The historic lodge's dining room is more famous for its collection of baseball-style caps hanging from the ceiling, a gathering started in 1979 when a forgotten hat belonging to a local was tacked to the ceiling to await his return. Now, the collection numbers more than 7,500 hats.

And now, customers passing through Toad River Lodge can write about the odd hat collection and the small community of about 75 people as they log onto their e-mail accounts and surf the Web from the rustic facility. Currently, the wireless service extends from the lodge to the campground's laundry and a few of the camp sites.

“Next year, we'll have wireless throughout the park,” said Darrel Stevens, who bought the lodge with a business partner in 1998.

Cleaning up after a busy Saturday evening crowd in the dining room, Stevens said business has been good at the lodge, which is roughly the midpoint on the Alaska Highway, between the northern British Columbia communities of Fort Nelson and Watson Lake.

“It's been exactly the same as past years, even a little better,” he said. “The RV park has been a little higher ... we've grown every year since we've had it open.”

That's despite soaring fuel prices, which equaled $6.24 per gallon for gas and $6.43 per gallon for diesel in mid-July at the Toad River pumps.

Stevens attributes part of the campground's business increase to other RV parks along the Alaska Highway staying closed for the summer of 2008. For example, just four miles up the Alaska Highway, the recently constructed Poplars Campground and Cafe was closed, and access was blocked in mid-July, the peak of the northern tourist season.

Toad River's attraction also includes a natural, wilderness-like ambiance from its location, complete with camping spots lining the edge of Reflection Lake behind the main lodge facility. A cow moose feeding in the lake and beaver activity in another nearby pond certainly helped draw in campers hoping to score a wildlife photo.

Other recent improvements to the Toad River RV Park include substantial grounds-keeping efforts, including cutting the natural vegetation to keep bug activity low and planting additional grass. A garden in the middle of the park showed off lettuce, radishes, peas, green beans and other harvestable produce.

“People come here and they have grassed RV sites, with lots of space,” Stevens said. “Other places, they pull up and park side-by-side in a gravel pit, with hardly enough room for the slide-outs.”

He conceded that the actual number of tourists this summer is likely lower than in past years, even though Toad River numbers have been up. And so far, Stevens doesn't see any declines in trucking activity.

“The truck traffic has been the same, no matter that the price of fuel has gone up,” he said.

Groups caravaning up the Highway this summer include Harley Davidson motorcycles, classic cars and recreational vehicles, according to lodge co-owner Darrel Stevens. Photo/Patricia Liles/For the Journal

Stevens and his partner spend some $160,000 a year on fuel for their 95-kilowatt generator system, which the lodge owns and operates to provide electricity for the roadside facility and three additional houses. That is expected to change shortly, he said.