We are in Dawson City BC, near the Alberta border, and
Milepost 0 of the famed Alaska Highway.
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| We watched a 30-year-old movie on the building of the highway. |
This is a busy town – everybody arriving or leaving. It takes me three stops to find a shop with
the time to service my truck.
The town is full of manly pickups: Ford F250s, 350s, even
450s, and their Chevrolet and Dodge equivalents – not that any of us is ready
to concede being merely equivalent. I see a Prius downtown, looking positively
effete, like a miniature poodle nervous among Dobermans.
It doesn’t end with pickups being just big. Many trucks have cattle bumpers that would
tilt a Prius on end.
At last, our caravan is together: all 38 rigs. We’ve never been on a caravan this large and
are apprehensive, but as always, the people seem nice. We know the rigs from NorCal, plus
2 or 3 other couples we’ve met on previous caravans or national rallies.
All receive drivers’ manuals with mile-by-mile directions
and activity descriptions, and a copy of The Milepost, a thick book that has been
published annually since 1948 and at the moment looks nearly
incomprehensible.
The welcoming dinner is at the George Dawson Inn. Dawson was born in Pictou, Nova Scotia, as was my dad.
Dawson became famous as a
scientist and surveyor of these areas during the 1880s and 1890s. His travels had to be physically punishing,
particularly because childhood afflictions kept him less than five feet.
A lady from the visitor bureau welcomes us enthusiastically
and provides perhaps more history on the highway than our food-stuffed bodies
can absorb.
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