Valleyview to Fort Nelson

Day 10 (13 Sep) — Autumn arrives

Valleyview to Fort Nelson

We left the motel and headed north-west. Today we crossed the border from Alberta back into British Columbia.

Past Grande Prairie, a fair-sized town, and further west. The broadleaf forests on both sides of the endless highway were already turning yellow, announcing autumn. Out here there was hardly any traffic, and houses and other man-made things were sparse. There was roadwork along the way. In Canada, with its long winters, roadwork is apparently concentrated in the summer.

Oh, we crossed the border...

Yellow fields of flowers spreading across the vast plain, a flock of sheep. For me, everything felt good.

We weren't in the far north yet, but here we saw a Yukon licence plate for the first time!

Northern British Columbia. Gentle green hills go on forever. What I had felt ever since coming inland was how extreme the temperature swings are. Mornings are cold enough to make you shiver, so the autumn colours make sense, but by midday it's warm and sunny. Drive with the windows shut and it's hot enough to sweat. And the days are still long; the sun seems to stay at almost the same height from morning to evening. Even at noon it doesn't climb high, and even after it sets at night it takes a long time to get dark. This happens because the sun sets at a slant to the horizon.

We were driving smoothly toward Fort Nelson, but about 100 km before it the road suddenly became unpaved. The speed limit dropped to 50 km/h, and the slow traffic continued until the paving returned.

Whether it was under construction or the asphalt hadn't been laid yet, the unpaved stretch of several dozen kilometres ended ☆ The smoothness of tarmac was a blessing. Foot down again and a quick 100 km/h.

We arrived at our lodging: a cheap-looking motel we found by searching around town. Tonight's motel was also clean and comfortable. For dinner we bought ready-made food at a supermarket in the Save-On-Foods group. Fruit juice and cut salad are handy for getting vitamins easily. Fast food and meat every day just stores up fat. We had packed away the tent we lived in in the Canadian Rockies while it was still damp, so to stop it going mouldy we hung it over the car overnight to dry.