On Friday, although cool and partly cloudy, Janet, Tricia, Joan and John went to play a round of golf at Birchdale golf course. After golf Janet and Trisca treated us to nice lunch at Riverside Bar and Grill. A friend of Janet's and Tricia's arrived for dinner as well as to spend the night. Of course we stayed up late playing cards.
We got up early Saturday morning so Joan could make breakfast for Triscia as Janet and Triscia were off by 7:00 to a Fire Dept course. After breakfast we drove into Vernon to get some RV bits at an RV shop. We also did laundry and some clean up in preparation for our Sunday departure. Janet and Triscia got back from their course about 4:30 so we bowled and played golf on the Wii. In the evening John and Lorraine came up for a visit and coffee prior to our leaving the next day.
Sunday after Janet and Triscia left for the second day of their course, we left about 9:00 A.M. Our destination was Hat Creek Ranch near Cache Creek. We stopped near Kamloops for a coffee break, and found a backroads map for northern BC. We arrived at Hat Creek Ranch just after 1:00. The ranch is a historic site and is actually closed, except for the RV park. There are 8 sites, electricity only. We were alone in the park, so noise and campfires are not a problem. Since we hadn't set up the satellite dish while we were at Janet's we were quite surprised that John found the signal almost before Joan had the TV's set up in the trailer.
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| sweat lodge |
We discovered that we had left our camera at Janet's so took a few pictures with our phone. Fortunately, Triscia was going right by here on her way to Lillooet on Tuesday, so would be able to drop off the camera without going out of her way.
Monday after a trip to Cache Creek for some milk we took a scenic drive to Marble Canyon Provincial Park. We were looking for some hiking trails, but it is a campground between a couple of fishing lakes. We stopped and looked at Pavilion Lake, a very interesting area, with beautiful green water. It was added to Marble Canyon Provincial Park to protect fragile microbialite communities on the bottom of the lake. These structures are being studied by a joint effort between UBC and NASA, as these primitive life forms could be similar to possible life on early Mars.
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| Pavilion Lake |
We got back to the trailer so that John could fix the ladder with the parts we got in Vernon while Joan baked bread.
Tuesday morning Trisca arrived 8:00 ish on her way to work at Lillooet. She kindly delivered our camera and a few other bits and pieces we forgot at her house when we left on Sunday. After a quick cup of hot chocolate and a short visit she went on her way, and we finished packing up for departure. Thank you Triscia for saving us 6 hours on the road! We headed for the Airport Inn RV park in Quesnel. On the way, we stopped in Williams Lake for lunch at the Laughing Loon Pub. Food was okay. Joan's serving was so large that she brought enough home for a rerun for dinner Tuesday night. We arrived at the RV park just after 2:00 and by 4:00 we were all set up for the week. We had a telephone visit with our daughter before she and Dominique left for a 10 day vacation in New York City.
Wednesday morning after a visit to the bank, visitor information and the grocery store we had a quick lunch back at the trailer. We then went back downtown to Ceal Tingley Park at the confluence of the Quesnel and Fraser Rivers. We then did the 5.2 km Riverwalk which took us along the banks of the Quesnel River then a few blocks across Quesnel to the Fraser river where we got back to the park to pick up out truck. It was a really pleasant walk with many information signs explaining the history of this area ranging from the natives first using to confluence, the Aboriginal people who inhabited the north-central area of British Columbia called themselves 'Uda ukelh' which means "People who travel by boat on water early in the morning." They are more commonly known as the Carriers. Simon Fraser and his voyageurs explored what is now known as the Fraser River in search of a navigable route to the Pacific Ocean, on behalf of the North West Company, a fur trading enterprise based in Montreal. The upper reaches of the river were known from Mackenzie's travels and it was mistakenly thought that these were the headwaters of the Columbia River. Fraser also explored this river and named the first major tributary that they discovered along the river for Jules Maurice Quesnel, his clerk. The community that eventually grew up at the fork of the Quesnel and Fraser Rivers also came to be called Quesnel. The discovery of gold on the Fraser River in the spring of 1857 initiated a Gold Rush with prospectors flooding up the river, staking claims. By 1859 they had reached the Quesnel River. Major strikes on Williams Creek in 1861 triggered the Cariboo Gold Rush and the growth of Barkerville. At its peak this boom town was said to have been the most populous city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco. One of the final spots on the walk was a memorial to the trip McKenzie took down the Fraser to reach the Pacific Ocean.
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| Quesnel River flowing into Fraser River |
Thursday morning we went on a scenic drive to Barkerville, even though the site isn't open until May 14. There are numerous historic sites along the drive, all relating to the area's gold rush. Our first stop was for a short walk at Cottonwood House historic site, which wasn't open yet.
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After a drive through Wells, one of the more colorful towns we have been to lately,
we got to Barkerville. It was cold and the streets were muddy. The sidewalks in Barkerville are still snow covered, the site doesn't open until May 14th, so we had to walk down the middle of the street.
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We were happy to see several deer along the side of the road, although we could not get really good pictures.
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