Fort Nelson, BC >> Fort Liard, NWT >> Kiskatinaw Provincial Park, BC 720 miles ridden/10 hours
Today is British Columbia Day, a provincial holiday! Completely unaware of this, instead of celebrating in BC, I visited the Northwest Territories, a mere 250-mile round trip detour off the Alaska Highway. But backtracking was worth it, as the scenery along the Liard Trail is spectacular and traffic nearly nonexistent – I only passed one car on the way there and back. Unfortunately, the mosquito population apparently did not get the memo about the holiday and were working overtime instead of taking the day off.
Heading south again, I encountered another Honda Shadow rider while refueling. He was a Texan who makes the trek to Alaska every year, and had quite a few tales to tell… One of the best things about being on the road is hearing other people’s stories.
About 20 miles north of Dawson Creek, a sign heralding the historic Kiskatinaw Bridge piqued my interest, so I decided to check it out. The longest wooden curved bridge in North America at 534 feet and sporting a 9 degree bend, it is quite the engineering marvel. Built during 1942-43, the Kiskatinaw Bridge was the first of its kind – a 3-span, timber truss structure – in Canada and the only timber bridge from that era still in use today.
Fortunately, just a few miles down the road was Kiskatinaw Provincial Park, where I set up camp for the evening despite it being relatively early. A fellow camper gave me the run-down on the campground and some firewood to boot. Since the campground owner wasn’t around, I asked my camp-mate to tell him I’d pay in the morning as I settled in for some much needed rest.
Swimming up from the bottomless well of deep sleep, I was awoken from my reverie to shouting, the sound of a diesel engine nearby, and incredibly bright lights piercing the walls of my tent. Disoriented, I was struggling to make sense of what was going on. More shouting. Eventually I pieced together that the campground owner was looking for his site fee. “Be right out,” I shouted. While this was annoying and inconvenient, for the first time I realized how vulnerable I was and why people were concerned about my safety. Better sleep with the bear spray beside me from here on out…