More from Monday, transitting from Bonnyville, AB to Dawson Creek.

I took the road less travelled and avoided Edmonton and Calgary completely.  That meant staying fairly north in AB, which is the right sense when you have to get north of 60 anyway.

This took me through Athabaska, home of the University of the same name and famous for on-line learning for decades.  It's the closest institution to Ft. McMurray, which can't hurt.

The Athabaska river is typical of a lot of northern rivers which drain from the Western cordillera (fancy name for what keeps AB and BC apart and makes for good skiing in Lake Louise).  It's wide, fast, and cloudy-brown.  The history tag beside the river, adjacent to the park where the Canada Day celebrations were, says it was a main route for the trade system and the barges from lower Alberta to Ft. McMurray and onwards, northwards.

I stopped in a parking lot in Athabaska and had a good chat with a local who had been driving trucks up north recently, but baled when he got burned out.  Imagine being T4'd with $175k and not being able to keep it going.  Hauling fuel, or supplies for the energy industry seems to be about every second job out here.

Riding on west, its pretty flat and there're signs of forest fires in recent years.  I stopped at Slave Lake, shared a few stories with a couple riding a pair of Harleys, and managed to avoid another one of those drifting storms.  This is a pretty big lake.

You may have decided that I like clouds.  Yes, I do.  In grade 12, when we had to decide what our careers would be, it turned out that I should be a meteorologist.  That would have meant an undergrad in Physics and a Masters degree in meteorology in Alberta.  Well...I started in Physics, but switched to Chemistry...it was too abstract for me.  The Alberta thing, well that just might have worked out.  Check out this amazing layered, alto cirrus:

And more down-to-earth for you Scotsmen and women, look at this amazingly healthy thistle:

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I made it to the BC border, at Dawson Creek.  Here's today's amazing fact:  Alberta, west of the Peace District, is decidely French.  I tuned in on FM radio and all I got was French language stations, both CBC and private.   Here's the kicker, when I stopped for gas in Falher (oh, by the way, don't go to the UFA, you can't use their gas...United Farmer's of Alberta...it's "coloured" to indicate "no tax" AND they don't have attendants, you have to scan a special card to dispense the fuel.)...the attendant was NOT French, but definitely fielding a Ukrainian/Canadian accent...highly rural..  So, what kind of multi-cultural thing is going on here?

The road from Falher, AB to Dawson Creek is excellent and WAY TOO straight!  I don't think there was a curve for 1/2 an hour.

Into Dawson Creek and a hotel for a shower, please.  In the morning, I met a couple on an GS F800 from Seattle who had been to Prudhoe Bay!  That's north!  Clearly the Americans are exercising their right to get to the Arctic.  Hey, nice touch at the Comfort Inn, they give you an "old rag" to clean your motorcycle!  Bonus!  Dinner was had at some crossroads back in AB, where I wolfed down a Cobb salad...much in need of lettuce!