North to Alaska…Fort Nelson, BC

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Once you leave Dawson Creek, Milepost 0 on the Alaska Highway and head north, Fort Nelson is an easy day’s drive away and a great place to spend the night. Once in Fort Nelson, be sure to allow enough time to visit the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum.

Right alongside the highway, the main museum building is made of logs and houses a splendid collection of artifacts, including much that was used in building the Alaska Highway. The best part of the museum, though, may not be readily apparent, though. Curator Marl Brown, shown here, lovingly restores antique automobiles, and a large metal building on the museum property houses dozens of them, all in running condition. Here Marl sits at the wheel of an automobile that first drove down a road in 1908–that’s right, this is a 100-year-old car.

Marl himself turned 75 this year, and to celebrate that milestone in his life he figured he’d take his century-old car for a spin. He drove up the Alaska Highway from Fort Nelson, across the Canadian Rockies, to Whitehorse, Yukon…and then drove back in early July. Total round-trip distance was about 1,200 miles.

When you visit the museum, you’ll probably have to ask to see the cars as the building is usually locked. If Marl is around, someone working in the museum will fetch him, and if he has time he will open the doors to one of the finest collections of antique automobiles in North America.

Contact Ron at rdcomm@gci.net to order a copy of his book, Guide to the Alaska Highway.

 

North to Alaska…in northern British Columbia

One of the prettiest wildflowers that grows along the Alaska Highway in both Canada and Alaska is the Indian paintbrush seen here. This bright red splash of color is usually about the diameter of a quarter or a little larger and slightly over an inch-and-a-half tall from where it perches at the top of the stem.

You can find these almost anywhere in roadside ditches, on hillsides or in creek bottoms. Blooms are generally not too close together.

Contact Ron at rdcomm@gci.net for a copy of his book, Guide to the Alaska Highway.

Is your RV Properly Insured?

As everybody is aware, any time you purchase something like an RV it is a major investment. Like any other major investment i.e., your home or automobiles, you need to protect your investment. The most logical way to protect these major investments is to insure them against unforeseen events or accidents.

Many years ago, when I was an RV sales manager, I was surprised at the lack of information available to assist in educating the RV consumer on properly insuring their RV. Most people who purchased an RV would simply add their new RV to their current automobile insurance policy. If you purchased a motorized RV there are many elements of your automobile insurance that relate to your RV, but there are many other insurance related matters that won’t be covered by an auto policy.

This is why it is extremely important that you understand the specific insurance needs that your new RV purchase requires to be properly protected and insured. As a sales manager I would attempt to educate each individual on these unique insurance coverage requirements, but this didn’t help all of the other RV consumers who weren’t educated on RV insurance.

In an effort to help educate RV consumers everywhere we teamed up with our partners at National Interstate Insurance Company and Explorer RV Insurance Agency to produce some free video clips on RV insurance related matters. RV insurance is not the most exciting or entertaining topic, especially for video, but if you own an RV it should be required viewing, just to make sure you are properly protected. We buy RV’s to get away from everything and explore this beautiful country we live in and nothing can ruin that experience quicker than finding out you don’t have the right coverage when you need it.

We currently have three RV insurance video clips covering all kinds of RV insurance information and coverage. This video clip is titled, International Traveler’s RVing in North America 

All three of the RV insurance clips are available for viewing at the RV Insurance Corner of our web site at www.rveducation101.com

Happy Camping,

Mark Polk

RV Education 101

 

North to Alaska…BaBa Canyon

You won’t nfind this one on any map. In fact, we just sort of blundered into it late one afternoon while we were driving around looking for Stone sheep and caribou to photograph.

A few miles past the summit of the Rockies at the bottom of a long cliff we spotted a road of sorts–two-lane rustic trail might be a better description–leading away from the Alaska Highway. We turned in and were able to drive only a couple of hundred yards at most before we had to stop and turn the car around.

Just as we turned onto this trail, on a slab of rock someone had hand-painted “BaBa Canyon.” Whether that is the real name of this place or not, I don’t know. At any rate, after we drove as far as we could, we turned the car around, parked it and got out to walk a little. There was a foot trail of sorts leading farther away from the highway upstream along a small creek of gin-clear water.

I’d only gone a short distance before I abruptly turned around and headed back to the car for my photography gear. The view ahead of us was stunning, as this picture tries to show. We spent most of the next hour working our cameras trying to make just the right picture. Only then did we head back to the car for a drive back to our motorhome.

Contact Ron at rdcomm@gci.net for information on ordering his book, Guide to the Alaska Highway.

North to Alaska…northern British Columbia

Without fail, one 50-mile stretch of the Alaska Highway has produced more animal sightings than all of the rest of the road combined in our 36 trips up and down the road…and that’s saying quite a lot.

