Grizzly! And Jade!

Grizzly! And Jade!

We are continuing up the Cassiar highway, which is sort of the back road through Canada to Alaska.  The Alaska Highway is the main route, and the Cassiar is to the west of that.  It is 450 miles long and is a two-lane road, some gravel, but mostly paved.  It has steep drop offs with no shoulders.  There is so little traffic.  We counted 18 cars in over 150 miles of highway. But the scenery is gorgeous, and the road is ribboned on each side with ---dandelions!  They are so bright and add so much color to the blues and greens of the landscape.

One stop we make is at Eddontenajon Lake.  It is stunning because of the reflection of the trees, mountains and clouds in the water.  John got some great pictures!

We are looking forward to the only two places mentioned on this strip of highway – Iskut and Dease Lake.  Both are huge disappointments.  Iskut is nothing but a small store.  It is owned by the Nahltan Indians.  They have diesel, and since they are the only game around, it costs $4.81 a gallon. The receipt said Happy Valentines Day.  John tried to make conversation with the woman at the cash register, but when he asked her, ’how’s your day going?” she shrugged! The store featured ketchup-flavored potato chips, which I had never seen before, Old Dutch brand. They had scant produce that looked like it had wintered badly, but two impressive bunches of celery about 5 inches in diameter.

A black bear with a beautiful shiny coat is by the road.  I wonder why his coat looks so much better than the other bears we have seen.

Dease Lake, a mere 98 miles up the road from Iskut, is slightly larger.  It boasts the Northern Lights college campus that is a single small building.  I mention to John that you never see an advertisement for “Mom’s Café” anymore, saying “Home cooked food”.  Just as I said that, a sign appeared for “Mama’s Café” featuring home cooked food!    Dease Lake was a supply point for the Cassiar gold rush 1872-80.

Right after we left Dease Lake, John spotted a Grizzly!  He was foraging by the side of the road, and adopted a menacing stance when we stopped, then proceeded to eat without being bothered by us. 

Another bear, this one a black bear with two little ones hightail it when they hear us coming.  It is hard to sneak up in a diesel truck!  The bears with babies don’t linger!

We hit a lot of gravel road along here, and John is learning how to read the little red “slow’ signs they have placed near the “ice heaves” as they call the potholes and breakups in the road. 

The highlight of this stretch of road is Jade City.  Jade City consists of two stores, one on either side of the road.  They have huge jade cutting equipment outside, and two very friendly young girls staff the Cassiar Mountain Jade store.  We had a long conversation about a number of things.   They were the ones that told me Hyder was for draft dodgers.  I asked them about Queen Victoria Day (it’s today) and they don’t know what it’s a celebration for.  They’ll have to “Google" it, they say.  Yes, it’s in celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday.  Do they know, I ask, that the current Queen Elizabeth also celebrates her official birthday today?  Her real birthday is in the winter, as I recall.  You mean she gets to pick her birthday?  No, I tell them, she gets two!

The Princess Jade mine in the Cassiar Mountains supplies 90 percent of the world’s Jade!  Who knew!  They ship it off to Australia, China, Japan and other places for processing into jewelry etc.   The clerks keep John busy while I make my purchases.  They are looking forward to the summer and lots of tourists.  I sure hope they are right for their sakes!

Our stop tonight is Boya Lake.  It’s small, and it’s actually jade green!  There are jade rocks everywhere, along with rhodenite and quartz and hematite.  It’s just like gravel, with some huge boulders at the campsites.  We get a beautiful site with the mountains in the distance, and there are red canoes and kayaks on the lake until after 10 pm.  I hear fireworks, I guess in celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday! 

PS all the dogs at this site seemed to be named Max. And there are only three campers besides us! 

As of today, we’ve gone 3,343 miles!  It’s day 20. 

A Bald EAgle, Stewart BC and Hyder, AK

A Bald Eagle, Glacier, Stewart and Hyder Alaska

Our side trip takes us on route 37A, to Stewart Canada and Hyder, Alaska.  This is right at the tip of that huge area of inland passages the cruise ships use.  Why, I wonder, does the US own this prime strip of ocean off the Canada coast?  Someone later told me it was part of what Seward bought from the Russians. (Remember Seward’s Folly?) Another thing to look up later!

