August 7 – 11 Carl will want a new truck I am sure!
We pick up the rental pickup at Barnaby, BC, just east of Vancouver. We opted for a ¾ ton, thinking Ford F250. They present us with a Ford F350, with all the bells and whistles. We need a hitch adapter so we take off to Canada Tire to purchase that only to be called and asked to return since the rig they gave us is due for maintenance in 1000 km. We set out again headed for the Cassiar route via Hope rather than the curvy, steeper Whistler route. Hope is a pretty little town and we are able to snag an inexpensive Styrofoam cooler, some ice and some groceries to round out our “car camp.” 374 kilometers after picking up our rental pickup we are ready for our fist night of car camping.
We head into the Gold
Country RV in Clinton BC. We have been
seeing signs about their $14.95 sites and $9.99 nightly BBQ buffet. Sounds good to us. In the office she says, “OK, a site for the
night is $26.00.” “Not $14.99?” “Oh, you don’t need any hookups,” as she is
staring at our naked pickup, no RV attached.
“Nope, just a tent site.” “Oh,
OK, $14.99,” and she proudly hands us a US penny. Canada no longer has pennies. After enjoying our nightly bourbon for Carl
and glass of red wine for me, we come back later for the buffet to find out
that it is now $12.99 if you do not want any meat. Well……it’s kind of not BBQ if there is no
meat so Carl adds ribs and I add Filipino chicken, both delicious.
After 46 plus years, it has finally happened, Carl and I are sleeping in separate beds, he is on the back bench seat of the Ford F350, and I am on the front bench seat. Thankfully we are not very tall! We sleep “OK” in our cocoons and polar fleece blankets. The cocoons are extremely light weight, thin yet warm sleep sacks. We enjoy our car camp breakfast of granola, BC blueberries, and milk. Our GSI nesting camp kit from Jacob’s company, provides us any necessary serving dishes. Coffee is obtained at the local gas station mini-mart and we hit the road.
We fill the diesel tank at the Prince George Costco, $1.79 litre (roughly $6.70/gallon US). That is the cheapest we will find it for quite some time. Wanting to make some time while we are not towing our trailer, we motor north another 355 miles to a delightful, free municipal campground at Fraser Lake, the White Swan Municipal Park. We set up in the back row since we can easily back in, leaving the drive through spots for those towing trailers. Dinner is leftover BBQ and green salad. We walk the shore, watch a helicopter in the distance, and read books. We see a biking couple come in and they set up their tent camp beside us.
She, Lisa, comes over and asks us if we want any oatmeal as the bag they had to buy is way too large for them. We pass, letting her know we have no way to cook it given our current car camping setup. He, Eric, takes it down to the birthday party group and he is able to offload it there. They had been asked to join the BD party earlier and had enjoyed lots of food, so he returned the favor.
The next morning Pam arises (from her bench seat) early to
sit up and read. Eric comes close by her
window and asks “would you like a cup of tea?”
“Tea would be great,” Pam says.
Shortly thereafter Eric returns with a large cup that Pam pours into our
2 GSI cups. Nice, neighborly gesture,
since he knew we had no way to cook.
Remember a day or so ago I mentioned that the First Nations weaver indicated our trip has gone this way for a reason. The reason now becomes apparent. Pam returns from the local facilities and is greeted by Eric, “you don’t know it yet, but we will be joining you two.” “That would be great,” Pam says. Apparently Lisa had talked with Carl, eyeing our empty pickup bed and super cab. “We just realized that that an infection that Eric had a while back has apparently returned. We need antibiotics and can we get a ride with you to Smithers?” “Of course,” Carl says. Eric is frantically picking up their camp and I tell him there is no rush. We are only up this early because the sleeping arrangements are not ideal.
Eric assures us he did not offer us a cup of tea as a
prelude to Lisa asking us for a ride. He
is curious as to why we don’t have a cooking option in our car camp and we
explain the unknown of whether or not we could bring fuel onboard the train and
cross into Canada with it. In hindsight
we could have purchased a 110 hot plate and just plugged it into the 110 outlet
(one of the bells and whistles) on the F350!
The time passes quickly as the 4 of us have lots of things
to share with each other. They are more
recently retired than us and have been on a long, back roads bike trip from
Moscow Idaho. We are long retired and
making the most of a long, convoluted trip to Alaska with our pickup and travel
trailer. They enjoy being aunt and uncle
to a brood of nieces and nephews, we definitely enjoy being Nana and Papa to
our 4 grandkids and more recently, Viv’s grandkids (getting to know them
slowly). We all enjoy a variety of
travel opportunities. We drop them in
Smithers and hopefully they are able to obtain the antibiotics so they can
continue to Prince Rupert and the ferry to begin their return home. They thank us profusely for saving them 3
solid days of biking while Eric was fighting an infection. They offer and we refuse, payment for diesel
and suggest that they just pay it forward when the opportunity arises.
