Canada/Alaska 2019-7: Lake Louise, BC/AB to Dawson Creek, BC

    July 4, the day after hiking to the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse above Lake Louise in Banff National Park, we left Monarch Campground in nearby Yoho National Park, destination Jasper National Park. It was raining and foggy, but we were surrounded by the Canadian Rockies.

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After miles of glaciers in the Columbia Icefields, we turned into the Icefield Center parking lot across from Athabasca Glacier...

...and like the young family in front of us got to the restaurant just in time to enjoy the delicious buffet breakfast, with a view of Athabasca Glacier. We might have slipped out some coldcuts for lunch, too...

There are snow tractor and hiking tours on the Athabasca Glacier, but we chose the 1-km trail up to the glacier's foot. 

Signs along the way indicate where the foot was in previous years...

...and thus how drastically the glacier has receded.

Less than 100 years ago it was at the trailhead parking lot, and in 1844, it was where the Icefield Center now stands.

I am really not that much shorter than Doug--he's leaning on me! (his reply, "No I'm not").  Note the nice new hat he is wearing that I crocheted during the trip.

By the time we got to Jasper it was sunny and warmer. We found the Snow Dome Coffee Bar, which mainly is a laundromat with showers, both of which we took advantage of.

Jasper is very touristy but not large and easy to walk. One can't blame folks for going there--the location is gorgeous.

We took more train pictures for Marilyn's brother--two old Canadian Railway steam engines by the old station.

After a brew at Jasper Brewing, it was time to find a campsite.

When cars are parked crazy on the shoulder and stopped in the road, you know there's an animal near. In this case it was a caribou.

Did we say how gorgeous the Canadian Rockies are???

Not far north of town, we paid $17.60 Canadian ($14 US) in the Jasper NP overflow campground. Doug preferred it two years ago when it was forested and free. Now it's organized into numbered sites and has pit toilets. View to the front...

...another view from our site...

...and another, this one at 7:45 PM.

About 8:00 PM, a soccer tea--or a group of friends who are really good player--started kicking and heading a ball about. They were still at it at 10:00 PM--why stop when it's still daylight?

Mid-morning the next day, another gaggle of cars on the highway was pointing at a mountain goat.

We continued northwest through Alberta, which has a lot of energy sector industry: oil, coal, natural gas.

There's also a lot of logging.

And there was a moose! Honest, it's a moose--couldn't get the camera going quickly enough. Even when they're walking, moose have such long legs they can be quickly gone from view.

All kinds of heavy equipment climbed up, down, and over piles of thick black mud...

...constructing a new road...

...which resulted in the van's back window being covered in mud, except for the semicircle spared by the step bar on the bumper.

Need we demonstrate that the rest of the van was also a bit dirty?

We stopped briefly in Grande Cache. Hunters stored their furs for trading in a "cache," literally a hiding place. French children play "cache-cache," hide-and-seek. Then it was on to Grande Prairie, and our first sign for Alaska. We had decent tacos for lunch and stopped at the Rabbit Hole Bookstore. At the Farmers Market, Marilyn bought potatoes and onions for crockpot beef stew, green onions, delicious "brown" homemade bread, and not-so-delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies--but we forced ourselves to eat them anyway. Then we found the mosquitoe-y Evergreen Park Campground on the edge of town for showers and sleep. 

As the name Grande Prairie implies, this part of Alberta is also on the plains, and is big farming country, especially wheat, barley, and oats. 

We think the yellow is sorghum, a grain as well as feed for livestock.

If you guessed that this town is named Beaver-something, you'd be correct. Beaverlodge has an ag research station and is a center for grain transportation and seed cleaning and production. 

Soon we were crossing into British Columbia again, "The Best Place on Earth." The photo isn't blurry--the windshield is filthy!

Ten kilometers further on we were in Dawson Creek, where we spotted this...unique RV? new home? 

And we began the Alaska Highway, which despite its name starts in British Columbia, then proceeds through the Yukon Territory--it's sometimes called the AlCan--before reaching Alaska at Port Alcan, Mile 1,187. It At one time, it was Mile 1,222, but a few curves were eliminated here and there over the years, shortening the distance.