There’s Gold In Them Thar Hills!

Nine degrees Celsius and partly cloudy.  Bear count = 3.

Greetings folks – and huge thanks to Tony for saving our home and neighbourhood from a fire.

We have officially completed two full weeks on the road!  Exploring north America in the style we are using with the combination of Casper and Clark does involve a learning curve in terms of organization, packing LOTS of kit within tight spaces, and being efficient in terms of travel and mobility.  We have come to learn that getting acquainted with the use of an RV is not unlike the process of training a new puppy.  It whines at untimely times, doesn’t listen very good, chews on prized footwear, makes messes that must be cleaned up, but gosh darnit – hard not to love her as she sits there affectionately seeking your approval(?).

Our last post left off with us in the sunny and hot Okanagan. 32 degree’s baby! Oooohhh…the days of turning on the air conditioner and sweating through our shirts. Fond memories of those days.  Good times.  Kelowna as a destination was a key decision in our plan making. The purpose of said destination was to (a) pick up some wine and bask in the sun, (b) visit the awesome Schermann double cousins and (c) get acquainted with Clark in an RV friendly environment where there was a large population base and service shops should we need to do some tweaking to the unit. Best decision ever. Somewhere safe and warm to get to know our new friend.  And yes, some tweaking was in fact needed. More on that in a future blog.

We completed a bicycle ride on the Kettle Valley Myra Canyon bicycle trail upon trusted steeds: our two foldable bicycles – a 20 speed Tern Verge with thudbuster seat post shock absorber (Bill’s) and an 18 speed Dahon Formula bicycle with fat tires (Keoma’s).  Fantastic mounts who punched well over their weight.

Anyhoo, the 24 kilometre section that we rode crossed 18 railway trestles bridges– some large and some small – and went through two tunnels. An engineering marvel really and the payoff views overlooking the lakes, mountains and town site of Kelowna was spectacular.  We encourage you to follow the included link to learn more about the history of the railway, and the volunteers that have worked tirelessly to restore and recreate a truly wonderful piece of history as a gift to the community. Neither fire nor flood has stopped them. Thank you to the Kettle Valley Railway volunteers for the great day. Word to the wise – we used our 4×4 to get up the old logging service road to the trail head. That being said, the road conditions didn’t seem to stop several carloads of young ladies riding up in their compact cars, launching from one rut to the next, driving at the speed of light as if the trail was going to vaporize before their arrival – or the bush party might start without them. Hilarious!

Following up the great cycling, Bill spent the next day losing money on the golf course in his first game of the year with Keoma’s cousin Denis and his golf buddies. Keoma spent the day enjoying the waterfront and Kelowna downtown with Pat. For more cousin fun, the whole of one of Keoma’s cousin families gathered together (all six of them with their six partners and spouses) for a buffet dinner…because nothing says Schermann like a room full of food from end to end. Huge thanks to everyone for a great day! Also, thanks to Carol for pointing out that we don’t have a trailer. We have a camper. Henceforth we will work to amend our vocabulary.

In the following days, we packed up and waved goodbye to the lovely Apple Valley Orchard and began our northward journey towards the rugged and wilder land of miner 49ers, lumberjacks and pulp mills. The hot weather continued through the drive via Kamloops as we made our way to Green Lake Provincial Park for a peaceful evening of campfires and maybe take in a morning of kayaking on quiet, still, lake waters. Wait…was that the sound of a needle screeching across a vinyl record? Yes it was. After driving 30 km off the main highway to a secluded, peaceful, and quiet campground the damn mosquitos came at us like the walking dead.

Relentless, hungry, and big!  We sheltered inside and watched the beautiful evening sunset on the lake from the safety of Clark – while hearing the melodic drone of mossies.  Sons o so-and-so’s. We did get to see our third bear when we were pulling out which was a bonus.

Moving along, the next morning we left the mosquito’s behind as we headed deep into the remote BC Cariboo mountain range towards the historic gold rush town of Barkerville.  On the advice of Bruce at our Kelowna campground, we pulled into the Quesnel Visitor Information Centre and Museum and were very pleasantly surprised. Despite having to remove some of their exhibits due to the risk of damage as the result of parking lot construction (a piece fell off of the wall while we were there as a result of the pavement compacting) they had a fantastic collection from the Cariboo region and Quesnel proper. If you are heading through, pop in and stretch your legs and your mind for a couple of hours. We loved it.