We weren’t on this road very long before John spotted a Bald Eagle.  I don’t know how he can do this and drive at the same time, but we stopped, and the Eagle was sitting high in a tall tree.  To me he was camouflaged against a backdrop of mountains and white snow patches, so it was an even greater wonder that John saw him.

This is another area of beautiful roadside snow capped mountains.  One highlight was Bear Glacier, where Nacho posed for a picture.  The top was covered with mist, but John got some beautiful shots, and the overcast sky seemed to make the contours of the glacier stand out, not to mention the incredible cerulean blue of the crevices.  Bear Glacier drops into Bear River, which follows the highway all the way to Stewart. But we didn’t see any bears1

Stewart has a population of 699.   It is considered to be a neat, well kept mining town.  I guess that’s because it’s compared to Hyder, which is really funky and almost looks like a western movie set.  The population of Hyder is 100, as you will note on the sign.

The town is not quite two city blocks long, and you have to cross the Canada-US border to get to it.  Someone told us later that this is where the Vietnam draft dodgers hungout.  My list of  things to “google” keeps growing! 

There is a trip out to Salmon Glacier, which everyone says is spectacular, but we choose not to do this drive, another gravel road.  There is also a well known bear feeding area here, but that won’t happen until the salmon run in mid July-September.

           Nacho had his picture taken at Bear Glacier.


          We stop at Dolly’s store, and she was sitting inside the doorway down a narrow hall about 20 feet.  She was wrapped in a blanket and engaged us in a pleasant conversation.  We bought some postcards from her, while she told us she’d been here 29 years, having come from Redding California, which she thought had gotten too civilized.   I wish we could have taken a picture of her, but I felt awkward asking. Her hands were terribly crippled with arthritis.  She probably has her picture taken a lot.  We heard from someone else that Dolly’s husband was Canadian miner,  and since the local mines were shut down, he had to go for work elsewhere.  The mines here were gold, silver and copper and haven’t been operational for a long time. 

We went to the Post Office in Hyder to mail the postcards, and when I mailed one to my sister in Nebraska, a man from the Post Office followed us out.  “I don’t mean to be nosy, and I wasn’t readin’ your mail or anythin’, “ he says,  “but I see your postcard is going to Nebraska and I was wonderin’ if you knew where Crawford was?”   It turns out he’s from Rhode Island and his brother retired from there as a Police Chief.  The brother retired at 45, but felt he was too young, so he took the same job in Nebraska.  “Everyone treats him like he’s regular people in Nebraska.  Not like they treat cops in Rhode Island.”   In the meantime, while John was waiting for me at the Post Office, someone billing himself as the Circuit Preacher came along and gave John a religious pamphlet. 

There is a border guard to get back into Canada.  Before we cross, John poses at the marker for the border and we look ant an old masonry building that was built in the late 1800’s.   We also look at the Portland Channel, which goes from Stewart to the ocean and was surveyed by Captain D.D. Guillard of the Army Corps of Engineers, who was also involved in the building of the Panama Canal. 

We backtracked up 37A and got back onto the Cassiar highway.  Almost immediately, we  spotted a mother bear with two cubs.  They looked like two year olds.  We also overtook our cyclists, who were within a short distance of their day’s destination at Bell 11 Lodge.  Good for them, and Marion said Andy was feeling better.  He didn’t look better, though. As we passed Bell 11, it looked like a pretty decent place.

Our stop tonight is at Kinaskan Provincial Park.  Just before we got there, the terrain changed dramatically from a lush, rain forest type of landscape to a northern forest of black spruce and rocks.  It seems to be a considerable dryer area.  The lake is beautiful and we are right at the edge.    

A word about Lake Kanaskan

A word about Lake Kanaskan 

This area was so beautiful and isolated.  The lake was glass smooth.  The lack of wildlife still strikes me, and I hope it is because it is so early in the spring.  We have passed patches of snow all along the road, despite daytime temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s.

