Dateline May 16, 2011 Dawson Creek, BC Mile Marker 0

Dawson Creek was a town of 600 when in 1942 the United States started building an almost 1,500 mile highway (the AlCan) to just south of Fairbanks, Alaska. It is considered one of the top civil engineering marvels of the world along with the great wall of China and Hoover Dam. Our soldiers worked in temperatures of 70 degrees below zero, some would lie down to take a nap and freeze to death During the summer they said the mosquitoes were large enough to kill some of the horses. The highway was started from both ends and met in the middle. The highway was completed in less than a year.

Our schedule was to meet the rest of the RoadTrek “RTers” in Dawson Creek May 15^thto begin the trip to Alaska.

There were 25 vehicles in the group from all parts of the country, including one couple from Hawaii. This was the first time that we had met any of the other RTers with the exception of Joan and Chuck, whom we had lunch in Florida with some months ago. The group was put together by the western RoadTreck International Chapter. There was a Yahoo site put together and over 100 people signed up to potentially join the group. Since not all made it to Dawson Creek,

we expect another 10 or more vans to join at one time or another. Wendell Nunes

was the leader of the group and put the event together with Judy Willis Since the website was established it was all put together over the Internet. It was fun to put faces together with all the emails that flew between the group.

23 of the RoadTreks are headed north on the highway

and we along with two sisters are traveling back south and west to Prince George and then on to Prince Rupert where we have a 10:30 AM Ferry up the Inland Waterway to Juneau Alaska. Our plans are to travel from Fairbanks back down the AlCan where we can share our experiences.. We will be meeting up with the rest of the group in either Tok or Valdez the first week in June.

Off to Prince Rupert, back on the blog in Juneau!!