Dawson Creek Trail

Another ceremonial event as we get ready to leave on the first leg of the Alaskan Caravan - a group picture at the mile 0 cairn.

At last night's banquet, we were invited to gather at 12:30 p.m. for a group photo at the iconic gateway at the cairn below this arch. Before the group photo we grabbed a selfie, carefully positioning ourselves so that we covered the cairn. It won't show in the group photo either, except that Frederick and I climbed atop the cairn so that we would stick up above the crowd and we would be able to find ourselves in the picture.

Across from the cairn is this sculpture of "the Surveyor" for the Alaskan Highway. He is pointing northwest, the direction of the road.

After the photo, Frederick and I headed out on the Dawson Creek Trail, an "urban" trail along Dawson Creek. Here we are hiking through a nice stand of aspen trees.

There was considerable flooding in town about three weeks ago from torrential rains that lasted two days. One casualty was this bridge that was washed out during the flooding. Unfortunately, the trail crossed Dawson Creek on this bridge so we had to find a detour through the city neighborhoods to reconnect with the trail after crossing the creek on another bridge.

Friendly neighborhood children enjoying their foot-yard pool.

Back on the trail we crossed a tributary on the outskirts of town. A woman at the bridge told us about the flooding and said that normally this water is clear and there was a resident beaver in the creek. We only saw ducks.

The trail went through several city parks with ball fields. Maybe they only allow people to use this porta-potty when there is a game.

Behind the library, the utilities were disguised in an enclosure with book spines disguising the enclosure.

We passed another park that had this neat sundial.

If one stands on a square with the name of the current month, on a sunny day your shadow will point to the time. Yes, it was just 3 o'clock

Here are the instructions on how to use the human sundial.

When we crossed a bridge near the hospital there were these neat light-post silhouettes.

That's a logging truck on the right and an oil rig on the left.

Just to remind us that we are in Canada.

Another ball-field and maybe you can see that this porta-potty is locked up within a chainlink fence.

There are folks from all over the country here. From the 4 corners -

New York

California

Florida, and...

Washington state.

Today's hike:

Length - 4.55 miles

Duration - 2 hours, 28 minutes

Elevation gain - 20 feet (2 floors on the Fitbit)