Road Trip: Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Arctic Drive, Part I

The drive out of Fort St. John was really the starting point of our adventure, in my view. Here the landscape changed, became hillier, less industrial, more scenic. We passed the town of Wonowon (formerly Blueberry), whose name actually isn’t a Native word for “meeting place,” deriving instead from its location at Mile 101 of the Alaska Highway (one-oh-one… get it?). Interestingly, Wonowon, along with Dawson Creek and Fort St. John don’t use Daylight Savings Time, which didn’t affect us, of course, but summer visitors would surely want to know.

Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Arctic Drive. Click image to enlarge.

After lunching in Fort Nelson (where you could head north on Highway 77, the Liard Highway, into the Northwest Territories if you had the time and inclination), we headed to Muncho Lake and our accommodations there called Northern Rockies Lodge.

The log-construction lodge was established in the 1950s by a couple who purchased the land a week before much of the surrounding area became designated as a provincial park. Inside knowledge? Sounds like it, or very lucky people! However it transpired, the lodged thrived for three decades before being sold to its current owners, the Schildknechts, who operate it year-round. There’s an RV campground, flightseeing tours to Nahanni National Park, guided tours and fly-in fishing. And the Liard hot springs are nearby, where you can sample the contrast between 56-degree water and -20-degree night-time air in rapid succession under, possibly, an ethereal starry night.

Our night was overcast — much as it had been since leaving Edmonton — so no stars, no moon, no Northern Lights for our visit. But they had the “cold” part nailed, at least during the night.

Eight o’clock the next morning saw darkness and oddly warm temperatures. At -5 degrees, the big Canada Goose coats worn by many in our group were doffed in favour of a light jacket, with many also stowing their gloves, hats and scarves. Minus five, after all, is positively balmy for a Canadian winter day.

Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Arctic Drive. Click image to enlarge.

Losing the outerwear was premature, it turned out, as the temperatures dropped another 15 degrees within 20 minutes of leaving the lodge, and the winds picked up during the day’s drive. With the wind, the icy surface of the roads acquired a polished sheen that could cause you to slip and fall if walking. We relied on smooth driving, in combination with our vehicles’ stability and traction control systems and the very effective Continental Cross Contact winter tires to keep us on the road and out of the ditch. “No sudden moves” was the order of the day.

It’s funny how you acclimatize to these conditions, however. At first, the slightest sign of ice caused our convoy drivers to carefully slow down, fearing that just about any change in direction might cause disaster. After a couple of days on these slick surfaces, you do get the measure of the vehicle and build confidence in its ability to round a slippery corner at some speed without necessarily getting into trouble. Downshifting the five-speed transmission was a useful substitute, we found, to applying the brakes when coasting downhill or reducing speed when cornering.

Instances of oversteer were rare and brief, but full concentration was required at all times as we were usually driving on ice. We’d been warned not to wander too far to the right, and sighting a tractor trailer on its side in a ditch just to the west of Muncho Lake emphatically made the point. How would they ever retrieve that?

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