Given our early start we decide to push on and we make the turn north at the junction of the Yellowhead Highway #16 and the Cassiar Highway 37. We are glad to be off of this section of Highway 16, the “Highway of Tears,” a whole different, disturbing piece of ongoing history you might want to read up on.
Just past the 16/37 junction is the First Nation’s community of Gitanyow Historic Village with the largest collection of standing totem poles in NW British Columbia. The rest of the day is easy driving on a very scenic country highway. We turn west at the 37/37A junction and head for Stewart BC, along the Alaska border. We opt for a hotel to catch up on sleep and a shower, having seen numerous, large billboards advertising the King Edward Hotel, $79.
Arriving at the hotel we ask for a room. “We have rooms across the street in the motel
for $149.00.” “How about the $79/night
rooms?” “Oh, those are a promotional
rate.” Pam’s blank stare and request for
one of those nets us a $79/night room, almost.
“That is for one person and there are twin beds only.” Another blank stare. “We will take one of those.” “That will be $10 extra for the second
person.” “That is fine!” We finally have a room for the night. What the heck, we have been sleeping in separate
beds for a few nights anyway! I wonder
what they are promoting if they don’t even offer the rooms to customers!
One of the reasons we took this side trip, well, two, we are not towing a trailer and there is a bear “feeding” boardwalk just across the line in Hyder Alaska. We will make it to Alaska again! After about an hour futzing with the required Recreacion.gov website to get the pass for the day, Pam gives in and has son Jacob order the pass on his home computer. Recreation.gov is required for so many great federal recreation opportunities that are located in places that have little to no cell coverage. This is very short sighted of the government and there has already been one lawsuit about the exorbitant fees the vendor charges. Maybe a short note to the Oregon Congressional delegation is in order.
Bright and early the next morning we dine in the room on our
road trip breakfast and head out for the Fish Creek Wildlife Observation area
in Hyder, Alaska. It is a couple miles
to the US – Canada border and about 5 miles past there. Oddly, there is not a US Customs post as you
enter Hyder. The boardwalk along Fish
Creek and Marx Creek is very sturdy and enclosed on both sides and every
entrance, to hopefully keep any bears away from all the curious humans.
The creeks are overflowing with Chum Salmon, returning to spawn. The photos do not do justice to the number of salmon and the active splashing that is ongoing. Sadly, no bears came to feed while we were there but we do see two delightful, curious cubs on our short drive back.
We make it through the Canada Customs just fine, although he asked more questions than we have been asked in a long time. Where is home? Portland Oregon. Where have you been? King Edward Hotel. How long will you be here? A couple more weeks. Do you own this vehicle (giving the rig a good look and with a definite set of his jaw)? No, we rented it. Where did you rent it? Burnaby, BC. Why did you rent it? To retrieve our travel trailer in Watson Lake, Yukon. Any cannabis? No. Any alcohol? Yes. Any firearms? No, and we are on our way.
Today is a slow mosey up the very pretty, country type two
lane highway. There are no passing lanes
but lots of turn outs and not that much traffic. The mountains are large, the country big and
the vistas amazing. There is a bit of
cloud cover so we cannot see the tops of some but the drive is quite
enjoyable. We stop at one spot with a
spectacular, rocky, monstrous mountain and Carl sets up the spotting scope we
borrowed from son Zach. He has spotted a
mountain goat. Pam can finally pick it
out after much coaxing…..Viv will understand this…..Carl – “see those trees
along that ridge that goes over to that opening,” or something along those
lines. There are many of all of those
things on this mountain. Pam – “OK, from
this telephone pole straight up, which direction is he? Oh, way far off. OK, from that pole instead, up the ridge. There he is!”
And off we go.
Sunday we motor on up the Cassiar enjoying the scenery and
the gentle winding roads. There are some
8% grades but not very long ones. The
foliage is nearly in its fall colors, which seems quite early. We stop numerous times to look for bighorn
but do not find any. The wildlife
observations for the day include a quick darting fox and a pine marten. We stop at one lodge, hoping to get a coke. It is eerie, not a soul in the entire
building, tables set, lights on, but nobody home. We wander among the wildlife mounts thinking
surely someone will come. Another
customer comes through the door hoping for a cheeseburger. The three of us eventually leave.
As we leave the Cassiar mountains we enter the Yukon plateau
and are back in the low growing, boreal forest and flatlands. This area has burned numerous times according
to the woman who owns and runs Carol’s Cookshack at the junction of the Cassiar
(#37) and Alaska (#97) highways. A nice
sausage dog (she is out of the pork tenderloin) and we are on our way.
By 5:30 we are back at TerraVia, our travel trailer and
settle in with hope that tomorrow brings us a functioning pickup.
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