Leaving the Cariboo

It is now the evening of Monday, May 30^th. I have no wi-fi or means to upload the Blog, but I can prepare it for upload when we get to that point. I believe we left off with our evening at the Wells Hotel, following our welcome discovery of the single malt whisky cache. The next morning we decided to have a breakfast befitting our location, so had flapjacks and sausage for breakfast, before setting out again to visit Barkerville. We were there bright and early (0930), and were able to explore many of the old and restored homes and stores in the settlement, and to partake in a few more presentations by the costumed period people. We visited the old schoolhouse where Mrs. Hall, the schoolmistress, treated us to an hour of lessons as they would have been in the 1860's. We also had a chat with Billy Barker himself, who told us his life-story and stories of the area. He looked very good for a man who'd been dead for about 199 years! We also had a demonstration of a Cornish water-wheel pump, all done in the guise of trying to sell us shares in a mine operation (as it may have been in those olden days). We enjoyed everything immensely, except for the one problem – the weather. It was very cold, and even snowing off and on throughout the morning, and had rained and snowed all night as well, so we were very glad we'd sprung for the hotel. By 1330 we were cold and had seen most of what we wanted in Barkerville, so we had a hot chocolate as we sat around a cozy wood stove with a blazing fire within.

It was time to hit the road again, so back out the highway to Quesnel we went. We'd been invited to visit a friend in Quesnel, a school chum of Linda's from back in Vernon in high school and university. Evi has a new patio home in Quesnel, and she welcomed us with open arms. We had a nice visit, chatted about old times, and took a couple of walks with her and her dog Brandy. We were treated to a delicious dinner, and slept in a very comfortable bed in a room much warmer than the 4 deg. C outside. We were even within cell phone coverage again (not so anywhere near Barkerville), and got a phone call from my brother in Ontario. In the morning we were treated to a lovely breakfast, and we said our farewells at 1030. I admit to being remiss here....I wanted to take a photo of our hostess – but somehow with all of our fond farewells, we forgot to do so. On the way out of town, however, we passed a giant gold pan which I'll add here.

Quesnel is into Moiling for Gold

This central portion of BC which we'd been driving through the past few days, from Lillooet, past 100 Mile, Williams Lake, and Quesnel, sits between the Coast Mountain range to the west and the Rockies to the east. It's mostly rolling ranchland interspersed with lakes and rivers. Now northbound out of Quesnel, we were leaving the Cariboo, and getting more into the northern portion of BC. We drove north for about an hour and a half, into Prince George. Here we had to make a decision. We could continue north and east, toward Dawson Creek, which would take us to the start of the Alaska Highway, and into the western part of the Rockies – or, we could turn west, back toward the Coast range, and then north into the Yukon. A short stop at Tim Horton's, with an online check, revealed the presence of numerous wildfires near our routing to the east. So we turned left and headed west again. After about an hour and a bit, we were entering Vanderhoof, which advertises itself as the geographic centre of BC! So in spite of all that I've just told you, with the Cariboo seemingly the centre, apparently Vanderhoof is the very centre....I still feel like I'm in the north, though. We were hoping to visit another historic site with costumed storytellers, in Fort St James (fur trading history), but we turned out to be too early again – closed until June 1. So we continued a few more miles and set up camp at the east end of Fraser Lake in a provincial park campground called Beaumont. Being seniors, the price was a reasonable $11.00. We had our choice of campsites, and after setting up under clear skies (finally!), a few other campers and RV's arrived. This is actually our first night of camping, with hopefully many more to come. One thing I found surprising was the proliferation of big black ants. In fact, fairly close to our campsite was an anthill I never would have guessed to exist in Canada....about 8 to 9 feet in length, and 3-4 feet wide, perhaps 4 feet high. I'll add a short video to show you this wildlife – a short pan to our tent at the end. I'm typing this out in the tent, using a word processing program, and will upload all when I can, with any updates.

Blogging in the tent