Day 7 of our northern BC ride started out with clear skies and more sunny weather. After a nice breakfast prepared in our shared kitchen, we packed up the bikes one more time, fueled up and hit the highway. This portion of the Alaska Highway is heavily travelled with large trucks servicing the gas and oil fields. It can get muddy from vehicles coming onto the highway from unpaved side roads. There is lots of great scenery and animals to watch out for. We had a 450km day planned to get into Dawson Creek where we would be meeting up with a crew of riders from the West Coast Gold Wing District who were on a 5 day “Gypsy Run” around the province.
We didn’t stop to take many pictures of this stretch of the Alaska Highway. It is pretty much a straight run through some rolling hills and miles of nothing. The bugs were fierce, the windshield got pretty well splattered after an hour of riding…
At the halfway point, we stopped at Bucking Horse River for fuel and a break. The bugs were so bad, we kept all our gear on with helmets closed to keep them from eating us alive.
We made it in to Fort St John, a busy industrial town and stopped for lunch at a Pita Pit after refueling. After a nice lunch, we headed out on the last leg of the day. The highway between Dawson Creek and Fort St John is extremely busy with tons of heavy trucks moving all sorts of equipment needed for gas exploration. We have to cross over the Peace River at Taylor, site of a very large oil refinery. The bridge deck is a steel grate and I could tell Giselle was nervous as we rode over it for almost half a kilometer. You just have to let the bike go where it wants to and not fight it…
Just before we got to Dawson Creek, we pulled into my friend Brian Landry’s home. We were going to host a BBQ there the following afternoon for the Gypsy Run riders. Brian and his wonderful wife Sue had the yard all set up and ready. We stopped for a chat to make sure everything was in order for the next day, then headed in to town to find our motel and get settled in for a two night stay.
