Day 4: Here Comes the Rain

Day 4: Liard River Hot Spring Provincial Park, BC to Grande Prairie, AB

Wildlife Spotting: Bison, caribou, deer, moose, black bears, ground hogs, stone sheep, coyote

Distance Traveled: 889 km/556 miles

Total Distance Traveled: 2677 km/1674 miles

Today was a long one. We left Liard at 7:30am and with only a few pit stops for gas, coffee and beer (we weren’t going to have another Watson Lake mishap), we made it to Grande Prairie, Alberta around 7:00pm.

The scenery was amazing, the weather, not so much. We knew it was only a matter of time until the rain caught up with us. Our first rain of the trip came as we drove through the Rockies. The drive sort of reminded me of one we’ve taken many times along the Seward Highway in Alaska, absolutely breathtaking.

We made a pitstop to marvel at the beautiful jade-colored Muncho Lake in BC's Muncho Lake Provincial Park. The jade green color of the lake is attributed to the presence of copper oxide leached from the bedrock underneath.

We switched things up and threw on an audio book, “The Great Gatsby”. We just saw the movie before leaving Anchorage, and surprisingly it compares quite well to the book. For those of you that have seen the movie, you should buy the soundtrack… unreal!

We drove through the middle of nowhere for most of this stretch. Luckily we had the Alaska Road Trip Bible, the Milepost, with us to tell us when the next gas station or rest stop was. We stopped in Muncho Lake for gas and it cost almost $2/litre ($60 for half a tank!)!

And we can't forget about the wildlife... Bison, stone sheep and black bears were plentiful. We also saw a coyote feeding on a moose carcass on the side of the road.

We stopped in Dawson Creek, BC at Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. After a few quick pictures and a big high five, we continued on our journey to Grand Prairie, AB.

Ironically, the afternoon drive was the exact opposite of the morning leg, beautiful weather, but not so beautiful scenery. The mountains slowly turned into rolling hills, which eventually disappeared altogether and we were welcomed to Alberta by the flat farmers’ fields. I guess that’s just getting us used to what we have at home in Ontario.