Today, we are planning to fly the Alaska Highway from Fort St. John to Watson Lake. However, as I mentioned earlier British Columbia is burning… there are currently more than 600 fires burning at the same time. Visibilities on our route are greatly reduced by smoke. Before we left, the airport manager of Fort St. John gave us his business card and told us to call him for help if we got stranded on our way to our next destination. Hostile environments always seem to bring back our sense of community and support to each other.

As we left Fort St. John under blue skies and climbed out along the Alaska Highway, the strong smell of smoke filled the airplane and the visibility decreased quickly. We realized that we would be unable to see much if we stayed at lower altitudes and it would be quite uncomfortable. We decided to climb above the smoke and fly direct to Fort Nelson for refueling. We cleared the smoke layers at 7,500 feet and thanks to kinder winds aloft and a long unrestricted descent, the Diamond got to Fort Nelson first…

After Fort Nelson, most teams who had flown in the smoke layers gave up on flying along the Alaska Highway. We decided to try again as the most beautiful part of the highway passing through two provincial parks was still ahead of us. One of the main reason George joined the rally was so that he could fly over the British Columbia Rockies. We decided to climb to 8,500 feet (that would be just 1,000 AGL over the mountain tops) and go to take a look at the visibility conditions. We lucked out. The visibility did improve and we headed for the Alaska Highway again.

We were able to marvel at the dedication and hard work that it must have taken to build the highway in such roughed environment. But we were also in awn with the natural beauty of the area: the steep velvety terrain, the few glaciers, the numerous alpine lakes with faceted green, blue and turquoise water, and the many rapids and falls. Just breathtaking.

As we approached Watson Lake, we did a low pass over the city to salute the town’s people. The circuit was really busy. In addition to our group arriving, air tankers fighting the fires were using Watson Lake as a refueling base.

After we landed, the town’s people many with their young children came to salute us and see the airplanes.Children sat in airplanes while their parents asked us questions about the airplane and where we came from.

The city had organized a get together for us by the lake. Most of us took a break by the peaceful and beautiful lake. Some went swimming. There was ice cream, live music, and good food topped with beer. Once in town, we went to visit the signpost forest. There are currently more than 55,000 signs from all around the world in the signpost forest. Nicole, an instructor for another team, and I used an highlighted to inscribe our message. I choose to inscribe my childhood location (Chizé, France) rather than my current residence, Vancouver, BC. There were not very many signs from France…