Letter 9 British Columbia II

Thursday, May 26 we were greeted by our host, with “this is a nice yucky day!” and he was so right. It was about 40 degrees, raining, and the wind was blowing. YUCK! Fred would go out and do one thing, then come in and dry his hands and warm up, then back out again. Miserable.

We made connection with Terry & June, but don’t expect to see them again today as they are staying over to visit Barkerville, about 40 miles off the main road. We will omitted the Barkerville trip.

Just south of our camp at Clinton we joined the Cariboo road for all our days trip.
Soon after we left camp we drove into Chasm park to see the beautiful gorge, but it was filled with fog, so we missed the sights. We could barely see the other side. We saw a different road sign today, a badger or wolverine crossing.

Many of the towns and settlements along our road are called 70, 83, 100, 108, 150 mile houses. These were established as post houses on the Cariboo Wagon Road to the gold fields at Barkerville. The count started at Lil’looet. Today some are barely noticeable and others are thriving towns. At 100 mile Visitor Center we found their
39 foot long cross-country skis! And atravel figure close to their Marsh bird sanctuary.

At 108 Mile we passed a reconstructed Ranch Heritage Site with a nice parking lot, but with the rain we passed it up. This would be a repeat of many other similar sites we have seen.
Near 130 mile

Wetland Conservation project is an important waterfowl breeding area in Canada. We watched for ducks in the roadside ponds, also bald eagles, osprey and great horned owls but didn’t see any. We didn’t blame them for hiding in this weather. You probably can see the raindrops on the windshield in these pictures.
At town of Williams Lake visitor center we were told the Cassiar Highway was open with no frost heaves. This was the most interesting visitor center we have seen. As we stepped into their tourist area Fred decided to trade our rig for this visitor formation, but they wouldn't part with it. It turned out when we watch their show in their log house theater, complete with sofa’s and stuffed chairs, fireplace and decorations, the loaded car represented all you could do in this area. Skiing, camping, painting, boating, fishing, biking, canoeing, and many others. Really different and well done.

We really fell in love with the Fraser River Valley and it’s green fields and apparently good earth.
We passed many pretty little lakes. This is really pretty country.

We traveled through valleys of pretty grasslands, with cattle grazing, and trees on the hills. Some pastures were covered with dandelions and logging products in the background.

Friday May 27 this was a more relaxed day. No deadlines or places we felt we had to make. A coyote played in the road in front of us. We stopped in the visitor center in Prince George and verified the Cassiar was open, so we made the turn that avoided this big city. The countryside was very nice to the eyes, but about the same as some of yesterday. We decided to make it a short day and stopped at a provincial park near Fraser Lake. This lake is not on the Fraser river. This was memorial day weekend and there were only a few other campers in this park. How nice.

Saturday May 28 today we had SUNSHINE! Things just look better when the sun is shining. We talked about this trip being more stressful than our other trips, in that we are moving every day and not resting, plus the research for the next day’s trip and keeping up with the blog is overwhelming. Our first stop was to see the Tintagel Cairn, named in 1913 after Tintagel, Cornwall, England. The central stone in the cairn once formed part of the Norman wall of Tintaget Castle, reputed birthplace of King Arthur, Knight of the Round Table.

In Burns Lake we stopped at a Mennonite farmers market and drooled at all the delicious goodies displayed. We finally chose some peanut butter mini muffins with a Reese's peanut butter cup in the top. We started seeing lots of aspens and figured this area would be really pretty in the fall, but then we noticed lots of spring run off too. Along this road we kept seeing signs that promised we would see moose, the next 6, 10 or 20 miles but we never did see one.

In Houston, yes the town of Houston BC, Fred tried his hand at the worlds largest

Fly Fishing Rod, 60 foot long anodized aluminum fly rod with the 21 inch fly is a fluorescent “Skykomish Sunrise.”

Olivia said she missed too many pictures as we couldn’t stop to get just the right shot, since we always have the trailer behind us.
We decided the dandelion must be BC's provincial flower as they are everywhere and so pretty. We even passed a little cemetery full of them. We started seeing this beautiful mountain in the distance and it kept growing. As we later learned this is part of the Hudson Bay Range. When we came into Smithers, it was right there! This mountain didn’t have any foothills, it just grows right out of the town! We had planned to stay in their Municipal Riverside RV park, but when we arrived the Buckley River was up and the park was flooded, so Fred had to BACK UP and turn around.

