British Columbia

The road from Skagway, AK to Carcross in the Yukon has an 11% uphill grade. While I knew my truck would pull the RV up with no problem, I did expect to be crawling along, holding up traffic. I was pleasantly surprised to get up the grades at "almost" the speed limit. Then again, the speed limit was only about 25 mph, lol. The drive is pretty with some deep gorges and glacial streams. Carcross was a surprise. It's actually a cute little town with a great bakery. I stayed a couple of days 'cause it's fairly close to Whitehorse (less than an hour's drive). I had opened a Canadian bank account at the beginning of this trip but want to close it before I would have to check that pesky box on the tax return that asks if you have any foreign accounts (lol). While in Carcross I walked around what they say is the smallest desert. The Carcross desert is about 640 acres while the desert of Maine is only about 40 acres. I guess the little one in Maine is actually smaller. Then again there is probably some technical definition that I'm missing. After walking around them both they both sure seem like deserts to me. From Carcross I took the Tagish cutoff up to the Alaskan Highway. The cutoff saved me from driving my rig back through Whitehorse and cut off about 150 miles of pulling my rig. It turned into a good road with some more nice views. I stayed at the Baby Nugget cg near the intersection of the AlCan and the Cassiar. This allowed me to get an early start with a full tank for the Cassiar. It also let me meet "Toby"! Mitch & Ellen are RV'ers who travel with their pet Toby who just happens to be a Shetland pony! I've seen people travel with big dogs but this is definitely the biggest! Ellen says Toby is great to pull her up inclines when hiking. She simply holds his tail and up she goes. Another amazing sight! The Cassiar Highway is said to be pretty rough for the first 120 to 140 miles and then great the rest of the way. Don't believe it!! It is the roughest paved road I've travelled this entire trip. The first 145 miles was tough to stay at 40 mph. The road is so narrow that mirrors on large RV's and trucks actually touch when they pass each other. There is no shoulder, steep drop offs, some wash boards, and lots of deep pot holes. It ain't a fun drive! I stopped to take a break at some road side shacks called Jade City. This place is amazing. They mine jade from the surrounding hills, over a 100 tons a year. Below the jade miners there are several active gold placer miners. Two different kinds of miners sharing the mountain in a very profitable way. I finally made it to Dease Lake in British Columbia. I was exhausted. I filled up (at over $6 a gallon after all conversions), had an early dinner, and thought of hitting the sack early. My short stroll around the little RV park, just for some air and unwinding, got me to meet Linwood (Lynn) and Melissa. They are a cute couple from San Antonio. He's a retired Air Force flight engineer and she's a nurse. Lynn has travelled the world and we were able to reminisce about sights, sounds, and smells from all around the globe. It was an enjoyable way to end a tough day. The drive on the lower part of the Cassiar was barely any better than the upper part. The road is better paved and a little bit wider. However, it was still not as wide as roads in the lower 48 and had several sections torn up by construction. Also, there are three places with 8% to 10% grades, up and down, that included near hairpin winding roads, two of them narrow dirt and gravel. This is not a road for the faint of heart. There were several sharp turns where I am very glad and lucky no one was coming from the opposite direction. I stopped for fuel and a break at the Bell II Lodge. I had thought of getting a bite for lunch but the flies were so thick I could barely stay out to fill the gas tank. Forget food, I'm otta here! Just when I was sorry I took this tough road I got to the valley heading into Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK. This is beautiful! Once off the Cassiar the road was great and the views are spectacular.  Within minutes of getting into the RV park called Camp Run-A-Muck (how could you resist such a place?) I met Bob & Elaine, and Bruce & Colleen, my neighbors on the sites on both sides me. Once set up, which took awhile as my neighbors and I chatted, I drove the three miles down the road to see the bears at Fish Creek Recreational Area. The site is part of the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the United States at 17.2 million acres! This site is said to have lots of black and grizzly bears grabbing salmon in the early evenings and mornings. The park, part of the national park system, has a boardwalk viewing area where supposedly the bears can't get in and us tourists won't bother the bears either. While I didn't see any bears this first evening, I did bump into Lynn & Melissa who I'd left this morning at Dease Lake. They camped on the Stewart, BC side and I'm on the Hyder, AK side. We chatted a bit and agreed to meet in the early morning to try the bear viewing again. In the morning Lynn, Melissa, and I got together and so did the bears. One particularly large grizzly became a very photographed fellow. It's amazing to watch the salmon literally run away as the bears slowly stroll through the creek bed. When the bear swats his paw to get a fish he rarely misses. Those bear paws move at near light speed, a blur that suddenly has a large salmon. One black bear charged the boardwalk and almost had some tourists wet their pants (lol). Another black bear was casually walking around the parking area and kept tourists real alert. After almost an hour of taking lots of photos and lots of conversation with Lynn & Melissa they asked me to join them as they drove about 30 miles to the Salmon Glacier and beyond. The road was a narrow, gravel road with several sections recently cleared from avalanche activity. Lynn's F350 dually had no problem with the road. Apparently he and his wife often go down unmarked dirt roads just to see what's there. The road wound through countless waterfalls and glacial streams. Really beautiful views. About 20 miles into our drive we came upon Keith Scott. Keith had set up his van with lots of signs advertising his self made videos and post cards. Keith has been hiking and camping through out this area for over 30 years. The photos he has made into post cards are beautiful. His videos obviously took a lot of time and patience to capture the wildlife. I'll enjoy these videos for many years. After 30 miles the narrow gravel road finally ended. We walked around a little, took some photos, and headed back. On our way back a pack of river otters, over a half dozen, ran in front of Lynn's truck. It was an amazing sight. It reminded Lynn why he wants to install a video cam on the front of his truck. Lynn, Melissa, and I got together again for dinner and to watch me keel over when I got "Hyderized"! Getting Hyderized meant downing a generous shot of something very, very strong. The bar wouldn't say what was in the drink but I can say it was strong. It tasted like the most potent whiskey you could imagine. Somehow I survived.




