World Canada British Columbia Chetwynd

Our Alaska Adventure

Chetwynd, British Columbia Aug 7, 2010

Saturday, August 7, 2010 We were quite close to the 5th wheel on the left side of us. To the right was a picnic table that was also close. I stood outside and tried to help Rick get out of our site by motioning to him which way to turn. I got him too close to the shower/restroom building. We couldn’t back up so we did a “No-No”. We drove over a partly dried out patch of grass. We didn’t do any damage to it. It was 8:49 am, cloudy, and 68˚ when we drove out of the Blue Bell Motel and RV parking lot onto Alaska Highway. The road was much smoother and straighter for many, many miles. It began to sprinkle and then we came to a construction site where we needed to wait about 10 minutes. We followed a pilot car for several miles. It was very dusty! After leaving the pilot car the road was still mostly straight but was rougher. Then we had another stop at another construction site. We were there a very time. Finally there was a passing lane at Siskanni. Again we were stopped for construction. This time it was a 20-minute wait. After we left the pilot car behind we came to a heavy downpour. The temperature dropped to 59˚. The past few days we had been retracing our route. We came to the Highway 29 junction. We turned right onto Highway 29, also called the Hudson’s Hope Loop. It was 87 miles to Chetwynd. There was a lot of climbing and descending. The curves were quite sharp. For a while we followed along the beautiful Peace River. We crossed Cache Creek. We wondered if it traveled to the town of Cache Creek where we would be staying Monday. The area seemed to be mainly hay fields with some cattle ranching and dairy farms. It became very windy. We drove through Hudson’s Hope where a sign said it was “Home of Dinosaurs and Dams”. The temperature had risen to 91˚. There were now more passing lanes. When we reached Chetwynd we turned left onto Highway 97 going north. After about 1-1/2 miles we saw a sign for the Park. We turned left onto 52nd A and discovered it was the wrong road. At the end of a street there was a nice turn around. We went a little further on Highway 97 and West Wind RV Park was on the right. They were black topping the street in the front of the Park so there was only one lane. We waited about 5 minutes and the flagger told us to take the third driveway into the Park. After driving 316 miles we arrived at 3:24 pm. It was very windy, cloudy, and 76˚. We were able to again keep the car attached. “Chetwynd was first known as Little Prairie when the first settlers arrived in the early 1900's. Indians who traveled from Moberly Lake to hunt in the Sukunka Valley called it ‘Little Prairie’. It was later changed to ‘Chetwynd’ being named after one of the early settlers, Ralph Chetwynd, around the same time the Pacific Great East Railway first came to the community. Ralph Chetwynd was a Provincial Highways Minister. In 1952, the first Highway was built between Prince George and Dawson Creek. Chetwynd was along this route. It was incorporated as a Village in 1962. In 1983 the municipality was reincorporated as a District Municipality. Chetwynd is economically strong in oil, gas, coal, and forestry. The largest employers in the area are Tembec Pulp Mill, Canadian Forest Industries, West Fraser Mills, and Duke Energy (Pine River Gas Plant). Chetwynd has a population of approximately 3000 people. Over 60 Wooden Sculptures made with chainsaws are displayed throughout Chetwynd. This was done to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Alaska Highway in 1992.” As I wrote when we went through Chetwynd in June, it sponsors the World’s Chainsaw Carving Championships. For the first time since we had the satellite dish fixed I needed to manually lock onto the satellite. It kept having a motor stall. Once it locked on it worked fine. Rick had been noticing the passenger side mirror was beginning to lean and bounce while he was driving. One of the bolts holding the arm to the mirror was loose. We took the arm and the mirror off, disconnecting the electrical wires. Rick put some epoxy in the screw hole and some epoxy on the screw. He tightened the screw to the flange. After it dried for 1-1/2 hours we reattached the mirror and adjusted it. He also washed the hundreds of bugs off the windshield and mask. What a job! I worked on getting the satellite to work and set-up the channels on the TV. This was another Park without cable. Our antenna has been performing very well. I also got caught up on writing our journal.

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