The one with all the animals ...

After a wet day yesterday the sun shone as we left Fort Nelson. The Highway here is wide and fast with the woods cut well back leaving a 20m wide strip of grass and scrub. Looking ahead you can see the road slicing through the forests for miles and miles as it snakes up the hills and then down to wide rivers crossed by steel girder bridges. 

It wasn't long before we found our first wildlife. A black bear ambling through the grass. The first of four for the day. 

Shortly afterwards a Caribou, then a Moose. As we climbed into the higher mountains: Big Horn Sheep and Mountain Goats.

The Highway is being repaired constantly. Stopping at the control point for a 20km resurfacing project we got chatting to one of the workers. They all live in the local towns and come out to work for the week before traveling home. It must be a big local employer. When you add in the service sector for travellers (restaurants, gas stations, bars etc.) and compare the total to the size of the towns, you wonder if there would be anyone here without the road.


The problem with the roadworks is the miles of loose grit to ride over. At least we were going slowly when we saw the Buffalo. 


Huge solitary males and then a herd of 20 or 30 females and calves. We are told they all descend from 5 beasts reintroduced here 10 years ago. There are now over 200. To put that in context, after the white settlers massacred the Buffalo in their millions, there was at one time only 541 remaining. There are now hundreds of thousands across North America. Absolutely fantastic to encounter them in the wild like this.


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