Dawson Creek is a small city in northeastern British Columbia, best known as Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway. For many travellers that is the whole point: this is where the long road north to Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, Whitehorse, and Alaska begins.
The town has a practical frontier feel, with grain elevators, highway services, and Peace Country farms around the edges. Its history changed sharply during the Second World War, when the Alaska Highway was pushed through in a rush to connect the continental United States with Alaska by land.
Dawson Creek is worth more than a fuel stop if you are interested in that road-building story. The downtown Mile Zero marker, the old railway park, and the pioneer village together explain why a modest prairie-edge city became a name on so many northern road trips.