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The trip from Hudson's Hope to Fort Nelson was my first taste of the Alaska Highway. I was rather disappointed. The scenery was bland and uneventful. There is no reason to travel this stretch of highway other than to get to the other end. Of course, the original purpose of the Alaska Highway was to move military materiel from the continental United States to Alaska during the Second World War. This section of the road had not evolved from that purpose, and now that the war was over, would have long faded into oblivion were it not for the booming oil and gas business in northeastern BC.

When we got to Fort Nelson, I quickly realised that this community shared the same pedigree as the highway that fed it. In fact, there is an entire museum in Fort Nelson dedicated to the construction of the Alaska Highway. Now, the community serves as a place for vehicles to refuel between Fort St. John and Watson Lake.

The remoteness and narrow purpose of the community shows. Fort Nelson is not connected to the provincial electrical grid; rather than get electricity from W.A.C. Bennett Dam, Fort Nelson is one of the few remaining BC communities that has their own power generation facilities. In this case, it is a natural gas-fired generating station next to the Spectra Energy gas processing plant on the south end of town. Prior to the oil and gas boom, power was provided by five huge 4000hp diesel engines. In fact, three remain in service to provide standby power should the gas plant go off-line. The other two have been retired; one is on display at the local museum.

I really only found two reasons to stop in Fort Nelson. One was to take on enough fuel to reach Watson Lake. The other was to stop in at the Fort Nelson Museum. The staff were helpful and friendly in a small-town way. The exhibits centered around the history of Fort Nelson, especially the history of telecommunications in the great age of rail travel and the construction of the Alaska Highway. Car and antique machinery buffs should make the time to stop here; there is a garage full of functional and maintained vintage cars, and a collection of 1940s-era earthmovers parked out back.

One of the retired Cooper-Bessemer engines once used to provide electricity to the community is on display at the museum. The engine has been dismantled, and the parts are scattered around the museum grounds. The 7.5-ton crankshaft is displayed in front of the museum main building, along with one of the camshafts. The 15 1/2" diameter pistons are lying next to it, bolted to a set of connecting rods. The engine block is sitting in the back of the lot, surrounded by a scaffold which allows you to see down into the 16 cylinder heads through the four-inch valve bores. Cylinder liners are scattered all over the lot, now serving as driveway dividers and parking barriers.

One of the buildings is packed with vintage autos; Ford Model As, a Willys Jeep, an old Packard, a couple Studebakers, and all appeared to be in working order. In fact, some had been out on the Alaska Highway as recently as a few years ago. My respect to the mechanic who keeps this antiques in such good condition.

Across from the garage is a building jammed full of CN Telecommunications equipment, from the days before internet or transcontinental phone lines. Old teletypes, telegraph plugboards, AM radio transcievers, and switchgear.

Out back are some of the best-looking antique earthmovers I've ever seen. Caterpillar dozers, the largest a D9, sit with not a hint of rust and with levers that still move. Of course, none of them have roll cages, or hydraulics; the huge blades were raised and lowered by winches mounted on the rear of the dozer. These were the machines that the US Army Corps of Engineers used to push their way through the northeastern BC wilderness and construct the Alaska Highway.

After your visit to the museum, I recommend heading north out of town and stopping at one of the campgrounds along the highway. The trip from Fort Nelson to Watson Lake is over five hundred kilometres, over sometimes less-than-ideal roads, and anything you can do to shave some time off that leg of the trip will be repaid in spades the next day.