Fort Liard to Coal River Campground

We departed Fort Liard shortly after eight am, which was early for us. We knew we had to backtrack 109 desolate miles of highway 77 just to get back to the Alaska Highway, and desolate they were, as all we saw on Highway 77 were a couple of rabbits, a hawk and a few LBBs (little brown birds). Once back on the Alaska Highway we ascended into the mountains and it was a lovely cool and rainy drive. Fort Liard is considered to be the “tropics” of the North, whatever that means.

We drove keeping our options open as to how far DR felt like driving, which turned out to be 6-1/2 hours.

DR’s character was tested at Toad River, where we refueled. We pulled up to the diesel pump without cover in the open, but it did not have a credit card slot or any other payment mechanism. DR assumed you were supposed to pay before you pump. DR was in his Hawaiian shirt and it had just started to rain a few drops and the area around the pump was pretty muddy, but he headed into the store/cafe to prepay. The young lady at the counter shocked DR when she told him that they operated on the honor system of pump-then-pay. So, DR went back out to the pumps in what was now a pretty good downpour. Laura handed him his rain jacket, which he managed to don before getting completely soaked. He managed to top off our fuel tank, then returned to the counter to pay up. The young lady at the counter said that the pump didn’t register the amounts. DR vaguely remembered that one of the numbers was 52 something. So the young lady rang up a $52 CAD transaction, and DR payed with his credit card. She gave him a receipt with no volume pumped. Now, DR is a fanatic about keeping records on fuel mileage and has every receipt for fuel since we bought the van, except for the first time Laura fueled the van and didn’t get a receipt, but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, back to the test of DR’s character. DR noticed when he went back to the van that it was the liters and not the dollars that was 52 something. The dollars were actually $84.04 CAD. This was the point of DR’s Rubicon. Should we pocket the $32 mistake or fess up. And, being a good Boy Scout, DR, in the driving rain, through the mud, returned to the counter and did the right thing and payed the additional $32 CAD. Our world needs more righteous men.

Between Toad River and our final destination of Coal River, we finally saw some critters. We saw a moose feeding knee deep in a pond, a grizzly bear munching on plants, a few bison lounging beside the road and finally a black bear foraging in the clearing beside the road. We were the third vehicle to stop for the black bear, which was marginal for making it an official “bear jam”. Laura managed to get some decent pictures and some video of the bear before someone in the bear jam deployed a drone which immediately scared the bear into the forest.

At Coal River Laura tried a bison burger, and she discovered that the laundry machines required loonies ($1 coins) and wouldn’t accept toonies ($2 coins) for the $2 fee. Sheesh.

We plan to sleep well again tonight as we have been doing quite regularly.