. This was mega frustrating because in the first part of the journey I had diligently uploaded all photos and videos on to my laptop every night, and even processed a few too. But now I could only move them off the cameras on to USB sticks to free up room to take more shots, but I couldn’t process anything. That would all have to wait until I got home.
At 4:51 in video #5 I cross the Liard River for the last time on something I hadn’t seen much at all on this journey, a suspension bridge. You can’t see it in the video but the river was almost completely thawed, probably because I was now quite a bit further South and the ambient temperature was 54°F.
At 5:12 in video #5 you can see a relatively small lone bison on the right side of the road. Bison on their own are usually bulls but it’s impossible to tell from the angle of the shot. Was it a young cow that got separated form her herd? If so, she could be in danger from wolf packs or grizzly bears, both of whom are known to occasionally bring down a bison. In fact, the rest of the herd are then seen about 200 meters further down the road.
I make a comment at this point on logging activity, or rather lack of it. Back home, I’m used to seeing trucks carry huge logs to the wood mills every day, but there are definitely not as frequent in Northern BC.
Starting at 6:20 in video #5 there is a wide beautiful view of the Canadian Rockies with much of the snow already having melted. But that snowmelt was still having a devastating flooding down on the plains which was flooding towns and cutting off roads, include the one I was currently driving on.
Look carefully on the right of the road at 7:39 in video #5…. that’s two young caribou. They aren’t in frame for very long because as I approached, they dart off into the forest.
At 0:09 in video #6 you can see some mountains in the background (Canadian Rockies) but if you look carefully, you can see much higher snow-capped mountains blending into the cloud layers swirling around them. Earlier I incorrectly said that this road doesn’t go into the Rockies, but it does… just for this short stretch down to just pass Muncho Lake before it turns East towards the settlement Toad River (which presumably includes Toad Hall!).
At 0:45 the view opens to show those distant peaks in a much clear view and it shows that the road is boarded by mountains on both sides – with the road following the Trout River valley between them. You can’t see the river in the video but it’s on the right.
Starting at 1:41 there is a beautiful view of Lake Muncho and if you freeze at 2:35, you can see the Muncho Lake airstrip. Yep…. look at those two parallel lines on the lake in the lower left. Welcome to the Muncho Lake Ice Airstrip, official identification code CBF8. There’s a hotel lodge on the shore at that point which offers a special style of fishing – “Fly-in Fishing”. You can see full details at https://copanational.org/places-to-fly-muncho-lake/ .
The next few minutes in video #6 shows the beautiful scenes driving the 7 ½ miles South down the shores of Lake Muncho. From 4:02 you can see how close the road is to both the very steep slopes on the left and the lakeshore on the right. One good rainstorm on top of snowmelt and you can imagine how easy it would be for the road to flood or even be washed away. But the alternative would be to route the road up through the mountains, and that would cost far more than repeatedly repairing a road down by the lake.
At 4:23 in video #6 you can see bare slopes where the trees and topsoil have been washed away and at 4:54 you can see where the road had been washed away and repaired. Imagine how easy it would be to slide off this road towards on one of these bends? But the benefits in mid winter would be a) the ice would probably be thick enough to support your vehicle b) you’d have so much room to do your 3-point turn to head back to the road!
At 5:48 in video #6 you can see the large water course on the left which almost certainly is a runoff for snow melt. Left unchecked it would close and damage the road, so it looks like they are creating a channel to run under the road instead of over it.
Look at the colour of the lake at 7:00 – it’s almost green. I’ve explained this phenomenon in an earlier blog, but it’s the way the light is reflecting off white mineral granules that have been washed down the mountains by the snowmelt. This is also very prominent in the lakes in the Whistler area, so much so that one of the largest lakes there is called the Green Lake. In the summer the flow into that lake slows down, causing half the lake to be green and half to look like normal water.
At 0:10 in video #7 you can see some very steep slopes on the right, mostly devoid of trees and topsoil and showing signs of avalanche scars. Those slopes come right down to the roadside so it’s a fair bet that this road periodically gets closed here during the winter. And sometimes that closure will be before an avalanche, not because of one.
his is because the province of BC has a wide ranging and comprehensive Avalanche Safety Program with technicians strategically located in 8 Avalanche Safety centers around the province. They use a combination of satellite data, on ground sensors and visual inspections to assess the risk in an avalanche area. Sometimes, they will close the road, and then intentionally trigger an avalanche to bring the unstable snow mass down and then clear the road. This way, no one is injured, the clearing equipment can be on standby nearby and the road cleared in the minimum of time. If you want to see this in action go to https://youtu.be/61QxHIpcGS8 to see an avalanche being triggered at Bear Pass – less than 20 miles from Meziadin Junction that I drove through on the way up.
At 4:40 in video #7 I was caught off guard a little by a couple of young caribou and nearly ran the poor things down! Even so they didn’t exactly rush back into the forest. One was literally in the middle of the road and turned around so I think they were on their way down to the river for water.
Once I was heading East the landscape seemed to change quite a bit (1:15 in video #7) with much taller trees, though still a mix of conifer and silver tress, and even pastures of grass.
At 2:27 there’s a great view of the mountains, or rather there would be if that cloud wasn’t in the way. I had seen this “cloud” for a while, but now I could smell it too, and it wasn’t cloud, but smoke. I had heard on the news about the huge number of wildfires raging in Western Alberta, including some around Rainbow Lake, but what I did not realise was that the BC/Alberta border was just 195 miles away and there was a prevailing Easterly wind. This smoke would only get worse from now on until I get well South on BC 97 towards Dawson Creek.
At 4:00 I comment on just having see a large notice warning of sheep on the road… sheep? You mean there are sheep in these mountains? Well, it seems that Muncho Lake Provincial Park is famous for its sheep, and they are called Stone Sheep and the roam freely throughout the park. Sadly, I didn’t spot a single sheep all day.
Towards the end of video #7 you can see that the smoke is getting thicker and even beginning to blot out some sunlight. By the time I got to Fort Nelson, less than 100 miles from the Alberta border, the air was thick with a brown acrid smoke that caught in the back of my throat.
I stayed at the Lakeview Hotel – that’s “Lakeview”, not “Lake View” as confusingly the hotel is named after the company that owns it, and not the view of a lake from Fort Nelson. Anyone booking to stay here and get a view of a lake is going to be disappointed as there isn’t one!
Having had an unhealthy meal or two on the trip so far, I opted for a ham and salad Subway, took it back to my room at the hotel to eat it accompanied by a cup of tea, and then got an early night.
You can see the stills and video shot today here.