In the evening, what strikes me is how quiet it is.  A hawk flew over my head, and I could actually hear his wings flapping.  There is the one resident Pacific Loon swimming in the distance, but he seems to be sitting still, not wanting to make a wake.

In the night, there is a single bird, a loud one, that chirps at around sunset (which is after 10 pm) and he starts again at the first morning light (around 4 am).  It is like the call to prayer, and I call him the muezzin bird.

Occasionally you hear a car go by on the highway, and during daylight hours, you can see it through the trees.  But they are few and far between. There is a single woman in our camp with a big dog.  She is sleeping in her car.  Two couples are driving a big Class A camper, the biggest we’ve ever seen, with two slide outs.  They sit at the picnic table and play a serious game of cards. There are a couple of others here, but in the morning, they are all gone and we have the place to ourselves. 

A change in Terrain

A change of terrain

As we continue our trek on the Cassiar, every vista is awesome and a beautiful mountain stands at the end of each road, or stream or above each lake.  Some are sharp and jagged, evidence of how young they are geologically. Just before we got to our next destination, Lake Kanaskin, the terrain changed drastically.  The guidebook says that it was the sight of a major fire in 1958.  Wow!  It makes me realize how long it will take out Cuyamaca area to recover from more recent fires.   We are also leaving the area of hemlocks and cedars that take cold wet winters and long dry summers.  Those areas were lush but now we see northern boreal white and black spruce.  It has quaking aspen and lodge pole pine.  Lake Kinaskin is pretty.  The ranger came and asked us how out camper got so dirty!  She said there weren’t mosquitoes yet, and to let the black flies bite so you could build up immunity.  Fat chance!

It’s 34 degrees in the morning.     Lake Kinaskan deserves a page onto itself, coming next.

Bicycling from Patagonia

Bicycling From Patagonia

John's photos are such high reslution that we are having trouble loading them.  So you will see some really special things once we figure it out! 

When we got to the Meziadin Camp, we did our usual routine of setting up the camper and then taking a walk around.  John spotted a couple with bicyclists who had set up their tent in the picnic pavilion. (It was raining off and on.)  He struck up a conversation, and discovered that they were from Switzerland and had been cycling for 17 months – starting in Patagonia!  

They had been in the campground two days, trying to wait out the rain.  After a brief conversation, we invited them to dinner, which they instantly accepted.  Marion and Andy are their names.  They skipped Central America, they confessed, because of time, distance and safety.  But they flow from Quito Ecuador to Cancun, Mexico, and resumed their journey there.   They came through San Diego in January.  We had a nice conversation over a spaghetti and salad dinner.  They were happy to have some beer, wine, and hot coffee!  They had told us they were running out of food so before they got to our camper, we fixed them a goody bag of some bread, ham, cheese, apples, oranges, almonds and a couple of trail mix bars.  Marion was ecstatic when we gave it to them as they were leaving for the night! We also included some cough drops and Thera Flu, since Andy was coming down with a cold. 

The next morning we watched as they prepared to leave, around 9 am, and went to the road to wave goodbye.  Andy’s cold was now full blown, and it was also his 41st birthday!   He looked exhausted.  They had such heavy packs on their bikes – we didn’t envy them the day’s ride one bit.  Marion thanked us again profusely for the food! They are continuing up the Cassiar Highway, while we are taking a side trip to Stewart and Hyder.  We fully expect to see them on the highway later as we backtrack to the Cassiar. 

Thirteen bears in One Day! And 30 miles of gravel road

Thirteen Bears in One Day! And 30 miles of Gravel Road.

We got up early the next morning and backtrackedfrom Prince Rupert. WE kept seeing these white things floating in the river, so John got out the binoculars to take a look.  It turned out to be ice from the waterfalls.  It melts quickly, but it is still ice when it reaches the main river. Then we are back at the junction of the Yellowhead Highway (16) and the Nisga’a Highway (113).  The Nisga’a are the local First Nations tribe.  The area is known for its Lava Beds.  I’ve seen a few lava beds in my day – Hawaii, Oregon, Idaho, to name a few, so I was prepared for some familiar sights.  We stopped at Seely Lake and I made some sandwiches to eat in the car.