Which segues nicely to Barkerville. Welcome to the time period spanning 1862 to the 1930’s!

What an impressive place – museums, gold rush period actors, geology lessons, hands on gold panning, live saloon musical entertainment, courthouse re-enactments from the early days of the colony of Ruperts Land and a real Cornish Waterwheel operation demonstration where we were treated to the Tim Conway-ish performance of the foul mouthed, rather perverted,  and strangely brilliant prospector, Mr. Grimsby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We would pay the price of admission just to see him again, he was that entertaining. Absolutely unexpected and hilarious. As a bonus, our trip has been paid for by the results of Keoma’s gold panning expertise – a paltry amount compared to the five million ounces that have been recovered from the region since the first strike in 1862.

Really gave us an appreciation for the strength, perseverance and hard

work demonstrated by the early explorers, settlers, railroad builders, commissioners, and gold seekers within the rugged BC backcountry.

And then the rain came. Not in a “rainmaker” making money kind of way. It just plain old rained and the temperature dropped to freezing. When we originally arrived at the campground we had raised our eyebrows at the “don’t turn off the water tap or it will freeze” sign. Suddenly it all made sense. Needless to say, our big plan of putting the kayaks in the water for a turn about Bowron lake was aborted. Instead we thought we would putter around the artsy town of Wells for the afternoon. Following a foray into the General Store where we received muted grunts in response to our query regarding hiking trails, and the only meat that we could procure was salted beef and pepperoni sticks that may or may not have come out of the owner’s personal stock, we agreed to pull up stakes a day early and make our way out of the Quesnel region and onto Prince George.

After a surprisingly quiet night in P.G. despite the whole campground being full of tree planters, we woke to the refreshing and energizing odor of many trailers in close confines all doing a Cousin Eddie, minus the goofy hat. And moving on…

Hello Smithers and your wonderfully run, blindingly clean, pathway riddled Municipal Campground.

It’s a lovely lovely town and we highly recommend a stop there. Keoma chatted with the campground attendant and learned that she was a foster child, had 24 foster children herself along with two biological children and that she works security in remote oil camps which made the pieces fall into place about how well run the campground was. She brooked no B.S. None. She also shared a sad and tragic story about the Prince George campground owner that Keoma had worked so hard to make smile and now she is really happy that she put forth the effort. Thanks Smithers campground lady!

Due to the spring runoff the local rivers were blown-out for what otherwise is world class fly fishing.  Bill was sad.

The push to Haida Gwaii took us through Prince Rupert and another chilly evening. Here we had our first campfire of the trip. It was sublime. But. All good things must end. In a panic to make sure that we had a place in Prince Rupert to store our trailer while we ferry’ed over to the islands of Haida Gwaii, we roared into town the following morning with Bill still in his jammie pants and the jacks dragging behind. That might be an exaggeration. The jacks were up.

Bill struck up a conversation with a gentleman from Ontario that was tenting near us and was cycling from Whitehorse to Prince Rupert but had to hop on the Greyhound as he was free camping and saw seven bears in three days. He is on the ferry that we are currently on to Haida Gwaii. Enough bears for him. This afternoon gained us another chance for a walk and a coveted dinner out. We made our way into downtown Prince Rupert via a trail through an old growth forest and had a tablecloth dinner at a family owned ocean front Italian restaurant called La Gondola which has been operating since 1969. Right next door to it is a drive-in restaurant of the same name which was the original restaurant. The décor in the part of the dining room that we were in was “fancy restaurant 1975” and was unintentionally kitschy and fantastic. The owner took care of us and told us the story of his dad, the land and the buildings and we had a great time.

Segue to the ferry trip to Haida Gwaii and where we will leave you for today.

We are going to continue on our quest, to experience Canada, to talk to strangers and share our stories and theirs with you.

There are two important lessons that we have learned so far:

1. There is a Canadian Tire nearly everywhere and thank God for that;
2. Strangers are pretty ok. Mostly they are weird like us.

Until next time, cheers from us!