We thought of Ralph Jones on this one. It did take some head scratching and planning to figure this one out, but was actually easier than we at first thought it would be.
But all things have good endings. We moved on to the Glacier View RV Park about five miles out of town and were right at the bottom of the Hudson Bay Mountain with the

huge glacier in the middle. The glacier isn’t visible from Smithers.
We decided to take a rest and make this a two night stayover. There is a back road that sounds interesting and Olivia said we HAD to clean house! Plus buying a tank of gas every day is eating up our girls inheritance.

Back in Houston, we saw a motor home, but didn’t see the people. Shortly they passed us and gave us a thumbs up. When we arrived in Glacier View they had just pulled in. We made friends with Bonnie & Richard and shared our grill for hamburgers. They were staying another night like us, but are going faster than we are. We also made contact with the Rainwaters and they might arrive this day. It would be nice to have company on the Cassiar Highway.

Sunday, May 29 we woke up to a beautifully clear morning and then set to work cleaning house so we could go exploring in this area. By noon the temperature had soared to near 70 degrees. We drove north on this highway to the historic settlement for the Wet’suwet’en people, Moricetown was at one time the largest village in the Bulkley Valley. It remains as one of the valley’s oldest surviving settlements.

Moricetown’s most central feature is the

world-renowned canyon, where the Bulkley river narrows to only a few yards as it roars with white fury between solid rock walls. Note the tree being swept into the gorge. The spectacle of water and rock meeting with such force is one not to be quickly forgotten.

It is here the Wet’suwet’en fishers perform their critical and dangerous task of gathering the winter’s supply of salmon. From the canyon’s rocks above the river, First nations fishers use traditional gaff poles and dip nets to harvest migrating salmon.

Today the river was about 30 feet high and covered the fishing and work space of the First Nation people. Even today, this salmon harvest supplies a portion of the winter food for families and elders of Moricetown. Viewed from above we could see the little church and the village, sightseers from the highway and on the back roads bridge.

While we were stopped on the bridge, Fred visited with a town resident. He said the river is dangerous now, but when it is at normal elevation, it is just as dangerous. He said he hasn't fished the canyon in about ten years because it was too dangerous. If you fell into the river from the rock while fishing you wouldn't survive.

He also said their weren't as many fish. Ten years ago he could catch 10 sockeye in an hour. Last season, one of his friends fished all day and caught only 15.

We drove back to Smithers on the high road and passed manypretty ranches with the Babine Mountains in the background. Back in Smithers we stopped to take another eye catching ranch picture. Again notice the pretty dandelions.

We found an interesting story of this area: In 1911 Mr. Joseph Coyle, editor of the Bulkly Valley’s first newspaper developed a paper egg carton in order to settle a dispute between a hotel owner and his egg supplier, a local farmer. Properly packaged, the eggs were safe from farm to market. It didn’t take long for his idea to arrive on the market, and soon paper egg cartons were being manufactured throughout North America and around the world. It started right here!

Back at the campground we found the

Rainwaters had found us and we sat outside visiting. Later the Fiorentino’s joined us. We talked and laughed for several hours.

On Monda,y we venture off on The Stewart-Cassiar Highway (Hwy 37) which is designated a remote highway. It traverses some of the most beautiful scenery in the province of British Columbia. It passes mountains, glaciers, rivers, lakes and canyons. The total distance from the junction of Highway 16 to the Yukon Province border is 450 miles. Most of the highway (more than 85%) is hard surface. If you are looking on a map, this highway starts at Kitwanga, BC and travels through Meziadin Junction, where we will take a side trip to Stewart and Hyder, Alaska, then north to Bell II, Bob Quinn Lake, Tatogga, Iskut, 40 Mile flats, Dease Lake, Cassiar, Good Hope Lake to Upper Iiard, Yukon Territory. When we arrive there we will have traveled over 800 miles in British Columbia alone.

We emailed Ed and Jennett whom we met in Wisconsin on the Mississippi. They have been to Alaska several times and they sent the following message as a send off, “you are getting close to a beautiful scenic place in the world and a drive that you will remember forever . I hope the bears are out in Hyder, but go up the mountain to salmon glacier, great drive and great scenery...the park we stayed at in Watson lake has Wi-Fi with a free place to wash your rig. the park is downtown at Wye park . we are thinking of going again next year. its such a great trip and as I look back all our trips were different enough that they all seemed like we were traveling in new territory. KEEP YOU EYES PEELED FOR BEARS ON THE CASSIAR AND BE SAFE LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR NEXT UPDATE THANKS ED AND JENNETT.”

Think about us this week and keep us in your prayers while we travel this remote highway. There are only a few gas stations or villages along the way. We are looking forward to this adventure,

As usual email us at Olivia@bobheck.com or fredharrington@yahoo.com
We want to hear your reactions.