California to Alaska: The Puppy Dog Edition is an eight part series. If you missed the start of the trip, Day One, click here. For notifications, subscribe to the Retirement Monkeys Newsletter.
Today’s Itinerary
Morning visit to Ft. St. John Dog Park
1st Stop: Fort Nelson, BC Demonstration Forest
2nd Stop: Muncho Lake
Lodging: Muncho Lake Northern Rockies Lodge
One last trip to Fort St. John dog park. Boy, do we love this place! Well done FSJ.
We are back on the road and it’s a long day today. The road to Fort Nelson is straight and easy driving. Canada has been on fire for a few weeks now. There is thick smoke in places, and you can see where the fire burned right up to the road just last week. The rain put some of the fires out and I’m amazed at how quickly the green grass of recovery is taking over. The resilience of nature is impressive.
Fort Nelson is our first stop. It is the gateway to the Northern Rockies on the Alcan and a good place to gas up before heading into the mountains. I also pick-up some extra window shield fluid. Between the bugs and the dust, you go through a lot of spray on the Alcan.
Fort Nelson doesn’t have a proper fenced dog park, but Demonstration Forest is a great alternative to exercise your dogs. It is unfenced but has an array of trails that loop around through the boreal forest. In summer, be sure to bring bug spray!
The entrance to the trails has a grassy area and picnic bench. I decided to test the pups recall ability and took them off leash for a bit of ball throwing. As soon as they started to lose interest in the ball, I leashed them back up. But they did really well for the 15 minutes or so they were off leash and unfenced!
Protecting Pups against Bugs
A word about protecting dogs from mosquitos, ticks, biting flies and other bugs. The first trip we took from California to Alaska, we discovered black flies. After a run through the grass, Buster’s belly was covered in red, “bullseye” welts that looked serious. Lily’s has more hair on her belly so she only had a few red marks. A quick google search pointed us to a black fly bite diagnosis. The fly bites look terrible but are apparently harmless. They all went away on their own after a few days.
But even though the bites didn’t seem to bother Buster or Lily, I wanted to make sure we had some level of protection from the flies but also ticks and other bugs. Pests can range from being a nuisance, like the biting black fly, to carrying disease, like ticks and fleas. It is inevitable that your dogs will be exposed to these parasites, so protection is key. Check with your veterinarian on what products are the best for your dog. I opted for K9 Advantix II.
K9 Advantix II checked all the boxes for me. It is effective against fleas, ticks, lice, mites, mosquitoes, and flies. I liked that it targets adults, larvae and eggs. Some of the products only work after the flea bites the dog and ingests some of the dogs treated blood. K9 Advantix II kills the fleas before they bite. It also repels 7 different types of ticks (who knew there were SEVEN different types of ticks!!). Since I wasn’t sure what types of ticks we’d encounter, this seem to cover it for our trip. I still checked after each stop to make sure no random ticks hitched a ride but all in all, the K9 Advantix II seemed to work. We made it from point to point without any evidence of pesky parasite bites.
Note: Of course, there are always risks with these types of medications so ALWAYS check with your veterinarian and ALWAYS do your own research to see what is best for your pups.
Wildlife on the Road
After our successful stop in Fort Nelson, we were back on the road and heading into the Rockies. The mountain scenery is breathtaking, and the sighting of wildlife goes up ten-fold. Seeing bison, caribou, and elk along the highway is quite common. In fact, they are often hanging out IN the road so be sure to slow down! On this trip, I saw a lot of bears. Mostly black bear and they were right on the side of the road.
With the limited traffic, it is quite easy to pull over for a quick picture. And I do mean quick. On one photo opportunity, the black bear was around 20 feet off the road. She was in a field of bright green spring grass with blooming yellow dandelions. It was the perfect picture. I pulled out my camera and rolled down the window. Unfortunately, at the sound of the window going down, my sleeping dogs woke up and decided that barking at the bear was necessary. I, on the other hand, felt it was rather ill-advised. The barking did cause the bear to look up for a great picture but the bear also started to move towards the open window so the photo opportunity was fleeting as we sped off. Training the pups to be better photo safari partners is on my “To Do” list!
Muncho Lake Amenities
There is much to do around Muncho Lake so I decided to stop here for the night. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of accommodation options. There are plenty of camping and RV sites but hotels that take dogs are few and far between. The Northern Rockies Lodge is one of the few, but it is a pricey option. The cabin we stayed in was nice enough, but it was overpacked with furniture and lacked even the most basic amenities.
Having a coffee maker in a hotel room is, I think, kinda standard these days but the Northern Rockies lodge does not provide one. There was also no microwave or fridge. There’s also no ice bucket but then there’s no ice so I guess that makes sense. I’m sure the idea is that you will take your meals at the lodge restaurant . There are really not many options in the area. I’m not sure if any of the cabins have kitchens but I’ll check into that for next time. I do think a coffee maker and microwave would be a lovely addition to the $300/night cabins! The WiFi was out for the night as well but something like that might be out of their control. Providing basic amenities is not.
Dog-friendly Cabins
The cabins on the lakefront are probably the best but those are around $100 more than the one’s on “cabin row”. The cabins are packed in so know that you will be close to neighbors. It still seemed more desirable than the lodge. The “dog-friendly” rooms in the lodge are on the basement floor and were dark and overlooked a muddy road that was piled with junk when we were there. I think it would have been difficult to keep the pups quiet with the foot traffic so close by. Unfortunately, there is no place to let the dogs run off-leash. They’ve put the patch of grass for the dogs to potty up on the road where no dog who values privacy will feel comfortable going.
That said, Muncho Lake is lovely. The Lodge compound is right on the lake and easily accessible with a walking path right alongside the lake. If you stop moving the mosquitos will swarm you so don’t forget the bug spray!
I do think having a self-contained cabin is perfect when traveling with dogs. Described as “cozy”, the cabin itself was plenty big enough for one person and two dogs. If they removed some of the furniture, it might even be comfortable for two humans. At the end of the day, we slept well and if it had been half the price, I would have been satisfied!
We head to the Yukon tomorrow!