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Not too much further, we encountered our first bear.  It was on my side of the car, so I grabbed my camera and started shooting.  It turned out the camera was not on the correct setting, and the bear was in the dark tree line, so my flash went on.  I tried to get a good shot, but the camera was slow.  John had rolled down my window so I could get a better shot. And suddenly the bear started coming toward us.  John says calmly, I’ll bet he smells your sandwich,”  just as I am saying “roll up the window and hit the gas!”  So what I got was some pictures of bear parts!  You’ll have to forgive my first attempt! But hey, I think if you can see the individual hairs its time to get going!

The volcano that created the lava flow was only 360 feet high, but it laid a six-mile swath of lava with very little ash.  It only happened 250 years ago, so the history is still very strong.  It destroyed 2 villages and killed more than 2,000 people.  The legend says that the young people had gotten complacent, having forgotten the old traditions  During the height of the salmon season, some young men were catching the salmon, making slits in their backs, and putting pieces of burning pitch pine in them.  When they put them back in the water, they looked like living torches.  They didn’t think about the cruelty to the salmon or the waste of good food.  The elders protested, and shortly thereafter they heard a large noise, like the beating of a medicine drum, and the mountain broke open. Fire gushed forth, caught the forest on fire, and very few people escaped. 

After the lava beds, we came to Nass Camp Road, which is a gravel road 30 miles long.

It was slightly raining was the ground was wet. John had been looking forward to this road, wanting to experience a gravel road since we expect to hit many.  Anyway, the bears seemed to be everywhere.  We only saw five other cars in this 30miles, but the bears were foraging along the road.  It was apparently warmer there, and there was  lots to eat because the road construction had cut clearings where the dandelions would grow.

So, we saw thirteen bears, all Black bears, along this road, (including the one that wanted my lunch, or wanted me for lunch! We got some great pictures and every one of our sightings was exciting!   These bears were more interested in the dandelions then they were us!  There were also one lane bridges and trees that lay across the road, although someone had cut them on both ends, leaving enough room to get the truck through.    The road finally took us to Cranberry Junction, where it connects to the Cassiar highway.  It took us an hour and a half to go the 30 miles.   Shortly after hitting the Cassiar Highway, (37) we came to Meziadin Provincial Park, where we spent the night.  

A Story about Skunk Cabbage

A  story about Skunk Cabbage

There is a wild plant called the Skunk Cabbage.  It has wonderful broad green leaves, and right now in the spring, it has a yellow leaf protecting a large cone shaped flower stock, which will be beautiful when it blooms.  It is everywhere in the swampy, marshy land we are traveling through.

When I was growing up, and we were going to my Grandmother’s in Oregon, we stopped  on the road outside Pendleton Oregon to pick my grandmother a beautiful bouquet of the bright yellow flowers growing in the foothills. (In fact, as I think of it, it was called Cabbage Hill!)   It was still cold out and the heater was on in the car. It wasn’t long before the powerful smell of skunk came wafting through the car.  It took a while to realize it was the flowers!  As we opened the trunk to get rid of them, there were also red ants crawling all over.  We had to empty the trunk and get rid of both the flowers and the ants.  My father was not happy over our bright idea!  But it has brought back lots of memories and laughs over the years. 

Prince Rupert

Prince Rupert on Yellowhead Highway 16

I don’t know why it is called the Yellowhead, but there is a silhouette of a yellow haired person on the highway signs. 

I had to make a separate page for this trip to Prince Rupert.    It is 90 miles of the most beautiful scenery imaginable.  First of all there are mountains on both sides of the road, all of them capped with snow.  At the base of the snow pack begins a waterfall that often cascades over several rock formations until it tumbles into a river below.  The route primarily follows the Skeena River, which we picked up in Hazelton.  Hard to believe that it was the primary navigation route by sternwheeler for gold rushers, the telegraph line, the railroad and cargo of all kinds.   Every turn presents a beautiful picture and we had great weather all the way. 

