Mile 12445

 We leave Grande Prairie, AB this morning to make some more miles toward West.  After a stop at the coffee place with the mermaid we find our way back to the Hwy-43 and drive through the last of the prairie and fields.  We pass through a place called Beaverlodge, AB, and it's not hard to see why?  There are also some nice murals depicting a time gone since more than 50 years, but still nice to think about then.  

Beaverlodge, AB

 From here we continue on Hwy-43 to Dawson Creek, BC, the official start of the Alaskan Highway, also known as the Hwy-97 or the ALCAN.  

Going to Alaska, this is the way

 From now on we will follow it for quite some miles, a route we missed pretty much 2014 because our mind was more set on getting our bike repaired than the beauty of the land, beside the point we were driving it the opposite direction then.  But all the beauty of the forest and hills and distant mountains (Northern Rocky Mountains) we are also reminded by the burned down trees about the destroying power of wildfires.  

Crossing the Kiskatinaw River in BC

Peace River Valley and the town of Taylor, BC

On the ALCAN, healthy and from fire destroyed forests

 And wildfires are not the only danger to the land and the exploration by the oil and gas industry is very visible near Taylor, BC.  We continue to Fort Nelson, BC and call it an early day.  There will be a long drive tomorrow, therefore some quality time will be just fine.

"It is the flame which is at the mercy of the forest; but the forest doesn't care, she promises no end, she never says it stops or that it gets better!  Flames never asked to be born as flames: so volatile, so vital, so uncontained.  You are a flame, this world is a forest."  -  C. JoyBell C., American author and book illustrator