web site A

We started out early, leaving most of our belongings in the motel but taking enough so that, if we had to stay the night there, we could. The first 60 miles to Fort Liard had the best road surface we have seen on this trip. And, our cell phones worked! The only other traffic we saw were big industrial trucks and work trucks from Schlumberger, Halliburton, and some other oil companies. Some young men stopped once when we were taking pictures and said that this was the Horn River Basin; currently, the richest gas field in North America. About the place where the oil work ended, the good road ran out and we had paved road with potholes for the next 40 miles. Right when we entered NWT from British Columbia, we hit the gravel and the remaining 25 miles were dirt and gravel, all the way to Fort Liard.

The hamlet of Fort Liard had a modern fire department building, a big municipal building, and a city hall. All were new log structures and in sharp contrast to the wooden or prefab houses in the rest of the town. There was a beautiful crafts center/museum where I bought a birch basket with porcupine quills made by a local woman/artist. There was a gas station and a small store. When we asked about a place for lunch, two different people directed us to a “chip wagon,” a trailer in the yard of a house where the owner sold hamburgers and sandwiches. We drove through the entire town and we never found the motel or restaurant mentioned in Mileposts so I’m glad we didn’t have to stay there overnight.

The people we met were enthusiastic and excited about our car and we are probably in a hundred photos taken during our 2-hour stay. That gravel road was hot and dusty and held a lot more local traffic that zoomed on by us kicking up gravel and we were awfully glad to see the paved part appear, even with the potholes.

We head out in the morning for Fort St. John, our last night on the Alaska Highway. It will be another 200 mile day but we can’t find any indication of a motel or lodge in between. In a modern car, 200 miles would be no problem. In a Model T, it is a long day.