(Back) To The Beginning

Pulled over to "Batten Down the Hatches" for the storm ahead.  It was a good one.

Today we rode from just North of Edmonton AB to my 'home' town of Hudson's Hope BC.  Although I wasn't born in HH, we moved there when I was just a few months old, and stayed for the first 7 years of my life.  As much as anywhere, this is my home town.

On the way there, we passed through Dawson's Creek.  Before it was a teenage drama on The WB, Dawson's Creek was well known as "Mile 0" of the Alaska Highway.  Jessica might understand how "Mile 0" connects with "I'm a ninja.  Kawabunga time." in my head.

Some shots from Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway

Nothing looked very familiar on the ride through towns I'd seen as a child, such as Grand Cache AB, Dawson's Creek BC, or Fort St. John BC.  The main drags all look the same from one town to the next now, with the same restaurants, and the same box stores.  Then, as we turned off from the Alaska Highway to Hudson's Hope, I had a memory of my Mom at the turn off's gas station, just a few years older than I am now, packing her two kids into the silver Volvo 242 I later learned to drive on.  I only remembered a few bits of the drive from Fort St. John to Hudson's Hope, but maybe more would have looked familiar if I'd only looked up and to the right, like I was a kid sitting in the back seat of a two door car.  The road is much more dramatic than I remember, with some amazing vistas, and some pretty steep climbs and descents.  If it hadn't been close to dark by the time we arrived in HH, I would have turned around and ridden it again!

One of the many vistas on Hwy 29 east of Hudson's Hope BC

In the last 20 minutes before reaching Hudson's Hope we saw nine deer along the side of the road.  Nine!  Although most were by themselves, we did see one group of three.  It turns out Hudson's Hope is overrun by deer right now, which wasn't the case when we lived there.  It seemed like there was a deer around every corner, and they stroll right through the middle of town, eating garbage and destroying flowers and trees.

We hadn't managed to contact any friends in HH on our way in, so we pitched our tents at the campsite by the Peace Canyon Dam.  The dam's construction is the reason we moved to HH in the first place, and there are pictures of me walking on the floor of the valley that is now flooded by the lake we camped on.  The valley was full of dinosaur fossils, and there is a good one of me sitting in a footprint thats larger than I was.  Dad figures he and I were part of the first group to ever canoe those waters, having carried canoes down to the water shortly after the dam was completed, well before they were open to the public.

Me, contemplating the flooded Peace Canyon

Dad, indicating rules that obviously can't apply to us.