About 400 miles from where the road begins in Dawson Creek, BC, it crosses the Rocky Mountains. Starting just before you get to the summit and extending down the other side toward Muncho Lake, we’ve seen countless caribou and Stone sheep over the years, along with many black bears, a grizzly bear that surprised me one evening when I was out for a walk, and a host of smaller critters. This trip was no exception. Really the only large northern animal we’ve never seen along here is a moose. We see those often at lower elevations.

This young ram, that I photographed without ever leaving my seat behind the steering wheel, had his nose buried in the gravel alongside the road licking up salts and other minerals. This part of the road is actually just a couple of miles north of the summit alongside an exposed cliff that is often literally alive with Stone sheep. Caribou are often see near the top of the cliff and the bottom.

A Stone sheep is similar to a western bighorm in coloration but not nearly as heavyset. It’s body is more delicate like the all-white Dall sheep found in Yukon and Alaska mountain ranges.

Order a copy of Ron’s book, A Guide to the Alaska Highway, by contacting him at rdcomm@gci.net.

North to Alaska…Prince George, British Columbia

On our last day before intercepting the Alaska Highway at Dawson Creek, the dog, as usual, forced me into a morning walk around the campground. Wildflowers were blooming on the edge of the property and I allowed the dog to do her thing while I photographed many of the usual suspects like Indian paintbrush. For me, there is no more pleasant way to spent a morning than being outdoors with a camera in hand.

Then I came to this beautiful flower which I did not recognized and still can’t identify. If anybody out there has an idea of what it might be, please post a comment to the blog. I love the picture, but I would like to be able to identify the flower.

Canada’s Lake Louise - An Elaborate Hoax?

A few years ago, a couple of employees at Yellowstone National Park played a classic joke on the tourists. They placed a large hand crank apparatus on top of a wooden box. Next they set the whole contraption in the vicinity of the world famous Old Faithful geyser, which always naturally erupts once per hour. Just as Old Faithful was ready to erupt, they began vigorously turning the crank. Voila! The geyser’s steaming hot waters spewed forth into the sky.

To their credit, the employees had finally answered that legendary Old Faithful tourist question: “How do you turn it on?” Alas, their employers were not amused. Some rather gullible tourists who witnessed the spectacle left convinced that the venerable geyser was a sham. The two guys got canned.

Upon viewing Canada’s stunning Lake Louise, I began searching for the crank and wooden box…

Airstream RV Blog #27 - Geez (Lake) Louise from Sean Michael on Vimeo.

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North to Alaska…Hells Gate, British Columbia

One of the special pleasures of driving north from Seattle en route to Alaska is driving through the Fraser River Canyon along Canada Highway 1. This is one of the places you miss in your route if you approach Dawson Creek, BC, the start of the Alaska Highway, from the southeast.

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RV Today Archive - Toronto

Visit Toronto, a vibrant and cosmopolitan city, the fifth largest in North America. Rich in cultural diversity, there are more than 100 languages and dialects spoken in Toronto, and a great variety of food choices as well. It sounds hard to believe, but one third of the Canadian population lives within a 100 miles radius of Toronto. While there, you can enjoy the lakefront, visit Ontario Place -96 acres of man made attractions including a great waterpark downtown-, and take a bird’s eye view from the CN tower, the tallest building in the Americas (at the time of this footage, it was still the tallest building in the world but has since been surpassed in height by the Burj Dubai). Toronto West KOA Kampground is a common selection for RVers, with large leveled sites and friendly staff to assist travelers beyond the norm.

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In this video you can also catch a glimpse of a rare RV -a Rotel- which seems to have more than 20 bunk beds. These are used on tours around the world, organized by a German company, Rotel Tours. Before you sign up, take into account that travelers probably have more limited space than most of us RVers are used to …

For more RV Today Destinations, Product Showcase or Quick Tips episodes, visit the RV Today Archives.

RV Today Archive - African Lion Safari - Toronto

Join Stew Oleson while he visits African Lion Safari, just an hour outside of Toronto, and an hour and 15 minutes from Niagara Falls. You will see lions, baboons, giraffes, rhinos, monkeys, zebras and many other animals roaming freely. Great entertainment and quite an educational experience with this close up view of animals from more than 132 species. This is a wonderful destination for families or anyone who will enjoy this close exposure to wild animals, in a much more natural setting that a traditional zoo can allow - as you can see in the video below.

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Since the time of this footage, there have been many additions to African Lion Safari, including elephants, cheetahs and flamingos.

For more RV Today Destinations, Product Showcase or Quick Tips episodes, visit the RV Today Archives.

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