Day 12 - Dawson Creek, B.C.

Ivan and Shirley Yurtin Rig #12

Sunday, June 20, 2010

To all the dad’s in our group:

Happy Father’s Day

This morn at 9 a.m. our group started out with lots of hugs in the parking lot. With smiles on our faces, we all lined our cars up and followed our leaders down the road to Dawson Creek. After a few rights and lefts we ended up at the Visitor Centre for picture taking at the Alaska Highway Cairn. This structure was erected to commemorate the start of the Alaska Highway (1942).

 Then we walked down to photograph the Mile 0 Post (1946), which is one of the most photographed markers on the Alaskan Highway.

After the photo shoot we had free time to explore downtown Dawson Creek. Many of us walked the downtown streets to see the many murals depicting the 1940’s and the building of the Northern Alberta Railway. The exterior of the old Alaska Hotel was also interesting. We continued our walking tour taking in Bill’s News and a coffee stop at Café Europa and the Dawson Creek Art Gallery, which had local arts and crafts.

After completing the walking tour, we drove out of town 17 miles to view the original gravel Alaskan Highway and the famous Kiskatinaw River Bridge. It makes you wonder how early travelers were able to cope with the dusty, gravel road for miles and miles!

At 4 p.m. we boarded a bus for departure to the 1200 acre Sewell Wild Game Farm where we had dinner to taste the wild game before we toured the game farm to see the animals we just dined on!. The wild game dinner included wild boar, buffalo and venison stew along with delicious salads, mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables and out-of-this-world desserts, all home made by Dellene Sewell. The game farm had numerous wild animals including elk, mountain goats, deer, big horn sheep, wild boar, long-horned steer, reindeer and other animals too numerous to mention.

One of the highlights of the tour was the hay ride, with Gary Sewell driving the tractor out on the prairie, where we parked among the 150 herd of buffalo that were within several feet of us….the largest was named “Parker”. He was a massive animal at 2000 pounds! It was wonderful opportunity to be able to view these animals at such a close range.



We all enjoyed the tour of the Sewell Game Farm.. After the busy day we all boarded the bus for the trip back to the Northern Lights RV Park for some rest before our departure tomorrow to Fort Nelson.