From left: Cst. Robert Drapeau, Gary Bath, Lynn Marchessault, Payton Marchessault, Rebecca Marchessault, and Staff Sergent Tim Marchessault at the Alaska-Yukon border
Posted on 11/24/2020 2:23:19 PM PST by lowbridge
A Fort St. John, B.C. man is earning praise for driving an American family in need from northern B.C. to the Alaskan border near Beaver Creek, Yukon.
The roughly 1,700-kilometre trip up the Alaska Highway in winter didn't deter him from volunteering to help out, said Gary Bath.
Bath said he noticed an online plea for help last week from an American woman driving to Alaska who was overwhelmed by the winter driving conditions and couldn't drive any farther.
"I didn't care how far it was, I just knew they needed help and they had a few short days to hit the border before they were going to get in trouble, so," Bath said, referring to the four-to-six day period Americans are given by Canada to drive from the lower 48 states to Alaska.
He said the stranded woman, Lynn Marchessault, is a former member of the U.S. military and was driving herself and her two children to Alaska to join her husband, a current member of the military.
Bath is a Canadian Ranger, and he said that was an added incentive for him to get involved.
Marchessault said she had never driven in snow before when she and her two children left Georgia to drive north.
She was driving a pickup and towing a large U-Haul trailer. As soon as she hit snowy roads she began having trouble with traction on hills.
Marchessault believed the tires on the truck were rated all-weather, but shortly after leaving Fort St. John a woman told her they were actually summer tires and helped Marchessault find a set of studded winter tires.
(Excerpt) Read more at ca.news.yahoo.com ...
It sounds like she was hauling the kids and a trailer full of stuff up to his new post.
The service places all kinds of challenges on young families.
It also seems to have a small army of angels watching over them. :)
I've gone as far to offer the mother of a neighbor in England to drive her about 100+ miles to Gatwick Airport. She offered to pay me the amount she would've had to pay a taxi, but I said, "Nah, it'll be an adventure". But driving through central London, across the Tower Bridge and on to Gatwick Airport, and back, was such a pain in the buttocks that I took the money. (Being a poor junior enlisted guy was another factor.)
Thanks. I think I knew about the exception for through-travelers going to Alaska, but I obviously forgot it.
Indeed, he went WAY above and beyond. What a great guy.
When my sister’s family moved to Houston from Alberta the neighbours all wonder if their suburban was electric...because of the plug hanging out the grill. LOL
That was long before EVs.
From left: Cst. Robert Drapeau, Gary Bath, Lynn Marchessault, Payton Marchessault, Rebecca Marchessault, and Staff Sergent Tim Marchessault at the Alaska-Yukon border
I can’t pass up this opportunity to thank the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for coming to my aid on the Yukon somewhere in the wilderness a couple hundred miles north of Whitehorse.
And, another man helped me get unstuck in the middle of nowhere so “thank you” and a First Nation man pulled me out twice. Thank you Albert! Once was about a 25 mile tow!
There are a couple others but you get the picture. I echo that Canadian People are above average when it comes to helping their fellow man.
I don’t care if you have to travel through the worst winter weather anywhere. A drive from Fort St. John, British Columbia up through the Yukon to Alaska is the trip of a lifetime.
Driven that dammed road 3 times...and btw I live in Big Lake, Alaska, just spent 3 hours mounting my Blizzaks back on my Escalade rims, long story short I had to strip corrosion from the rims and epoxy painted them, fortunately I invested in both a rim clamp tire changer and a balancer.
We usually have two sets of tires up here, all season and dedicated winter tires, I chose studless Blizzaks, not recommended to drive them when its over 50F as the compound is very soft for use in sub zero temps, they are not as good as high end studded tires but are excellent for a modern vehicle with AWD and ABS.
And...the Canucks are not very friendly about transits to Alaska right now.
Tires is everything for winter driving, take it from a guy who drives a concrete mixer up here...in the winter.
Might be a Hallmark movie in there somewhere :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa7baSCfl4U&feature=emb_logo
One of the smarter things I ever did was not rent a car in London.
what man, let alone a military man, would let his wife drive in winter, wilderness conditions towing a trailor AND his two children when she had never driven in snow before?....hmmm.....
If you drive north from Vancouver to Alaska, you will cover almost the exact same distance as a road trip from New York City to New Orleans just to get out of the province of British Columbia.
And at that point you have about another 600 miles to drive through the Yukon Territory to get to the Alaska border.
With the tubes so good, why would you even consider it? Just curious.
And cabs.
Because I like driving, and like seeing places from behind the wheel.
A few years later we went to Italy. I wisely did NOT rent a car to do Rome, but when we left there to go to Tuscany for a week, I did rent a car. I really enjoyed blasting around rural Italy.
why the hell didn’t ship the car and fly up?> Unca Sugar would have covered 100% of the cost.
Some people are just too st...silly to survive...
Boo on her old man and the unit his is in...
1. Some people freak out in summer when trying to drive the Alaska Highway. It is a tough trip.
2. The border is closed to some, not to others. I can fly out of Toronto to many US destinations, no problem. I have two children who live in Canada and work in the US. They cross the border every day.
3. My wife has a US passport and a PR card for Canada. She cannot be denied entry if she presents herself at the US border because she is a US citizen. She cannot be denied entry if she presents herself at the Canadian border because she has permanent resident status in Canada. Border services might ask her a lot of questions, they might require her to quarantine, but they cannot deny her entry.
It is a "soft" border closing.
Maybe they needed the U-Haul and stuff that was in it and figured driving/towing was more convenient than shipping?
If you plan to drive the Alcan (Alaska Highway) in the winter, the following items should be in your vehicle: A spare Arctic parka. A pair of insulated boots handy. A satellite cell phone. An arctic and a mountain sleeping bag. A signaling mirror for search aircraft. A signaling flare gun with 3 flares. Road flares. A 5 ton floor jack with an additional wooden lifting block. A tow strap or tow chain. A minimum of 20 gals of fuel in gerry cans. A tool box with all essential tools including sockets. A spare fan belt or serpentine belt. A minimum of 2 spare tires mounted on rims and inflated. 2 Tire chains. 3 gallons of anti-freeze. 5 gallons of fresh drinking water. 3 extra quarts of oil. 2 camping lanterns and a flashlight. These are all items that could save your life if your vehicle won’t start at 60 below zero in the dark 150 miles from the next establishment.
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