Peace River Canoe Trip Journal

July 8 thru 13, 2003

Date	Trip Log	Comments
Tuesday, July 8	10:40 am: Left Los Alamos 4:15 pm: Arrived at Paul’s house in Farmington. Today’s mileage: 293 mi.
		After arriving at Farmington, we went over last minute arrangements, went out to eat and gassed up the cars.
Wednesday, July 9	6:25 am: Left Farmington. Ate lunch at Green River, UT and drove thru Salt Lake City 6:30 pm: Arrived at Pocatello, ID. Stayed at a Motel 8. Today’s mileage: 605 mi.	Used Paul’s Earthmate GPS with my Map & Go program on my laptop. Tracked exactly with Map & Go program.
Thursday, July 10	5:20 am: left motel; 11:50 am: left Helena, MT; 1:50 pm: Great Falls, MT; 3:45 pm: Canadian border; 6:30 pm: Lethridge, AB 9:30 pm: Aridarie, AB Today’s mileage: 780 mi.	Stop at Helena to get an air filter for Paul’s Explorer. Tried Walmart but had to go to Ford dealer and paid twice the price. Ate lunch at a Mom and Pop drive in with an actual car-hop. The drive-in was in Great Falls and had been in business for 50 years. There was a line of about 20 cars at the border and it took about 20 minutes to get through the line. Ate supper at Lethridge. Stayed in Aridarie which is north of Calgary.
Friday, July 11	5:15am: On the road; 8:55 am: La Duc, AB; 11:40 am: Whitecourt, AB; 3:00 pm: Peace River, AB 7:15 pm: Ft. Vermilion, AB Today’s mileage: 730 mi.	Drove for awhile before stopping for breakfast. We noticed that a couple of nuts had come off the bolts holding the springs on the trailer; found a co-op in La Duc (South Edmonton) that had them. We stopped at Whitecourt for lunch and I got the oil changed. The previous two days have been hot with temperatures near 100F. This morning, the temperature was 13C (55F) and I had the heater on for awhile. When we got to Peace River, we drove down to the river and Paul got his feet wet. Further north, we saw a sign saying ‘Vegetation Control’. There was a herd of sheep grazing on the right-of-way with a ‘sheep-herder’ sitting in a car! Chris arrived about 7:45 and we had dinner together. We checked into the Sheridan Lawrence Motel at Ft. Vermillion, ate dinner and took the canoes and food barrels down to the manager’s garage across from the boat landing where we stored them while shuttling the cars. We went through our personal gear separating the items to take to Ft. Smith from the ones we would need on the water.
Saturday, July 12	6:05 am: On the road to Ft. Smith; 12:00 noon: Left Hay River, NWT 3:15: Ft. Smith, NWT Today’s mileage: 429	When we stopped at the Visitor Centre at the Northwest Territories border, the lady at the front desk was wearing a bug jacket inside the building! She said the bugs had been bad; not what we wanted to hear. Stopped for lunch in Hay River. On the road to Ft. Smith we saw a large herd of buffalo on the road. They were in no hurry to move for us so we got many pictures. After arriving in Ft. Smith, we checked in with Wood Buffalo National Park for our back-country permit, visited the North of 60 book store and then checked into the Thabasca Bed and Breakfast. Had an enjoyable visit with Clayton Burke. He told us about the Yukon Sail which we tried on our trip.
Sunday, July 13	8:30 am: Left Ft. Smith 8:00 pm: Arrived at motel in Ft. Vermilion Today's mileage: 429 mi.	Paul and I left our cars at the B&B in Ft. Smith and we rode back to Ft. Vermilion with Chris. This was the first day we could ‘take it easy’. We drove to the beach on Great Slave Lake in Hay River. Walked around, took pictures and picked up a piece of driftwood for a memento. We had lunch (Chris and Paul and musk oxen burgers, I had a regular burger) and then drove to High Level. In High Level, we drove around town looking for a store that sold bug jackets. After a few stops, Paul found one. Chris bought his Alberta fishing license. We stopped at the Ft. Vermillion Historical Museum and spent over an hour visiting with Marilee Towes, the director, and her husband. I learned that she had used the thank-you letter I send two years ago as part of a successful proposal for funding the summer intern program. They are doing a second dig at the La Fleur post and I was encouraged to stop and visit with the archeologist in Edmonton. She was interested in getting pictures from our trip, particularly for Vermilion Chutes. We had dinner at the motel and packed our gear for tomorrow.

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Last updated: April 13, 2004