We decided to backtrack to the town of Hinton, near Jasper National Park, in order to take the more scenic route north to the start of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek. On the way from Edmonton, we stopped in Edson for lunch and ended out spending a bunch of time in their excellent visitor center stocking up on tourist information for the next leg of our trip. The visitor center had a working model train, which kept Quinn entertained for a long time, which in turn explains our extended stay there.

On the recommendation of the lady working at the visitor center, we stopped in Hinton to explore their beaver walkways. We were somewhat skeptical, but it turned out to be a great experience. It’s a series of boardwalks installed (by volunteers) over a wetland area. It’s near a series of beaver dams and a large beaver lodge.

We walked around the area for about an hour, and on the way out crossed a small bridge where a beaver was eating about five feet from where we were standing. We sat and watched him eat for about 10 minutes – he (or she, we’re not sure) started with the leaves, then proceeded to eat the green bark off a stick just like an ear of corn. You’ll have to watch the video to appreciate it.

Is it cute, or just a giant swimming rat?

We needed to make a stop at Walmart, but it was closed by the time the beaver finished its dinner, so we took the opportunity to spend our first night camped in a Walmart parking lot. For those of you who are not RVers, Walmart allows you to camp for free in the parking lots of all of their stores. On this particular night there were probably 15 RVs there.

After doing our shopping the next morning we headed north on Alberta Highway 40 to the town of Grande Cache. It’s so named because fur trappers erected a large cache in the area to store furs until they could be transported by canoe back to the east coast.

First we saw the bright yellow two dimensional caribou…

… Then we saw the real thing.

After booking a rafting trip on the Smokey River for the next day, we headed to, yes, you guessed it, the local swimming pool. For a small town it’s an amazing facility. We figure these rec centers are so nice because they’re the only way the locals survive the winters up here. It started raining as we arrived, so it was a good way to spend the afternoon.

The next morning we went for a short hike to the confluence of the Smoky and Sulfur rivers. After lunch we met our rafting trip. Because of Quinn’s tender age, we were limited to a class I/II trip, which is pretty much a float trip. Our guide was great, and the scenery was nice. Quinn had a great time bouncing up and down in the small wave trains.

It started raining again just as we finished dinner, so we’re holed up in the van, but at least the campground has wifi to keep us entertained, and to keep the blog posts coming!

Tomorrow we plan to continue north to Grand Prairie and the start of the Alaska Highway!