Day 14 Grande Prairie, Alberta to Dawson Creek, British Columbia. Distance 90 miles. Total miles so far for me - 968 mi.

It's exciting to be in this historic town, and tomorrow we will begin to ride the Alaska Highway. I was able to visit the museum here about the building of the highway in 1942, a huge achievement. It spanned 1500 miles and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed it in just 8 months. They had no idea exactly where the route would go, making those decision just days in advance of the guys clearing the trees and laying down the road. They faced incredible challenges with the cold temps, the mosquitoes, the swampy/muddy sections from melted snow, the permafrost melting when they pushed aside the top soil, and on and on. It was a true case of "on the job training" for the soldiers building it. The reason the highway began here in 1942 was because it was the terminus of the railway. The town had 600, but mushroomed to 10,000 in a matter of a few weeks.

Today's ride was pretty basic, but we did have one special happening. It involved this big beaver in the town of Beaverlodge, about 30 miles into the ride. We stopped to get our photos with the beaver, and a fellow drove up, got out his car with his camera in hand, and said he was the local newspaper man (in a town this small, he was likely the entire news staff). He noticed us with our bikes, and wondered who we were. He proceeded to take our photo in front the big beaver, and then interviewed us for an article in his newspaper! Here he is interviewing us and getting our names:

His newspaper does not have a website, but when he publishes our photo and article, he will e-mail them to Rick who in turn will make it available to us. It was all pretty neat, especially when all we were doing before he arrived was making juvenile jokes about beavers.

The first 50 miles today were our least favorite section of the ride so far (well, mine anyway). We were on the shoulder of a separated four-lane highway with tons of traffic, and it was just flat agriculture land.

That's what it looked like to Derek, Bert, Rick and me as we headed westward. Bob was the day's first driver, and fortunately he rode back to meet us before we arrived at the big beaver and our interview and news photo.

After lunch, the riders were Bob, Bert and I since Rick was not feeling his best and decided to drive even though it wasn't his turn. Derek drove with him since he also was not feeling so great. Here's a nice shot of Bert and Bob as we continued on to Dawson Creek.

You can see that by then, finally, the road was down to two lanes with rolling, forested hills. So much prettier!

Eventually we passed into British Columbia, and picked up an hour since for the first time, we are on Pacific Time. Eventually we will pass into Alaska time, which is one hour behind Pacific.

Here we are arriving in Dawson Creek. The three of us had sped pretty fast on the bikes today. We then rode up to where Rick and Derek were waiting for us in the RV, at the city center monument to "Mile 0".

I then visited the museum regarding the building of the Alaska Hwy while the others shopped for some needed things at Walmart. I really enjoyed the museum, and now we'll get to ride along its entire 1500-mile route (not consecutively, though, once we get to Yukon) and witness a few of the environmental challenges the builders faced. The middle of the intersection next to the museum has this marker that has been in Dawson City since 1942:

Tomorrow morning we're going to have breakfast at a restaurant and see more of the city before departing on a relatively short ride tomorrow (only 50 miles) to Fort St. Johns.

Here is a map showing our stops over the next several days. We're two weeks done, and in two more weeks we'll enter Alaska (much farther north than this section of the map)!

On the map, you can see Dawson Creek as the third circle up from the bottom. In three days we'll be in Fort Nelson for Canada Day. Maybe we'll get to see some fireworks. Heck, maybe they'll have a fireworks show in honor of the Five for Alaska bike riders!