Our route around the wildfires in Alberta

The road is closed, and the wildfires are between Alaska and us. We need a route around the wildfires. Our schedule is shot. Campgrounds are closed. The good news is that because we started our reroute around the wildfires near Edmonton, we have options. If this happened farther north on the Alaska Highway, our only option would be to retreat.

Our intended route from Edmonton was to follow Highway 43 northwest through Fox Creek to Valley View and Grand Prairie (located above the top left of the above map). The Fox Creek fire closed Highway 43. The Sturgeon Lake fire has caused evacuations in Valley View. We were going to stay at a Harvest Host farm located on the west side of Sturgeon Lake, but it was seriously affected by smoke. We canceled our reservation. Smoke is everywhere.

Fires in Alberta and British Columbia

Most of the fires are in Alberta and British Columbia. At the end of May, two more major fires are in eastern Saskatchewan. This year nearly one hundred wildfires are in Alberta, and last week twenty-five of them were burning out of control. At the end of May, more than two million acres have burned in Alberta.

Smoke Everywhere

Smoke from these spring wildfires is affecting air quality from the south to Denver and from the east to France. Generally, the prevailing wind is from the northwest and has spread the smoke across a huge area.

Really, since Alberta closed the roads going through the affected areas, our biggest problem is smoke downwind of the fire. If we are going to go around the wildfires, we need to stay away from the highest concentration of smoke. Since the winds were due to change because of a passing cold front, we couldn’t rely on the wind staying consistently from the northwest. The cold front was moving much slower at this time of year than usual; thus, it would have less unstable air to create thunderstorms. A slow-moving cold front is good news.

The slow-moving cold front was good news because fast-moving cold fronts are frequently preceded by thunderstorms. Thunderstorms can also start more fires through lightning. This happened in British Columbia less than a week ago.

Options for routes around the wildfires

The first undesirable option was to retreat to the south. Escaping the smoke from these fires was impossible, so this isn’t a good option. If we could get farther north into the Yukon and Alaska, we would be north of the fire and most of the smoke.

The second option we seriously considered was to wait at our campsite northwest of Edmonton. This could have been a good plan if the cold front brought the rain we wanted. Until then, we would have been in heavy smoke. Sometimes waiting is better than going around the wildfires.

A push-your-luck option (and was our original plan before the fires) was to head west to Mayerthorpe. Mayerthorpe is well east of the Fox Creek fire but close enough that if Highway 43 opened through Fox Creek, we could quickly dart through the newly opened road rather than go around the wildfires. This move would save us lots of miles, but would the road open soon?

The smoke from the northwest was choking Edmonton. The airflow was from north to south. South of Lesser Slave Lake, the Lesser Slave Lake fire has closed Highway 33. From Edmonton, Highway 2 can take you north around the wildfires to Lesser Slave Lake and north of the fire zone. At Lesser Slave Lake, you could then travel westbound, staying north of Valley View and the Sturgeon Lake Fire. From there, you could go farther west to Grande Prairie. This plan was a good way to avoid the wildfires.

The option that we chose gave us relief from the smoke as we went around the wildfires that same day. We headed west out of Edmonton towards Jasper National Park on Highway 16. Once we got to the entrance to Jasper, we could stay the night. This option took us through a smoky area caused by the controlled burn (photo above), but was a good route around the wildfires.

Once we reached the entrance to Jasper National Park, we could turn north to Grande Prairie. Or we could keep going west across Jasper National Park and then north through British Columbia to Alaska. The good thing about the Grand Prairie route was that we would still see the Alaska Highway. The downside of the Grand Prairie route was that, northwest of Grande Prairie, there is yet another fire zone. This new fire zone is north of Dawson Creek on the Alaska Highway. As for this option, there wasn’t any good way to go around the wildfires north of Dawson Creek.

One thing about going west was that we’d add about 60 extra miles to our journey. Since Highway 43 was closed, we had to add extra miles regardless of our travel direction. This was an easy decision. Going west promised blue skies (at least for the day) and relief from the smoke. The real advantage of heading west is that we had options we wouldn’t have had if we had headed north toward Lesser Slave Lake.

At the entrance to Jasper National Park, we could have routed even further west through Jasper National Park, further around the wildfires. The good thing about heading further west through Jasper National Park and then north through British Columbia was that we would be completely west of the fires, but British Columbia had other flooding issues, and we would lose our trip up the Alaska Highway.

Our route around the fires

The slow-moving cold front could bring widespread rain in Dawson Creek, so we chose to go north from Hinton, staying out of Jasper National Park. We spent one night near Hinton at William A. Switzer Provincial Park at the Gregg Lake campground. The next day, we drove north through Grand Prairie to Dawson Creek.

