Heading North

This will be a post covering several days. It is being written off line because I’m not sure where my next internet connection will be over the next few days. We are heading into that area of the country that makes people, who are used to modern electronic communication systems, go into severe withdrawal status. No cell and no internet service! I think there is a pay phone at the campsite we are at tonight.
But first lets go back to Tuesday, July 13th. Got up in the morning and decided once again that the weather was too iffy to do the “back route” from Barkerville to Likely. We packed up, said goodbye to Quesnel and headed north towards Prince George. With the exception of some small delays for road construction, we passed through Prince George and continued on to a small community on the Yellowhead Highway called Vanderhoof. Stayed at Dave’s RV Park which was a number one place to stay. Clean and comfortable.

Got in early enough that we took a 60 km side trip to a National Historic Site, Fort St. James.
This was a Hudson Bay Post of the 1800’s that has been reconstructed. Very interesting site. Gives a good history lesson on the local 1st nation clan called the Carriers. They are a sub-clan of the Dene Nation. The warehouse and trading post themselves were well equipped with trade goods of the day as well as an ample supply of furs which was the cash of the day. The furs collected here by the Hudson’s Bay Company were shipped by mule pack trains, boat and barge to Prince Rupert on the Pacific coast. From there they were loaded on ships which sailed down around South America and up to Montreal where the HBC headquarters was located. From there they were graded and loaded on ships for England. The length of this trip for the furs took one year.

The site had about four animators playing various roles depicting what life was like back then. From what I saw I would suspect that there were many more people working there as animators and demonstrators prior to the budget cuts that the Parks Service has faced over the last few years.  One interesting thing they are trying here this year is providing a Bed & Breakfast, for a fee, at the home of the senior HBC man at the fort. They say it’s being well received and quite successful.
Got back to the campground, had a late dinner and got ready to leave for Kitwanga and the start of the Cassiar Highway to the Yukon.

We left for Kitwanga early in the morning. It was an unevenful drive. Weather was cloudy with a few showers. Lots of fishermen along the Skeena river as the “pinks” were running. We arrived at the Cassiar rv park in Kitwanga by late afternoon. The place has changed and generally looks run down. The owner is sick and friends are trying to help but it is obvious that maintenance is suffering.

Got under way early the next morning and drove up as far as Meziadin Provincial park. Got a nice lakefront site. Improvements made to the park since three years ago have it looking better than ever. Wind was blowing hard but not hard enough to stop the sockeye salmon from jumping. The park warden told us that 5000 sockeye were coming through the counting site daily. I bought a non resident fishing license from him, which allowed me to fish all inland waters in BC. The sockeye weren’t biting.

Driving the Cassiar is not the adventure it once was. Almost all of the 700+ km are paved or chip sealed.  The interesting thing is that they did not do much, if anything to widen the highway so now you have a narrow paved road with absolutely no shoulder.  This means if you drop a wheel off the pavement, you go in the ditch or down an embankment that could be as deep as 100 feet. We saw a one ton truck about 50 down in one spot and a semi that did the big dive in a ditch. Don’t know if the driver got out alive. The rig was completely on its roof and looked quite banged up. It was loaded with salmon which was all gone by the time we got there.

We left Meziadin and drove to the next park about 250 km up the line. Kinaskan is our favorite place.  It is a huge lake with lots of rainbow trout. We just arrived and got set up when Bob and Barbara (our camping neighbors) came over to see us. Bob had a boat and  asked me to come along. We got two nice rainbow for dinner that night.

The next day, I thought that it might be a good idea to teach N how to spin cast for trout. I set her up with a old rod I had, some lead weights on the line. I showed her the basics and left her to practice while I went to fish. By the end of the day, I had no fish and she could cast the lures out further than I could. I could see trouble on the horizion!  Getting late tonight so I’m going to quit writing. I’ll carry on with this story tomorrow.