The Alaska Highway

This week I am traveling up the Alaska Highway, near to where I spent some of my most formative years. Tungsten, NWT. I was very young at the time, before school age. I started school in a one room classroom with grades kindergarten to six being taught by a single harried teacher. Apparently, when I was in grade two in Toronto, they did an IQ test on the class. I aced it, except for one question that was regarding snow. I, having lived my memorable life in the north, had a distinctly different view of snow than the test creators. This has cemented my understanding that IQ tests are not trustworthy if administered by a real person capable of finding out why a question was "wrong".

But, the drive up here is gorgeous. I landed in Edmonton yesterday and got on the Alaska Highway today. There have been picturesque farmlands and gorgeous woodland. I believe that there are very few places in our country that are not pretty, but this area is gorgeous. Until you hit the towns. In general, Canadian's can build pretty cities, but when it comes to little mill, mine, oil or other natural resource towns, they are ugly. They occasionally have a giant thing to prettify the area. Wawa has a giant goose. A town we passed through had a giant beaver (no jokes please). And the construction has been somewhat weird. I am used to road construction in Ontario, which follows specific passes. But, in Alberta and BC they have very different methods and equipment. It has been an education.

Goonius out.