The route we chose to the west of Edmonton wasn’t free and clear. Right along the road east of Edson (between Edmonton and Hinton), we saw heavy smoke and found a controlled burn. Well, to the northeast of Edson, there was yet another fire evacuation at Niton.

William A. Switzer Provincial Park

From the Gregg Lake campground, we could decide the next morning to head further west through Jasper National Park and British Columbia, or north through Grande Prairie and Dawson Creek.

We didn’t decide to go north to Grande Prairie until the morning after we saw that widespread rain from the cold front was expected. Dawson Creek (at the start of the Alaska Highway) was expected to get the most rain of anywhere in the region.  Our plan was to park right in the middle of it. Besides putting out fires, rain can remove the smoke from the air. We arrived at Dawson Creek early in the day; it was a good decision and a reasonable goal.

Our stay at Gregg Lake

We didn’t do nearly enough research to figure out how suitable William A. Switzer Provincial Park and the Gregg Lake campground would be for our RV. Then upon arrival, we took the biggest, longest campsite available. A phone call earlier that morning assured us sites were available that would fit our RV. Since it was a Canadian holiday and a three-day weekend, we needed to get there as soon as possible.

Gregg Lake Campground had several other shorter campsites which would have been much more comfortable than our super long campsite. Our site looks good in our pictures, but overall it was nearly impossible to level the RV. The campsite was terraced with three levels. We parked in the picnic area. The site was a pull-through, but we had to pull in, then back out when we left.

I had to drag the picnic table out of the way so we could camp where it was placed.  While parking, I trimmed a few bushes. Then before departure, I trimmed a few more. If you go to Gregg Lake in a large RV, don’t pick sites in loop “A” numbers 9-11. Site A-6 would have been great, but it was reserved and sat empty for the night.

When we made the corner into the campsite, we never really aligned ourselves with the normal parking area and didn’t want to anyway, because the slope problem would have been exaggerated. Again, it is hard to tell that Tami was well above me when taking this picture.

Our campsite was comfortable once we parked, and we had clear skies.  We could even sit outside and enjoy the evening. Everything inside the RV, inside our car, and outside at the campground smelled like smoke.

Dawson Creek or Jasper?

I already told you that Dawson Creek was the result of our decision-making at Gregg Lake and our original plan. Just as expected, we got all the rain we expected over the next two days at Dawson Creek. The rain put out the fires on the Alaska Highway north of Dawson Creek. That was a good thing, because there was no way for us to go around the wildfires north of Dawson Creek except through Jasper National Park. We were going right through the middle of the Red Creek fire zone on the Alaska Highway.

I mentioned before that our campgrounds along the way canceled our reservations. We had cancellations at one campsite at Fox Creek, and two campsites north of Dawson Creek. North of Dawson Creek, we lost a campsite at Charlie Lake, just south of the Red Creek fire zone. Then we lost the campsite at Buckinghorse River.

Buckinghorse River was well to the north of the Red Creek fire zone but close to the Donnie Creek fire. The Donnie Creek fire was burning until the rainstorm, and although we couldn’t see any of it from the road, it also covered a large area. When we drove north on the Alaska Highway, we couldn’t see any smoke to the east. Perhaps the rainstorm extinguished it.

Last Sunday I mentioned that we arrived at Mile Marker Zero, the start of the Alaska Highway. I guess that this week was all about how we got here; perhaps next week I will start describing our trip up the Alaska Highway past the fire zones and all the way to Muncho Lake. Don’t miss next week’s pictures of Muncho Lake. As I write this, I am mostly looking out the window, watching the water drift by.

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About our links

As you know, our blog income is zero – this allows us to be independent and just tell the truth.  We don’t earn income or commissions. No, we don’t make paid endorsements.  We don’t make recommendations, but instead, we will tell you what we like (or dislike). We provide links only as a quick reference to help our readers.

Links

Windy Windy is a weather app that includes forecasts for things such as wind, clouds, and rain. It also reports and predicts air quality. It is like having a personal global weather forecasting service. Some of the pictures on this post came from this website.

Alberta Road Conditions

Alberta Emergency Alerts

British Columbia Road Conditions Map

British Columbia Emergency Map

British Columbia Emergency Alerts

Google Maps Google Maps also has an overlay of fire problems. After opening Google Maps, hover your cursor over the Satellite image, then select “more” to see the available layers. Under Map details, select the Wildfires overlay.

William A. Switzer Provincial Park

Charlie Lake Campground

Buckinghorse River Wayside Park

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