Day 9 - Be Prepared

Bear spray was my first task of the day. 

Each mile further north I drive, the wilder it gets. I almost spooked a moose today grazing alongside the road. Not that bear spray would have helped me any against a 1,000 pound behemeth; for moose, you just have to steer out of their way. As soon as I pulled into Dawson Creek, Mile Zero for the Alaska Highway, I headed for Corlane’s Sporting Goods store. It had antlers over the door and a bear print embedded into the concrete, so I figured it would be a good place to stop. When I walked in, it took me a minute or two to adjust my eyes to all types of taxidermied animals hanging from the rafters and the racks of hunting rifles stacked against the walls before I could see a living person. 

Corlane's Sporting Goods Store, Dawson Creek, Canada

I found a  young woman in red-tinted eyeglasses, who led me to a row of cans named Counter Assault, Gritz Guard, Bear Beware and Frontiersman and asked me whether I wanted one with a holster and would I be shooting from 20-foot or 40-foot distance?  I said I hoped I wouldn’t be shooting anything at all and that the 40-foot can looked a little bit too much like hauling around a fire extinguisher.  “Don’t you think that might be overdoing it for walking my dog?” I asked.

She agreed and handed me a black can of Bear Beware, small enough to fit into a very big pocket of an average backpack.  “You keep it handy, ready to pull out at all times. What about an attack pen to go with it?”

 Now I know a thing or two about poison pens, but this little instrument was brand new to me. The woman showed me how you clip it onto your shirt pocket and when danger comes you whip it out, point it at the bear and fire. It emits a shotgun-type racket to scare off the animal.

“Does it work?” I asked.

A man with a ruddy complexion and the girth the size of a bear, who looked like he’d encountered a few beasts in the backwoods in his time, said to me: “The thing is, there are so many men out there in the woods hunting and leaving fresh carcasses behind, these bears have come to learn that the sound of gunshots means “Come hither. Have I got food for you.’”  

I thanked him kindly for his advice and paid for the little can of bear spray and left, not too sure if I was any better protected but comforted that at least I had tried.

I filled up with gas (about 50 pct more expensive in Canada after a carbon tax took effect April 1 that has brought out small bands of protestors from the Canadian Freedom Party who set up camp beside the highway, host BBQs and wave flags and hold up incomprehensible signs that say things about Freedom and Bleed the People) and I headed for the Alaska Highway. I got honked at taking this "Go North, my boy!" picture going slow around the traffic circle at Mile Zero and got sufficiently flustered that I completely missed the big iron gateway proclaiming the actual start of the Alaska Highway, the place where most people take a picture.

Statue in traffic circle at Mile Zero for Alaska Highway, Dawson Creek, Canada

The gateway was right behind me, beside the gas station where I had just filled up. But I missed it.  Oh well, I got a nice shot of the grain terminal and the railway, which arrived here long before the highway was built in 1942 as a joint U.S.-Canada military venture to move troops in case the Japanese invaded. Now it's the tourists who have invaded, and convoys of tractor trailers for the oil and gas fields.

Footnotes - Tuesday, April 9, 2024:

Grand Prairie, Alberta, to Fort St John, British Columbia, 134 miles. Late start after tracking Eiger (he did fabulously in 40 mph wind), Dawdled at a dinosaur museum outside Grand Prairie, but it was closed. From Fort St John, it would take me another four hours before I reached a hotel. Hungry, I settled for a short day.