Fort Nelson BC to Jasper AB, 2 days trip

 

Triple G Hideaway camp restaurant, Fort Nelson BC

The drive from Fort Nelson BC to near Grand Prairie AB wasn't too inspiring for picture taking, rather a bland drive compared to some we've had recently. Just a couple of pictures:

A couple of Sandhill Cranes at the roadside.

Another long and lonely road

The road itself is well-surfaced and easy to drive. There is a lot of oil&gas work all along this road, lots of working trucks in the area, so the road is likely better than it would otherwise be.

When we were getting ready to stop for the day, we pulled in to a pleasant little town park in Hythe AB. They require reservations now, and like so many little communities, have hooked up with an organization to handle reservations. A site here would have started at $38, which we thought was too much. However by the time various fees and taxes were added it would have been over $50. I sent a complaint to the reservation company (since the town contact info was conspicuously absent at the park) and had a bit of dialog with them, starting with my statement that I only wanted an overnight parking spot, I didn't want to buy a site. Likely needless to say, the town didn't get our business either for the campsite or a fuel fillup at the gas station. 

Just short of Grande Prairie we saw a sign to a Provincial Park that caught our eye, Saskatoon Island Provincial Park. We were really ready to stop by then so pulled in. Saskatoon is a common name for things in Saskatchewan, including a fairly large town, but unusual to see it in Alberta. There's also a Saskatoon Mountain area, which I think includes the park we stayed at, as well as skiing in season.

Saskatoon Island park was a pleasant place to spend a night. Nicely separated wooded sites, good washrooms, the odd deer wandering around. Bugs are always around now, but they weren't bad here. Unfortunately we no more than got settled in to our lounge chairs outside when the predicted thunderstorms suddenly arrived. That was it for outside time for the night.

Luckily we have some screens that attach with magnets over the driver and passenger windows. So between showers we could keep the windows open for ventilation, without inviting passing bugs in.

Grande Prairie has a newly-opened Costco store, so we stopped in there for a browse on our way through in the morning. We did find a couple of small items to buy, and then they told us they owed us money. This was from a cheque for the previous year's purchase rebates that had never found us. So they gave us the rebate in cash, and it more than covered our $25 purchases. A real first for a Costco trip! 

We had decided to take Hwy 40 south from Grande Prairie. It looked like it might wind its way through some foothills and mountain views, and keep us off the more heavily-traveled routes. 

Initially #40 was heavily under construction, then morphed into a kind of super-highway. More oil&gas activity, as witnessed by this flare:

Partway down to Hwy 16 Hwy 40 turned hillier, and we came across a coal-fired generating station, with what looked like its own coal mine operation:

Lots of excavation in surrounding hills

Part of this hillside was dug away, chasing the coal seams

The generating station 

 

Coal was dug from the hillside...

Coal conveyor ran under the highway on the left...

down to a processing point

We intended to continue on Hwy 40 southwards, crossing Hwy 16. The road was getting quite hilly and scenic:

Lookout from a roadside park

However we started thinking about how nice the Jasper area is, and wanted to take the top part of the Icefields Parkway that we had missed in 2018 due to fires in the area, so headed west for Jasper when we reached hwy 16: 

Even a curious moose

Inside Jasper Whistler's campground

Whistler's campground is only a couple of years old, a huge park with some 750 sites. We signed up for 2 nights, so more info on it next time.