Jul 15 2021

Lakes

July 12

After our one-night stay at Water’s Edge, we backtracked into town to empty the tanks and fill up with fresh water. Needless to say it was not something to look forward to because of the mosquitoes. Jeff and I were eaten alive and I ran back into the truck as soon as I connected the water hose. We also stopped by the gas station to fill up – that’s also the grocery store, the liquor store and a restaurant. It seems to be the hub and everyone knew everyone. Not surprisingly the fuel prices are quite high…

Onward to Boya Lake! The drive was beautiful – nothing but mountains, lakes and wildflowers along the highway.

We saw a bear, rabbits, foxes and grouse along the highway. During our drive we passed a number of lakes that spanned many kilometers – Dease Lake, Kinaskan Lake, Gnat Lake, Meziadin Lake. In areas where the road is bad, there is a small red sign warning drivers to go slow.

We stopped by Jade City which is mining town named for the rich jade deposits in the area. The population is approximately 20 people and we visited the main store in town that is a family run business since 1985. The children picked up some jade souvenirs. Apparently, BC supplies 90% of the world’s jade. In addition to jade mining, there is a fair bit of gold mining in the area.

We arrived at Ta Chi’ila, better known as Boya Lake. Boya Lake is known for the glaciated landscape and turquoise water. We were lucky to find an available spot along the lake.

Jeff spoke to the camping neighbours who complained about the bugs – that somehow the mosquitoes find their way into the trailer… Jeff didn’t seem too bothered by it since we’ve been seeing mosquitoes all along. We went for a dip into the lake and the water wasn’t that cold. There were many people in canoes, kayaks and SUPs. We made another attempt at introducing Harry to the water – nope, his paws were thrashing in the water like a mad dog.

As dusk approached, the mosquitoes started swarming around the screen door – no one wanted to open the door but we had to so we sprayed bug repellant on the screen. That night as we got ready for bed, we did a mosquito sweep. There seemed to be a lot of mosquitoes in the trailer – did they get in each time we opened the screen door throughout the day? Everyone was killing mosquitoes and there were so many! As soon as we turned off the lights, the buzzing would start again – lights on, kill mosquitos, lights off. The cycle of lights on, kill, lights off continued for a while… It seemed futile as there were too many mosquitoes – they were indeed coming into the trailer but how?!  We went to bed with the covers over our heads trying to ignore the chorus of buzzing around. Frustrated, I turned on the light after 10 minutes and saw at least a dozen mosquitoes above the headboard. How is this even possible? Jeff and I killed more mosquitoes but by this time we were quite tired and simply left the blood splattered mosquito smears on the wall. I put a t-shirt over my head and went to bed. Jeff tried to sleep under the covers but it was too warm and so he slept on the couch and covered himself from head to toe to prevent further bites.

After an uncomfortable sleep, we packed up at 6:15am… No breakfast (except for Harry), no teeth brushing, no hair combing – we left Boya Lake as fast as we could which is such a pity as it is a beautiful place.

We are now back at Meziaden Lake trying to figure out what we are going to do before we catch the ferry to Haida Gwaii on the 19th… but the first order of business is to rid the 5th wheel of all the mosquitoes we brought from Boya Lake. We probably killed close to 50 mosquitoes and that is not an exaggeration!

July 13

Last evening after we finished dinner, we were informed by the Park Operator that a big group was on their way to the park. They are the Warrior Walkers – a group from the northern indigenous communities walking from Whitehorse to Kamloops as part of the healing process and raising awareness of the lost children from the residential schools. I forgot to mention that there is a group of cyclists going from Vancouver to Tuktuyuktuk, we were with them at a few different campsites.

We leave for Terrace tomorrow morning and hope to get a spot at Lake Lakesle. We will be going to the laundromat and restocking supplies.

Jul 10 2021

Dease Lake

July 10

We are now at Dease Lake – which is a much smaller community than I expected. We are staying at a RV park with no services – except WiFi, which is very slow. Despite the slow WiFi, we are not really complaining as we have not been connected since Sunday. It is quite cold in Dease Lake – this morning it was 10C and it is now 17C in the mid-afternoon. We have a slight reprieve from the bugs – but they are still around, extra big.

Boat launch at the Water’s Edge RV Park in Dease Lake

While in Dease Lake we planned to visit Telegraph Creek. Unfortunately the road to Telegraph Creek has been washed out and they continue to repair it but allowing traffic through on a very limited basis. I guess we won’t be visiting Telegraph Creek and so we’ll cut short our stay here and leave for Boya Lake tomorrow.

