Fort St. John, British Columbia, CanadaFort St. John
On the way to Fort St. John
As we head further south through the
endless forest – the dark grey clouds came after all the sunshine we had. Some
breaks enough that we could see a cute little red fox near the road and then
more and more rain (at least it washed away all the flies on our side mirrors)
– we still have a quick loop drive through the Charlie Lake PP campground and
were not impressed as it is all in the forest and not on the lake.
Also what we discovered on the way
here were several side roads with signs: Dangerous poisonous gas – and we
wondered what that is all about, then we saw on the side high pipes sticking up
with flames and when Gine investigated we discovered we are an area of oil and
gas.
At the Visitor info
This is our stop #1 first we get some
info and then we decided to move to a Shaw open hotspot and have there coffee
and then think what we want to do for the rest of the day in a town when it is
raining and we don’t need to go shopping and this is what we came up with:
An oil change and a shower
As it is time for an oil change we
thought lets go right away over and check out if we need to make an appointment
and see there it is on 1st come 1st serve basis and there
is only a 5Min wait – ok so lets do it now. Gine said she would like to have a
shower and on the search for the pool we got super cool showers for only 2$!!!
Perfect.
We stay near the pool with free Wi-Fi
– or not
And then we discover that we have free
Wi-Fi right near the pool, so why should we move??? So we set up had supper and
then went on the internet to check out what is going on: we discover that there
is more severe damage on the bridge and that it is still not clear on how it
will go only that cars and RV’s can pass through. Gine also checked the weather
and made a plan for the next days… so that we will have enough time on the road
and are on time for Calgary.
As we get ready for bed there is a
knock on the door and we got told, that they don’t want us to stay here for the
night – ok so all packed up and we move to Walmart – where we stay with all the
other RV’s.
And in the morning we get up and say
good bye to our next door neighbors we met previously as they are now heading
towards Yellowstone.
The Energetic City: Fort St. John
- It is energetic for the large resource of natural gas, oil, wind and hydroelectric power
- We are in the middle of Peace River Valley (yes this is where all the big Dams are)
- The town started in 1794 as a fur trading post, by Alexander Mackenzie when he was on his quest to find the Pacific Ocean and passed through here on his canoe in 1793: it is the oldest non-native settlement in BC
- They think it got its name because one of the Hudson Bay Company posts was opened on Saint Jean Baptiste Day
- In the 1930s the peace river was opened to homesteading, farming replaced trapping – many families came from the prairies during the “Dirty 30s” to find here new opportunities
- It got a big boom in 1942 when they built the Alaskan Highway
- In 1951 high grade oil was discovered and in 1955 they started to built a pipeline to get the gas to the US: Nova gas system started to operate in 1961 – and it is now BC’s Gas and Oil capital
- The forest around here also supports a vigorous forest industry
- Today over 22.000 people call it home – and it is the largest city along the Alaskan Highway
It’s not as warm as we thought around
Fort St. John
Ok so it is not as warm as we thought,
but then it should get warmer as they day goes on, that means we do the
shopping first, then cleaning the truck (yes again) – then fill up gas. Then
Gine said let’s walk around the Park near the Visitor info as there are some
cool sculptures – a bit windy which made the sun not as hot and we check out
the world map, the old historic buildings of the museum (which is closed on
Sundays), we found some super cool playgrounds. Time to head out:
The Site C Dam Viewpoint
We were not aware that the Dam is that
close to town, it was less than 5 Min to drive and we are at the viewpoint –
which is gated and there is also a security guard making sure we do not proceed
towards the gate. From here we had a view down on the progress of the Dam –
very interesting – reading some facts about the area, the first nations and the
Dam and most importantly talked to some locals, and those guys are some with
conspiracy theories like the WAC Bennet Dam has sinkholes and could break so
the Site C Dam is a backup so that Grand Prairie doesn’t get flooded…. But it
also got us more interested in the story behind the Dam.
What we could see the are of the Site
C substations, where they built Spillway and Generation station. Actually you
can only imagine the size when you look at a truck or car in comparison which
are like tiny ants
Some interesting facts about the Site
C Dam
- Part of the deal is that BC Hydro also makes new recreation areas – they will add 3 of them once the lake is complete, they are building and improving the roads together with the Ministry of Transportation
- 99% of the agricultural land here is not affected with building the Dam and BC Hydro also puts 20 Mill $ in as compensation to help support agriculture in the area
- Clean abundant electricity is a corner stone in BC, it was estimated to be completed in 2024 with the first turbine running in 2023 and give cost-effective electricity for more than 100 years
- The plan is that Site C Dam will provide 35% of the energy produced by the WAC Bennet Dam and also has 5 % of the Bennett Reservoir which has 177330 hectares compared to the Site C with 9330 hectares
- Site C will generate a low Greenhouse gas emission energy especially if you compare it to other energies: Site C has 10.5 g CO2w/kWh, wind turbines have 14 g, solar 58 g, natural gas 545 g and modern coal has 1000 g
- Once completed it will take the reservoir 3 month to be filled – in average it will be 2-3 times the current width of the Peace River
- The Dam is 80 km downstream from the WAC Bennett Dam and will be the 4th largest producer of hydroelectricity in BC – and it was already proposed when they built the first dam: after hearings in 1981/82 they turned down the project and instead to buy electricity under long term contracts from independent power producers, but as of 2017 this annual purchase is four times the capacity of Site C – but what happens when the contract is out? In 2014 it got announced to go ahead with the Site C Dam.
- In 2016 they started with site clearing and bank stabalizations – Christy Clark wanted the Dam construction at a point of no return for the 2017 elections
- The cost was estimated for 6.6 Bill based on the 1981 design, in 2014 it got revised to 8.3 Bill – in Feb 2021 the estimate price tag rose again and is now at 16 Bill $
The Charlie Lake Memorial
Next stop was the Charlie Lake
Memorial, I don’t think Paul was too impressed when I told him, that it is a US
Army monument to people who died on a sunken ship, as he said that there are a
lot of ships sinking everywhere. Nevertheless we stopped here and had a
beautiful view on the Charlie Lake.
- It is dedicated to the US Soldiers who lost their lives with the sinking of a barge on May 14, 1942 here in Charlie Lake during the building of the Alaskan Highway
- Many of the 11.000 American Soldiers were stationed in Fort St. Johns
- The boat should deliver equipment over the 20 km long lake, 17 men were on board, the water was choppy and they had two 22 hp engines, soon the waves reached 3 ft and when they were 2/3 up in the middle of the lake that the plug was out of the gas line and gasoline was draining out, they tried to turn to the shore when 2 waves hit and the boat sunk in less than 2 minutes. 5 men got rescued out of the freezing water and 12 died.
It’s windy at Charlie’s Lake
It’s sunny – time for the beach, and
so we headed towards the Beatton PP on Charlie Lake. As we arrived and were
surprised that the parking lot is empty we understood as soon as we reached the
lake: it is super super windy and wavy – definitely no relax time in the sun.
So we decided let’s move on.
2025-05-22