Traveling Through British Columbia

From what we’ve seen so far, our RV fits right in in Canada.  Many of the rigs we’ve passed have been on the small size – quite a few Class Bs, like ours, or small Class Cs.  The opposite is true in the United States, where the large majority of rigs are rather large, and we sometimes feel like the odd-man-out.  Since our RV was produced in Canada, we feel doubly at home.

Although the scenery was not as dramatic as Fraser Canyon, the drive north continued to be a pleasant one.  Traffic was not heavy, the road was in very good condition and the weather was great.  We passed a string of lakes and eventually began to follow the Fraser River once again.  Unfortunately, I could barely find a clear spot on the windshield for photographs.  Those bugs have been vicious.

Tim Wasn't Able to Identify the Bug Species on the Windshield - Yuck!

Now That's a Somewhat Better View of Williams Lake

Williams Lake was one of the larger lakes we passed, and the town of Williams Lake is where we stopped for lunch on Monday.  While there, we also filled up with diesel for the first time since crossing the border.  I don’t even want to attempt to convert liters to gallons and try to figure out the price.  However, if the exchange rate is around $1.15 (at least that’s what it was when we got cash from an ATM), a table I looked at indicated the cost would be about $3.59 per gallon, which is about 50 cents higher than we paid on our last fill-up in Washington.  I knew the Canadian prices would be higher, and I’m ok with that price.

Although we sometimes have been able to connect to campground Wi-Fi, we have also started to make an almost-daily stop at Tim Hortons.  This Canadian chain seems to be a fixture in almost every town, and it offers super-fast Wi-Fi.  The coffee is also really good.  Despite what I said on previous posts, I really am not that dependent on internet access.  I can survive without it, although the lack thereof has made travel planning a bit more difficult.

Looking for Wi-Fi

As we were making our way north toward Prince George, we had our first wildlife sighting.  It wasn’t a deer, but instead a big, fat black bear!  He was on the side of the road and just looked at us as we drove by.  Sadly, I wasn’t quick enough with the camera to capture the moment.  We certainly had not expected to see bears so soon into the journey.

Promises, Promises - We Only Saw a Few Deer on Tuesday

On Tuesday, we continued our trek northward, and made a turn to the west onto the Yellowhead Highway.  Despite the logging activity in the area, the scenery was lovely as we made our way through the valleys of the Nechako, Bulkley and Skeena Rivers.  Part of the drive passed through the Lake District, with more lakes than I could count.  Smoke from a two-day old wildfire along one of the lakes was visible from the highway, and it provided a sad reminder of the fires that hit Colorado several years ago.  Temperatures much warmer than usual were not helping the firefighters.

Smoke from the Wildfire at Bobtail Lake

One fun stop was the town of Houston, which proudly boasts the World’s Largest Fly Fishing Rod on display by the visitor center.  Tim is hoping to do some fly fishing in Alaska, but I don’t think he’ll use a rod quite that big.  After leaving Houston, the views became much more dramatic as the snow-capped peaks of the Babine Mountains and the Hudson Bay Range came into view.

The World's Largest Fly Fishing Rod

Approaching the Babine Mountains

Nice View!

We finally ended the day at Tyhee Lake Provincial Park in Telkwa.  This was our first visit to a provincial park, and we were impressed.  The campsites were set among trees with a ton of space between them.  It’s not the place if you need hookups, but we were just fine.  It’s good to test the solar and batteries.  There were only a couple of other campers in the park, and we claimed one of the few sites with a view of the lake through the trees.  We will definitely check out more of BCs parks on our travels.