Mile 0, Dawson Creek BC

The road journey to Dawson Creek from Edmonton was long, with spots of torrential rain, and occasional areas of bumpy roads that got the trailer jumping up and down behind us. But we made it in one piece, and we are parked a short distance away from the Alaska Highway Milepost 0 marker. It is a little odd, after travelling close to 5,000 miles since April, to just now be at mile 0.

Here is a documentary (about an hour) on the making of the Alaskan Highway, for those interested.

The city of Dawson Creek (they do call it a “city”) doesn’t take very long to wander through. We did come across numerous wall murals spread around the few blocks that surround the Milepost 0 marker, shown below. Hopefully I got the coding right to have the mural slide show appear.

The day after arriving in Dawson Creek, we headed about an hour to the south to the town of Tumbler Ridge to have a look at the dinosaur exhibits at their museum. The discovery of Dinosaur tracks and bones at Tumbler Ridge was recent, as in the year 2000. A couple boys (11 and 8 years old) were out having some fun on Flatbed Creek (unsupervised, free ranging!) when they came across what they thought were Dinosaur tracks. When the boys got home, their parents refused to believe them, but eventually the news got out and the find was confirmed by the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. Bones were later discovered near to the first set of tracks.

CA and I took a hike down to the creek where the tracks were found, and sure enough, there they are. Some were across the creek, and we declined to wade across, but below is a picture of a foot print that we found on our side (actually CA recognized it before me). There were dozens of footprints actually, but the one below is the most obvious to see.

Our last day in town was spent getting our supplies in order and getting the 15,000 mile check-up and oil change for the truck (and much needed wash).