I've been feeling a little melancholy since heading out of Alaska and even more so now. About 100 miles out of Hyder I seemed to be back in civilization. The roads seemed like "regular" roads. Farms began to appear alongside the road taking the place of the magnificent mountains and deep gorges I'd been seeing for the past several months. Small communities appeared every few miles. No longer was I in some remote place hundreds of miles from anywhere and anything. It's still about a week of driving to get into the lower 48, but it already looks like I'm there. The cg in Ft. Telkwa is right on a river with record trout fishing. What attracted me to this cg was an RV wash and a sauna. After about an hour of scrubbing and power washing my truck and rig most of the mud and dirt was off and I was exhausted. After another hour in the sauna and then a very hot shower I was again relaxed. A quiet evening with a pretty view of the river. Next day I cleaned the RV some more, did several loads of wash, and enjoyed the sauna again. When I got out of the sauna, there was Lynn & Melissa. They stayed in Stewart/Hyder an extra day to let the smoke clean. There had been severe forest fires along the road I drove yesterday, so severe the road had been closed. I got through okay but they decided to wait one extra day. We chatted a bit and went to a very nice steak restaurant in Smithers, a few miles from our cg.


The next day I drove a little further than I originally wanted to but managed to get past the town of Prince George, taking a bit out of my next drive. The cg in Hixon was a quiet little family place. The folks on both sides of me came over to welcome me and say "hi". It was so pleasant, right after setting up I went and extended my stay an extra day. The two days went fast alternating sitting by each of my neighbors campfires chatting into the evenings. My next drive began easy enough with a planned stop at a Walmart about two hours away in the town of Williams Lake with thoughts of several camp grounds a couple of hours past that. The Walmart became an interesting stop when my GPS took my down an unfinished road. The road was a steep, narrow grade with a big sign saying "No Trucks"!! I managed to pull far enough into a driveway to enable me to make a broken "U" turn. Not a fun thing on a narrow road pulling a trailer. None of the cg's appealed to me and I just kept driving. Next thing I realized I was close enough to Whistler to make it. I had skipped two initially planned stops and driven for almost 10 hours, definitely a record for me. This is a record I didn't want and really don't ever want to break. The last 100 to 150 miles of my drive was along a narrow, winding mountain road with great views but a tough drive. The road had several sections torn up for construction. I also had several very steep grades going up and down where I was in 2nd and even 1st gear! This was really not a fun drive. The cg in Whistler claimed to be a resort. I wanted to stay a few nights but they only had a site for one. The site was okay, but definitely not worth anywhere near the $50 it cost!! I had fond memories of Whistler, pristine, pretty views. Over the past 30 plus years this place has become a tourist mecca. Lots of little village like developments with condos all over the place. The village itself is made of upscale boutiques, restaurants, and lots of junk shops. The drive to Vancouver was a continuation of the winding, narrow mountain road. Great views, but lots of steep grades. At least there was no major construction. I may have grown up in a city (New York City) but I really don't like driving through them. Vancouver was absolutely not fun driving through! I have no idea how I made it without a scratch on the rig or truck and without killing at least one of the idiots who constantly cut me off. The cg is a real trailer park that is part of a very active water park. At least it's close to the Victoria ferry. Victoria is still the pretty city I remember from years ago. It sort of circles a little harbor with a walking path completely around it. There are lots of little marinas and a very active seaplane terminal. The cg I pulled into, while the sites are a little short, is very cute. In addition to the RV park they are also a marina and have lots of houseboats. The road was to narrow for me to back into my site so two RV'ers had to move their vehicles. The one opposite me, a long termer, was a little nasty, who fortunately must have worked in the area and so I didn't see much of him during my stay. Drew, camped next to me, not only was pleasant and understanding, he helped guide me in. He and I got to chatting a little each day, very enjoyable conversations. He's from Calgary and has been spending his winters in Lereto Mexico. It's a little town about two thirds down the Baja Peninsula and the western shore of the Sea of Cortez. He maintains a blog called "LivingLereto" which you may want to check out. Drew is also taking the ferry to Port Angeles, WA only a few days after me. He's going to a blues festival that sounded like fun. I guess that will be my stop after Port Angeles. I think Victoria has almost as many people on bikes as in cars. It's a very friendly, easy city to get around with cute little water taxis available to take you from one part of the harbor to another. I took a water taxi into the city one day and walked back. It was about 45 minutes to walk completely around the harbor. The Hippo tour was fun. In some US cities they call this a Duck tour. It's a huge bus, with open side and a canopy top, which, after a tour of the city, drives into the harbor and becomes a boat. If you've never taken one of these I do recommend it, it's kind of cool. The museum was having a special exposition on Vikings, including an IMax film about their lives and explorations. I hadn't realized how many recent discoveries have been made concerning Vikings, several as recent as 2008 and 2009 which are still being examined. I really like Victoria with it's flower gardens all over the city, very clean, and a very mild climate pretty much year round.


Heading for the ferry to Washington I suddenly had weird feelings. Being a full time RV'er I'm always home but returning to the lower 48 is giving me a "feeling" of going home. It's a strange feeling since I'm not heading anywhere but another campground. I guess most folks have a similar feeling when they return home from say a vacation. I enjoy travel through Canada but definitely "feel" the United States is home. I'm looking forward to getting my mail after almost four months without it. I'm looking forward to travel through the Pacific Northwest. I'm looking forward to lots more adventures. However, I'm also a little sad that my Great Alaskan Adventure is now at a close.