Day 6 - Dawson Creek

Saturday, August 18, 2012
Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada
The route has taken us South and East. We are finally down to farmland again. Huge fields of hay and the inevitable Black Angus, surrounded by dark forests of spruce and pine. The trees are larger now, with more branches and needles, probably of industrial interest.   

But the industry that is of most interest is oil . There is oil and gas all along the Peace River Valley, which flows East across Northern British Columbia Over the past few years there has been a dramatic increase in economic activity in Fort St John and Dawson Creek in particular -- with new hotels, construction yards, golf courses and a natural gas processing plant going up. There is a buzz similar to that which permeated Williston ND. British Columbia is all excited because they will also benefit from oil revenues -- something which only Alberta had been privy to. The newspapers are full of how to ship it to Asia and not to sell it to the US. 

My speedometer has broken -- a seemingly minor malfunction -- but it has the effect of making me feel that I am spinning my wheels at great effort and expense, but going nowhere. Maybe its trying to tell me something. I am quite sensitive to that feeling. Fixing it will have to wait until we hit Edmonton.  But this and other thoughts have made me abandon the idea of visiting Fort McMurray . Instead I will decree a Rest Day at the Edmonton Mall (the World's Largest) and start The Crossing of the Prairie a day earlier than planned.  

Not knowing precisely how far I have gone, or how fast I am going, has me stopping at every available gas station to fill up. At one of these I came across a "professional biker" couple -- all decked out with suits and gear and off road touring bikes of the right caliber. I was a little bashful approaching them, as my credentials as a biker are only a year old, my machine is not a world traveller model, and I sleep at motels (the hard core only sleep at campgrounds or couch surf). They turned out to be from Calgary and very nice indeed -- brother and sister which was a surprise -- coming back from an assault on the Dalton Highway. This notorious unpaved road goes straight North from Fairbanks to Deadhorse on Prudhoe Bay. Rain which turns it all into mud is pretty much guaranteed. They had made it across the Arctic Circle, but did not go all the way to the Arctic Ocean due to mechanical difficulties. However, the best part of their story was that this trip was a piece of their "Ultimate Ride" plan to go from the Pole to Patagonia. How cool !! They also are struggling with the "Mexico problem" i.e. how to get through without getting shot. Yes, I deal with it too, in unmentioned dreams...
 
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Comments

Harry
2012-08-19

Trip fatigue, that's what it's called. In Edmonton you'll be back in civilization but you will still have 3-4 thousand miles to go and a lot of it praire. But don't let it get to you. Think about how excited you were for the first 1,500 miles and slow down and put that back in the last 1,500. Besides, if you are thinking about Patagonia what's left of this trip is a drop in the bucket.

Harry's Linda
2012-08-19

Hi, Jim
Reading your blogs has helped me cope with fact my job ends Friday 8/24. There are more things to do in life than sit at a computer all day long! Linda.

Gwynn
2012-08-22

Yes, we need to get that oil shipped to the U.S. via the Keystone Pipeline and not watch it go to Asia. Since we are so much in debt to China, we need to turn it around and start getting serious about our $16,000,000,000,000 debt.

2025-02-06

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