We stopped outside of Prince Rupert at Lake Prudhomme Provincial Park.  There weren’t many there, as has been our experience, but John talked to a couple from Maine who were on their way to Ketchikan – he to be a fishing guide, and she the bookkeeper for the summer.  They were in a tent and would catch the early morning ferry.  This is their third season doing this.  He is retired from the Park Service.    It rained hard during the night and we were thinking about them having to pack up all their stuff wet.

We decided to stay here two nights.  We went into Prince Rupert to get the lay of the land.  It is a small town that has received lots of hype.  In fact, we are finding that all of the things in the book we have, called “Mileposts” is hyped, only to find it’s very small.

The town has an area called Cow Bay, named for cows that were brought in to establish a dairy.  There was no dock so they had to swim to shore.  This received a big advertising spread and picture in the book, but is only about two stores big.

We went to Safeway, which I already covered. The ferry landing is at one end of town and the cruise ship area at the other.  They have an airport but it is out of town, and there

are lots of taxis, many run by men wearing turbans. 

The most impressive thing about Prince Rupert is the Museum of Northern British Columbia.  Nacho had his picture taken with a large Totem Pole in the Longhouse shaped foyer.   ( I hope the First Nations people are OK with that!)

It is a very well done museum, with displays of art and history re the natives and quite a display of the US Army, which had 10,000 troops there, primarily moving stuff to Alaska and the Pacific.   And oh, the things we aren’t taught in school!  Did you know that after WWI, the US considered Great Britain to be an enemy?  The Canadians thought we were going to invade, and they geared up to protect their borders.  How we resolved whatever issues there were and became allies by the Second World War is a subject for later research.

Another interesting this on display in Prince Rupert is a small Japanese fishing vessel.

A man named Kasukia Sakamoto went fishing on his boat the Kazo Maru on September 20, 1985.  He never came home and his boat was found washing up on the shore in the Queen Charlotte Islands in March of 1987.  The captain who found her brought her to Prince Rupert and through research discovered her history.  It turned out Kasukia was from Owase, Japan, which happens to be the Sister City of Prince Rupert.  His widow allowed them to keep the boat; it was restored, and is now on display.

We ate at a local restaurant called Smiles Café.  It opened in 1922 and has gone through several ownerships, but they have retained the original flavor of the place, including a placemat with the entire menu from 1945, when all those troops were here.   They had a comprehensive menu with interesting things like Fried clams French style 50 cents, Welsh Rarebit on Toast 50 cents, Denver Sandwich 30 cents and Fried Filleted Chicken a la Maryland Style 70 cents.   It made me want to hang around just to order some of these items to see what they were! It rained a lot while we were here, so we didn’t spend too much time in Prince Rupert, but I think we saw what needed to be seen.

Morice Canyon (cont'd) Lakelse, and Kitamatt on Hwy 37 South

Let's see - the last post was in Prince Rupert in a Safeway. They had a little wi-fi corner there, maybe because they had a Starbucks. Anyway, the place really got crowded, it was taking forever to download pictures, and John was waiting to use the computer himself - pressure! So I look back now and see my typos (those of you who know me well know how much that bugs me!) What I also didn't realize was that most of the people in there were crew from the cruise ship that had just docked. It was the Norwegian Star. Here I was thinking all of the people in there were natives (but they had really updated computers!) and they spoke a different language. How nice, I think, that they are preserving their native culture. Then I realize they are Filipinos, and are speaking Tag-a-log!

So, back to the bridge at Hagwilget. John of course, went UNDER the bridge to take pictures, out on some ledges. And I'm thinking - Wow, if he goes over the canyon, I don't even know the code to open the truck. I better get that!  Also, John liked the story about how they tested the bridge by sending the women out there with fully loaded packs.  If it held, then the bridge was safe.

Reminds me of the Country song, "Put another log on the fire --then come and tell me why you're leavin' me!"





