DAY 9 FT. NELSON TO JOHNSON CROSSING, CANADA  512 miles ++

We left Ft. Nelson at 8:19 a.m. and arrived at Johnson Crossing at 10:49 p.m.  Way longer than we every expected. 

It was again a beautiful drive and a day full of animal sightings.  I kept a tally

3 cinnamon bears

4 caribou

9 stone sheep

6 rams

16 Wood (or Forest)  Bison  + 3 babies

2 porcupine

1  moose

2 black bears

What a great day of animals.  I did not get pictures of all of them; some we saw as we were passing by. 

In other news as we were traveling along Don noticed smoke coming from the back end of the trailer.  We used our walkie talkie to contact Brian and he pulled over pretty quickly.  By then, it was really smoking.  He got the wheel off and the bearing was shot.  We were basically stranded or I should say Brian was stranded.  After he got it all taken apart Don and I took off for the nearest town to get replacement parts.  This was at 2:00 in the afternoon.  It was a little over 100 miles to get there, get the parts and go back.  Thankfully when we got about 3/4 of the way back, Nicki got on the walkie talkie saying they had been rescued by a good Samaritan and were on their way to meet us.  Right then, we met up with them.  A man in a motor home stopped and he happened to have a whole bag of bearings and had just what Brian needed.  We didn't get back together and on the road until around 5 and still had 3 1/2 hours to go.  We pulled into Johnson Crossing at 10:49 p.m.  It is still light at that time of night now and for another good hour.  I can't confirm that as I was asleep pretty quickly. 

A forest bison 

What a day.  It was exciting to see all the animals in the wild.  Those Forest Bison are bigger than the ones we see in the lower 48; they were monsters.  The bears were fairly medium to small size.  I'll show you in the pictures and, by the way, the wild animals weren't anywhere close to where Brian was laying on the ground. 

Sign Posts Forest

I am so tired I can't remember some of the places we saw but all were beautiful.