Aug 06 2014

Onwards to Barkerville

Jeff has been looking for a spot to wash the truck and RV for a while. We finally found a good spot in Smithers – $20 and lots of J&G elbow grease to get the truck and RV sparking white again.
wash
Onwards to Barkerville where we spent a couple of night there. Barkerville was founded in 1862 during the gold rush in the Cariboo. Today, Barkerville is a historic town with a unique streetscape of over 125 heritage buildings, period room displays and satellite museums. We spent the whole day exploring Barkerville – it is really interesting with actors dressed up in that period walking along the street and a couple stagecoach wagons going through the town.
DSC_5994

Caroline with "Billy Barker", which Barkerville was named after him

Caroline with “Billy Barker”, which Barkerville was named after him

DSC_5991We attended a show to see the Cornish Waterwheel in action. The actors were really funny and entertaining and the lady kept on picking on Jeff during their skit.
wheel

Believe it or not, there is a chinatown in Barkerville! We had lunch at Lung Duck Tong Restaurant. We also attended a Chinese class while in Chinatown.. Jeff and the kids learnt to write a couple of chinese characters using the traditional chinese brush and also learnt a couple chinese phrases. Before we headed out, the kids did some gold panning and had a few flakes of gold to keep.

See the tiny flecks of gold?

See the tiny flecks of gold?

Aug 03 2014

Historic Hazelton

We are ahead of schedule and decided to spend some time in Hazelton – not knowing what to expect except totem poles. Our visit to Hazelton has turned out to be quite a positive experience.

We are staying at the ‘Ksan Campground which is run by the local Gitxsan people. The campground is next to a reconstructed Gitxsan village with traditional style buildings and a museum. The Gitxsan people who lived here before the Europeans arrived were hunters, fishermen and gatherers and are known to have been a highly developed society.
village

wolftotem

We went for a guided tour of the historic village this morning and learnt more about the people, their culture and way of life. After that we went to the Farmers Market in the New Hazelton. That was a waste of time… Historic Hazelton is more interesting.

We drove to Kitwanga which is another village about 40kms away to look at totem poles too. Some of these totem poles were depicted in Emily Carr’s paintings.
totem

We are leaving for Prince George tomorrow and most probably will be boondocking and then off to Barkerville.

Aug 01 2014

Stewart, BC; Hyder, Alaska

We drove into Stewart and Hyder for the day. Stewart is a resource based (ore and timber) community – really not much to see. The neighbouring town is Hyder, Alaska – also known as the friendliest ghost town in Alaska. So friendly that there isn’t a US customs check-point, you simply drive through.
hyder

There is a fish creek at the National Park in Hyder with a viewing platform/walkway to watch bears feed on spawning salmon – unfortunately we had just missed the bears but hung around for an hour or so hoping for another appearance.
platform
Since no bears showed up, we drove to our next destinations – Bear and Salmon Glaciers.

Bear Glacier

Bear Glacier

We drove up to the summit to get a better view of Salmon Glacier which is quite spectacular. The park ranger told us that there is a short hike that goes up beyond the parking lot for a better view plus it’s a beautiful hike with the wild flowers and something the kids would enjoy doing. It was indeed a beautiful hike despite it being buggy at certain points.
salmonglaciar

salmonglaciarhike2

salmonglaciarhike

Pretty little white things - too bad it's a tad out of focus.

Pretty little white things – too bad it’s a tad out of focus.

lupine

flowerpurple

flowerwhite

Back to the fish creek again – and we just missed seeing a bear – guess it’s not meant to be.

We headed back to Stewart and went through the immigration check point for Canada. We found the 2 grocery stores in Stewart and it was quite depressing – not much was green and alive. We had lunch at a neat little place called the Toaster Museum – it’s a small eatery and a museum with old toasters and other kitchen gadgets. In the restaurant is a signed photo of Robin Williams who was there quite a while back for the filming of the movie Insomia.

Jul 31 2014

Boya Lake Provincial Park

Oh boy! Boya Lake Provincial Park has got to be one of the most beautiful provincial campground with turquoise blue waters. Boya Lake is along the Stewart Cassiar Highway and we weren’t planning a stay there until we turned in to take a peek. We had a beautiful campsite and both the kids and adults went into the lake for a dip. Of course Marcus, aka Little Blue Boy was shivering within 10 minutes and had to be forced out of the water.

View from our campsite

View from our campsite

What a beautiful site :)

What a beautiful site 🙂

We are now camping at Meziadin Provincial Campground – and wifi costs $5 per stay. Tomorrow we are heading into Stewart (BC) and Hyder, Alaska. More on that adventure another post…

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