The raging wildfires that descended on Jasper National Park, forcing evacuations and destroying homes and businesses was a ‘bizarre’ experience for a group of RVers heading from the continental U.S. to Alaska.
When the evacuation orders were announced for Jasper, thousands of residents and visitors had to vacate the region, among them, William Nelson and his group of 25 RVs, who were scheduled to hit the Ice Fields Parkway on their way to Jasper but were forced to reroute.
“We saw how bad everything was and that they had evacuated Jasper, so then we decided to unfortunately had to skip Icefields and we rerouted up through Rocky Mountain House,” said Nelson earlier Wednesday, before the fire reached the townsite.
Nelson is leading the charge for the group of RVs that have driven up to Canada from Liberty Lake, WA. The tour takes 60 days and the RVers go from Washington to Alaska, covering nearly 5,000 km in the process.
“Technically I’m the wagon master — that’s what they call me — I prefer wagon leader,” said Nelson with a laugh.
He’s been in charge of similar tours for four years.
“We always drive by fire somewhere.”
“This is the first one that we’ve seen this south in Canada. Usually, we see the fires when we get either high up into the Yukon and in the inland of Alaska.”
Nelson said the ride in on Tuesday was “bizarre,” and left some of the trip’s guest in awe. Having come from across the United States to depart from Washington, not all of the attendees had seen the effects of wildfires like they’ve witnessed over the past 48 hours.
The group departed Banff Tuesday morning and were supposed to drive up the Icefields Parkway to get to Jasper. He said several members of the tour had scheduled excursions like gondola rides and whitewater rafting that were sadly cancelled.
Instead, the group drove east towards Calgary and then north on Highway 22 through Rocky Mountain House to arrive in Hinton, where they were always scheduled to stay, before taking the “Scenic Route to Alaska” (Highway 40) further north.
“The sad thing is, I really liked that drive to Jasper and through the Icefields. Unfortunately, the guests on this tour didn’t get to see that.”
Nelson said he expects that many of the group will have almost forgotten the two-hour detour caused by the fires on their long journey.
“We got 60 days and this is day eight — this will be long forgotten.”
In the meantime, Nelson said they were still enjoying their stop in Hinton.
“I love Hinton, man. Hinton’s a great stop for us to come and replenish and everything. One of my favourite restaurants in the world is in Hinton: Smitty’s,” said Nelson with a laugh.
The group will depart on Thursday having lost out on their chance to see Jasper, and head north to Dawson Creek before continuing up through Canada and crossing into Alaska.