From Jasper to Fort Vermillion

From Jasper N.P. to Fort Vermillion

June 24-25, 2007

It is time to leave Jasper National Park and head north to the start of the Mackenzie Highway.

coyote

A couple of days ago was the "day of the bears", when we saw five bears. Today turned out to be the day of the coyotes; we saw three today. When we first saw this one, we though it was a wolf, but after looking at the pictures, we decided it was a coyote. It would be great to see a wolf in the wild.

The catholic mission at Dunvegan on the Peace River; it was started next to an early fur trading post run by the Hudson Bay Company in the mid 1800s. It was a pretty spartan life for the priest.

12 Foot Davis is an interesting legend of the area. He was born in Vermont; after trying the California gold rush, he made his way to this area. He got here too late to stake a claim in the prime gold bearing land, as it had all be taken. He noticed, however that two adjacent claims seemed to exceed the legal limit of 100 foot width per claim. Measuing the claims in the middle of the night, he found that the total width was 212 feet. So, the next day, he staked a claim for 12 feet. From these 12 feet he extracted between $10,000 and $20,000 Canadian, which today would be worth $250,000 to $400,000 Canadian. Later he turned to fur trading. We were told by some locals in Grimshaw that he was buried on a hill above the Peace River so that he could fulfill his wish to "pee on the Hudson Bay", an indirect reference to his competitor. But his geography was wrong; the Peace River drains into the Slave River, which flows in the Great Slave Lake, and ultimately ends up in the Arctic Ocean and doesn't go near Hudson Bay.
Mile Zero on the Mackenzie

Grimshaw, Alberta is the start of the Mackenzie Highway, which goes north into the Northwest Territories. The highway is named after Alexander Mackenzie, who was the first person to cross the North American continent north of Mexico.

In 1789 Mackenzie started his search for the Northwest Passage by following rivers in birchbark canoes. However, he wound up at the Arctic Ocean, not the Pacific. So he went to England to study astronomy, mapping, and navigation. In the fall of 1792 he made another attempt, and reached the Pacific on July 22, 1793, a full decade ahead of Lewis and Clark.

Fifty miles north from Grimshaw is the town of Manning, Alberta. Yes, Ed and Pat, it is really called Manning. An interesting museum there is the old hospital started by the United Church of Canada in 1937.

1947 operating room

The operating room equipped with instruments from 1947. It looks pretty primitive compared with modern medical equipment; I don't think I would want to be operated on there.

We detoured off the Mackenzie Highway to visit Fort Vermillion, which is the first white settlement Alberta. To get there we took this ferry across the Peace River. Fort Vermillion turned out to be a big disappointment - not much of interest. So we headed back to pick up the Mackenzie Highway at High Level. According to our literature, there is an interesting museum in High Level, but it was closed, so we struck out again.

The terrain around the southern part of the Mackenzie Highway is mostly farmland and rather flat. As you go north forests become more prevalent, so by the time you get to High Level it is completely forested. It is sort of like central and northern Wisconsin - rather boring.