This bear statue was in front of the visitors bureau at
Kitamat, which is a town out on Douglas Sound.  There were big plans to make it into a planned community.  There is an unbelievably large aluminum plant here.
Kitamat means "snow people" and the snowfall in the winter is one of the largest.  John thought that from the rear, the bear looked like it had a hospital gown on!  He is one of several statues that were painted by artists and auctioned off.

We stayed the night at Lakelse Lake.  Beautiful provincial campground with about 140 sites - we were the only ones there!  Love theat solitude.  Nacho liked this place, too!

Nacho had his picture taken in the beautiful garden that is above the town.  It overlooks Douglas Sound.  As you can see, we are having wonderful weather!  This little English garden was full of benches and a pleasant place to sit.  We also went out to a Falls, Moore Creek Falls.  It is right across from the Rio Tinto Aluminum Plant.  Beautiful!

Guidelines for our Trip - Two weeks in, 2675 miles ---

We have a guideline - 4 hours or 200 miles, whichever comes first. We haven't really hit that goal yet, but it keeps us grounded. We don't know how we feel about our first two weeks on the road. Has it been long, short, - we can't tell.

The stores up here are really nice. The grocery store we went to was spacious, the produce and meat were exellent. They have the bakery right next to the entrance, a sure way to get you hungry and in the shopping mood. Prices are a little higher than ours, but not outrageous. Drug stores are really nice, too.


We pass through very rich looking farm land - deep brown soil. There is a lot of grazing land, and hay in the fields but no other crops. We stop at Morice Canyon, which is a salmon fishing place for the indigineous people. It is much like Celilo Falls used to be on the Columbia River, before the dams. There is a fishing platform down there - and a memorial showing how many have lost their lives on these falls.

We travel off the road to an area called the Hazeltons. It is always amazing what happens in these cross road areas People were vying for the railroad, and then there waws a telegraph line being laid from here across Russian because the Atlantic attempt had initially failed. There were crusty ld characters running 30 mule teams to Dawson Creek. It was interesting.
John saw a sign on a board that said "the Dalta King is now in California. " No other explanation. Those kinds of things drive us crazy! I will have to write a special page on the Hazeltons!

Next to a suspension bridge called the Nagwilget Suspension Bridge. The Indians had actually built a bridge across this early on, but it continued to be improved and higher and higher. It is pretty impressive, and even more so because John chose to crawl out under it for a picture.

Pictures are taking too long to load and I will have to figure out a way to minimize them. So, you'll have to wait for them.
We moved on to Lakeelse, and a side trip to Kitamat, which is a planned community that is the site of a very large aluminum plant. It is also the home of the Kitamaat Indians, and they have fishing villages here. Nacho had his picture taken with a bear statue, and at the head of Douglas Sound. The waterways through here are amazing. Kitamat means People of the Snow because this area gets so much heavy snow.

Then we moved on to Prince Rupert. What the guidebooks don't tell yhou is that this 90 mile stretch is probably the most beautiful we have seen- The river widens, mountains on each side, snow melt and waterfalls that go from the edge of the snow to the edge of the river. Every blink produced another breathtaking sight.

We are spending two days in Prince Rupert and then on to White Horse and then Anchorage. This next leg will be 1600 miles.
Catch you at the other end!

Cache Creek, Prince George and More

Our stay at Marble Canyon was brief but welcome after the Caribou Waggon Trail. The next morning we easily made it to the junction of 99 and 97. 97 is called the Caribou Waggon Road. (Hey that extra"r' is not a mistake in Waggon. That's how they spell it!) The stretch of road from this junction to Prince George is pretty straightforward and goes through timber land that is infested with a pine beetle that has devastated the whole British Columbia Province. They estimate that the timber loss affects 20,000 famiiies.
There are also pretty rolling hills and meadows - everything a profusion of yellow - dandelions! The farming areas are under sprinkler irrigation . I saw a deer - the first one we have spotted. I was only looking because there was a deer crossing sign just before I spotted it!