As Boya Lake is also on the remote park of the province I don’t expect any connectivity for the next few days. The road has also gotten progressively worse since we left Meziadin. It has been especially bad with large potholes and gravel stretches towards Dease Lake and it has made the drive slower.

As for today’s wildlife spotting – we saw a fox. Pretty sure it wasn’t a coyote.

Jul 10 2021

Meziadin and Kinaskan Lakes

July 9

We left Fort Fraser for the Terrace Municipal Campground on Ferry Island – yes, the municipal campground is on its own island with over 100 sites. Interestingly, the province wide campfire ban did not apply to Ferry Island. For a large campground there is only one shower building – surprisingly it is never busy eventhough the campground is almost full for the long weekend.

While in Terrace we made a side trip to Kitimat. Kitimat is a resource town with a deep seaport. We explored the industrial area by the water and saw many large buildings and row after rows of modular workers quarters. There is a large smelter and a mine run by Rio Tinto – producing aluminum products. Further along the road we saw the LNG facilities.

While in Terrace we saw many red dresses hanging on the trees to represent the indigenous women that have gone missing along Hwy 16 – also known as the Highway of Tears. In addition to red dresses, we saw children’s shoes in a park along with orange ribbons for the lost children of the residential schools.

There is a 4.3km hiking trail around Ferry Island that has a magical feel about it. Over the years, a man by the name of Rick Goyette carved intricate designs on the bark of the black cottonwood trees. We had fun looking for the carvings as soon of it was quite small.

We also hiked up Terrace mountain – it was an ok hike – nothing spectacular.

Meziadin Lake Provincial Park was our next stop – we had reservations for a lake front campsite with electricity… and mosquitoes. It was quite warm during the day and you can feel the burn of the Sun on our skin… Good thing for air conditioning in the fifth-wheel! Meziadin Lake is very remote – it is along the Stewart Cassiar Highways (Hwy 37) with no cell reception. We spent our days reading and the kids went into the lake a few times. We tried introducing Harry to the water but that turned out not very nice. Harry wanted nothing to do with the water and was scratching me as I carried him into the water – I have a few long scratches and bruising on my arm and leg. Jeff jokingly said that he was too embarrassed to take me anywhere.

We took a side trip to Stewart BC from Meziadin Lake. We wanted to visit the bear viewing gallery and Salmon Glaciar in Hyder, Alaska (which we visited more than 5 years ago on our Alaska roadtrip.) Unfortunately the border remains closed due to COVID and so we ended doing not much that day. During the drive to Stewart, we saw a dear, moose and bear. Apart from that, we haven’t seen much wildlife.

We are now at Kinaskan Lake Provincial Park that is also along the remote stretch of the Stewart Cassiar Highway. We have a lake front site but unfortunately mosquitoes continue to plaque us. Our sleep has been interrupted by the buzzing of mosquitoes at night. Marcus has become quite good at killing the mosquitoes but unfortunately our nightly mosquito sweep before bedtime always seem to miss a few of them.

Jul 02 2021

Start of our month long road trip

We started our journey yesterday travelling to the northern region of BC. Traffic was somewhat heavy along our route and we saw many broken down vehicles along the way. We stopped in Merritt at Kekuli Cafe – the only reason to to stop in Merritt – bannockwiches, yum. As we left Merritt the air quality became progressively worse due to the fire in Kamloops.

We finally arrived at Lac La Hache for our first night. Jeff had said that it’s a buggy place that’s why it’s just for the night. Boy oh boy, lots of mosquitoes for sure. Harry didn’t like the mosquitoes and was snapping at them. As I was making our bed, I noticed that the vent was open – unusually very open…. Apparently we lost the air vent cover – how or where we don’t know. After all that unpacking and organizing, we were all feeling hot and icky so we headed down to the lake to cool off. Unfortunately we couldn’t convince Harry to join us in the water.. so much for being a poodle that are water dogs. We managed to carry him in to a few inches of water, he seemed a tad more relaxed but we haven’t got to the doggy paddle stage.

This morning we back tracked our journey to go to the RV supplies store to buy a vent cover and a few other items. This unfortunately set us back by a couple hours and it would make it quite difficult to get to Hazelton at a decent time. Plan B was to spend the night at Beaumont Provincial Park, nope, that didn’t work out. Plan C, um, don’t know. Fortunately with the help of Google we found the White Swan Municipal Campground in the Fraser Lake area. Big open space with a view and free. Hardly any bugs too!

We are now settled in and waiting for the BBQ chicken and corn for dinner. Should be a better sleep tonight. Tomorrow we will make our way to Terrace.

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