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With the Cassiar Highway behind us we were now headed south. From Watson Lake, Yukon Territory we’d be heading to the start (end) of the ALCAN at Dawson Creek, British Columbia over the course of about a week. Beautiful rivers, majestic mountains and quite a bit of wildlife were on tap for this segment of our loop around British Columbia.

Note: This is part four of our “Grand Loop of British Columbia” trip. Part 1 is here: A Loop of British Columbia, The Fishing Highway  part 2 is here: A Loop of British Columbia, Salmon Glacier and Bears and part 3 is here: A Loop of British Columbia, The End of the Cassiar Highway

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The first part of the Alaska Highway south of Watson Lake follows the border with the Yukon and British Columbia and crosses the boundary about seven times. Signs warned of bison on the roadway, and for once they were right.

We also followed a group of caribou for a while, a first for us.

Smith River Falls offered a quick side trip.

We put some miles behind us and found a spot to ourselves overlooking the Laird River. Choked with glacial sediment this large river takes on a grey sheen and is a large tributary to the Mackenzie River, eventually ending in the Arctic Ocean.

As the sun was reaching for the far horizon we had the most incredible wildlife observation. We spotted something fairly large and dark ambling up the edge of the river bank opposite our camp. At first I thought it was an otter, but after closer inspection with the binoculars we determined it was actually a wolverine, another first for us!

Then on to the scene hopped a rabbit, and the wolverine was quickly on its tail. I thought for sure we were going to see the wolverine dine on the rabbit, and it was gaining quick. Dodging around downed driftwood piles and river rocks the rabbit hid behind a rock and the wolverine ran right over the top of it without knowing. The rabbit took off in the other direction and by the time the wolverine figured out it lost the trail, the rabbit was far enough away and had escaped. That wolverine circled the area for all of 15 minutes, sniffing at the trail, but couldn’t track down the rabbit. Meanwhile the rabbit headed back in the direction of the wolverine, but was never spotted. Simply amazing wildlife watching.

We were still reeling from this amazing experience when a pickup with a camper comes pulling into our dispersed campsite and comes to a stop not four feet from our truck, the driver shuts off the engine and the passenger gets out. I look at her and she simply said “sorry.” “Sorry for what,” I asked. “You aren’t planning on camping here are you?” Just let me clarify, we are not in a campground, just a single site, used by people before, that overlooks the river. Nobody else is around. This is dispersed camping. They literally parked with barely enough room between our trucks for a person to walk. The passenger says, “well, yes, we are, all the other sites are taken.” I just lost it at this point, I don’t recall my exact words, but “no way”, and a few other words were enough for both the driver and the passenger to get back in their truck and leave without another word from them. I’m not sure what they were thinking, they clearly understood the concept of a site being taken, but for some reason figured ours had enough parking for them to join us. Maybe you can camp right next to someone in the Walmart parking lot, but on a river with no one else in sight, I think not. Simply unbelievable.

It took a while for me to settle down after that incident, but luckily a nice sunset was on tap for us as we watched the river flow by.

Overnight the wind switched direction and we woke to thick smoke.

We headed to Laird Hot Springs for a night, our only paid campsite on the trip. They have some serious hazards there. The entire campground is fenced and the fencing is electrically charged. We didn’t feel safer than any other night out on the trail, but the soak felt pretty good.

Then we were off again and into the heart of the Rockies.

We did make a stop at the mineral licks, there was a lot of sign that stone sheep and caribou were about, but we didn’t see any. We had to settle for the amazing views instead.

We dropped into another drainage that also eventually drains into the McKenzie, the toad river. Also colored with glacial flour, the Toad River takes on more of a glowing blue hue.

The folded sedimentary geology of this region of the Rockies is pretty amazing.

After a night on the Toad River, we headed down the highway again. We stopped for a day hike to Flower Springs Lake. This landscape is simply stunning and hiking through it gives you the time to really appreciate it. We had the entire trail to ourselves.

We once again saw lots of wildlife sign, and finally we came across our wildlife for the hike.

Before too long we were up to the lake.

It was a great day in the mountains.

Our hike in the mountains complete, we were quickly going to leave them behind. This portion of the Alaskan highway did not disappoint, and we probably could have spent another week exploring here. However, it was just the flatter foothills and oilfields ahead on our way to Dawson Creek. But as we left those mountains behind we did come across four more bears. A mama bear with three cubs in tow was looking to cross the highway.

But the oncoming traffic changed her mind, and the cubs were soon pushed up a nearby cottonwood after a look at the potential danger.

We wrapped up the Alaskan Highway in Dawson Creek the next day, but we still had half the height of British Columbia to travel in order to finish up our grand loop tour. There were more mountains and lakes in our future.