The little towns or pit stops are designated as 50 Mile House, 73 Mile House, 150 Mile House. This is the distance from Lillooet and they were stage coach stops during the Caribou Gold Rush in the 1850's. Some of these places are trying hard to be tourist destinations, others are just holes in the wall.

The ponds along here look dry and alkaline. There is no wildlife of any kind. No birds flying overhead, no groundhogs, etc. I guess its early in the season but it feels eerie. We stayed at a place called the Bee Lazee RV Park outside Prince George. It had great bathrooms, but little else to commend it. It was also next to a pasture and the mosquitos were thick. They were little ones, and didn't make any sound. They rushed in the camper when we opened the door and spent the night feasting on the backs of my arms. How do they find the most tender spots? From now on its DEET before bedtime!

A quick trip through Prince George. We stopped at the visitor centre and there were two young men standing at the entrance. They looked up like deer in the headlights when they saw me. We were the first visitors of the season! We gathered information, and did our usual shopping. We found that Starbucks is the best place to use the internet. Two free hours. and the internet is fast It was a great relief from the "free" wi-fi we had the night before.

We are now on Route 16 heading to Prince Rupuert. It is about 450 miles, so we should get halfway today. The landscape starts out kind of ho-hum - rolling hills, some farmland, a lot of birch trees, no variation.

We went through Vanderhoof - the geographical centre of British Columbia. Boy was I glad to have that information!
There are some pretty lakes along here - and the little towns are lumber towns, or railroad towns. There is one, Fraser Lake, known for its mining of molybdenum!!!! I'll let you know later what that is!

There are a lot of roadside turnoffs, but my favorite one -- in fact I made John turn around and go back, featured the Tintagel Cairn.
This was a rock monument the center stone of which once formed part of the Norman walls of the Tintagel Castle , reputed birthplace of King Arthur. What would have been even more interesting was if they told you how it got here!

John spotted a deer, and then a moose. He has been commenting on those moose crossing signs, saying the moose on them looks worn out and "lumpy". That's one sorry lookin' moose, he says. The one he saw had no antlers, but "floppy ears." Then he spots another bear!
This one is a black bear, about the same size as the one he saw the day before. He actually turns around and goes back so I can see it! And it's still there. He turns around again, and manages to get a picture of it before it runs off into the woods. So, he tells me, he has spotted two bears, two deer, and a moose. Plus a couple of rabbits that started to run in front of us today and then changed their minds! I'm sure this "animal count" is not a contest, but it feels like one!

A little way further, we go up a slight incline, and there in front of us is a most spetacular view once again, beautiful foothills covered in dark green pine trees and lime green birch trees, the Hazelton Mountains to our left, the Babine Mountains to our right, and straight ahead is Hudson Bay Mountain at 5,550 feet. Wow!

We keep it in our sight until we reach the outskirts of Smithers. We are headed for a Provincial Park, but it is on a lake with no view of the mountain, so we opt for a place on the Bulkley River called Fort Telkwa. The proprietor is very friendly and helpful.
She tells us to watch for a bear and her cub who have been spotted this afternoon walking the path by the river. We set up and went out for a walk , but it started to rain, so we dashed back to the camper and had a nice dinner and listened to the rain patter on the roof. It will be great sleeping weather!


This view from our campsite is visible until 10 pm. And, what would the day be without stopping to smell the flowers!?

Marble Canyon Provincial Park

This park was just a little pullout in the road, next to Crown Lake, which doesn't look like much. We passed Pavillion Lake, and Turquose Lake. Pavillion is large and beautiful, Turquose is small and insignificant. The most interesting thing about these lakes is that they contain coral like formations that were formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the ice age. They are unique in the world. They are called microbialites.

We have a nice area below the car where we set up our table and chairs and just enjoyed the evening. Nacho liked the lake. It seems that each lake has one resident Canadian goose couple with three goslings and a Mallard couple. There were large fish jumping and flopping. Across the road is an area known for its ice climbing in the winter.

There are lots of flowers - one looks like an applie blossom to me, and the other delicate white flower I can't identify. There are also dandelions - big and healthy. And over the next few days we will see them everywhere.