Alaska Highway, Day 5: Seattle, WA to Chetwynd, BC

Today: ~747 miles from Seattle, WA to Chetwynd, BC

Approximate route map:

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One of the "last minute arrangements" we made last night was to cancel our hotel reservation in Prince George, BC and move it to Chetwynd, BC, reasoning that a 16 hour day followed by a hotel stay would be more pleasant than one followed by camping. This should shorten our next day (when we'll camp) considerably. However, it meant we had to be up really early - or, at least some of us. Our states at 5:30am were rather different:

Gentle souls 2 and 3

This was probably my peak wakefulness for the next 6 hours

We planned to leave Seattle at 6am, and actually managed it around 6:25. We headed north, got some gas, coffee, and breakfast, and continued north into Canada. A short immigration inspection (and no stamps in our passports :() later, we saw the following sign:

Welcome to British Columbia!

One thing we know for sure about the Subaru is that the electrical system is pretty decent. JT asked me before leaving if we would need a cigarette lighter splitter, to which I replied that I had already brought a 1-to-4 splitter. All of the slots were taken, and everything seemed to work fine (including the car):

From left to right: GPS power, inverter (to power camera), phone charger, iPad/GoPro USB power

The drive up the spine of British Columbia and through the Rockies had a number of beautiful sights, and some that were just funny, like a Canadian train that had clearly been through the US at some point:

(You'll want to zoom in; sorry about the glare): Canada, eh?

We stopped at Goldpan Provincial Park for a nutritious lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, beef jerky, and clementines, where I realized that though I'd brought food, I had neglected to buy a knife with which to spread the PB. JT decided to repurpose the discarded top strip of the jerky bag, though.

An Eagle Scout is always prepared!

JT also brought his own camera for shooting timelapse: a GoPro HD. Unfortunately, the GoPro's case didn't allow it to be mounted and USB-powered at the same time, so JT had to hack together a mount from the pieces and then hold it together with parts from my camera toolkit: rubber bands (shown here) and some zipties (added later). I also moved my camera higher and to the right. Maybe the perspective will be interesting.

Airbag? Never you mind that.

At a gas stop in Prince George, we saw an RV that looked frankly ludicrous - taller than its wheelbase was long, and bright yellow - until we saw the back and decided that it was probably doing OK. The owner was making the trek, on ground, from Argentina to Alaska. Ironically, I'm doing the same thing, but I skipped a bit of ground in the middle. He wasn't much for conversation, though, and left quickly after getting gas:

Dinner was also in Prince George. The burger was good, but the real draw was getting some Canadian poutine. Maybe the next place will step up the authenticity even more and use cheese curds instead of plain cheese!

After Prince George was a mostly easy and totally stunning bit of driving through the Canadian Rockies, over the Continental Divide, to Chetwynd. The only snag was a 9km segment of road that had been washed out; we were stuck waiting for 20 minutes (in what we didn't realize till later was a mosquito-infested area) for an escort truck to drive us through. Long day's drive: we arrived at the hotel at about 11:30pm.

Tomorrow: Chetwynd, BC to Liard River, BC