Week Two Merrits BC to Watsons Lake Yukon

The Second Week

North To Alaska

Merritt/Kamloops/Quesnel/Whistlers Bay/Dawsons Creek/Fort St John/Fort Nelson/Laird Hot Springs/Watsons Lake

9th August

Today is departure day from Agassiz. I start the day with morning exercise, a bike ride, down the runway on the farm, out onto the road and a little way into the village Agassiz, very quiet, large properties, you hardly see a soul – just the odd cow and horse here and there. I was very cautious though about riding on the right-hand side of the road. We spend the morning preparing for departure. Noel has a few last minute jobs to do on Ronnie, i.e. assembling bike rack on her back and clips on the bikes plus few other maintenance things are carried out. Peter is sorry to see us go; we have relieved the situation somewhat for him with Joyce. He has enjoyed having time with his mate Noel and we think we have helped out as much as is possible with the situation for him a little. We hope so anyway. We thank Peter and Joyce for their hospitality. We will return after our travels.


On the road in Rocinante in the early afternoon after a drive up to Harrison to see if the Speed Boat Poker Run got underway in inclement weather. The Slow 25 Km bike ride from Agassiz which had 10 farm operations to visit in the trip was a big success even though the drizzle persisted. We saw about 500 cyclists either on the road or at the various venues which ranged from bee keeper to cheese maker. The coffee roaster and the 300 head dairy with all the moo cows inside sheds were also on the itinerary!

We spotted our first wild life just 10 km out of Agassiz when a coyote crossed the secondary highway! He was called Wiley. We told him the road runner had just crossed before him. He thanked us profusely and went on his way – slowly. A different landscape exists today, it has been raining: Tall fir trees rising high into the majestic mountains which are shrouded in rising mist and disappear into the clouds – spectacularly scenic.

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch Heaven.

Reads an inscription by William Shakespeare on a plaque before entering the walk through the tunnels. The Othello Tunnels are situated just north of Hope in the Coquihalla Canyon and were a must see. They are located in an area called the Kettle Valley Railway. We parked Ronnie and off we went. Very interesting, 43 bridges here and 13 huge tunnels; we walked through three of them, they were constructed between 1913-1916 as part of the early railway system which connected the Okanagan to Hope and transported people and cargo during the latter period of the gold rush era. A magnificent engineering masterpiece when considering the lack of modern machinery in those times. Much of the excavations would have been hewn by human labour. The Coquihalla River runs alongside. Very scenic. In the 1950s damaged by too many avalanches, the line was taken out of service. On our walk back to the parking area we were hailed by Pam and Bruce – “Are you the Aussies”, they ask, Noel wearing his Akubra gave us away. They had seen Ronnie in the car park with the Aussie flag in the back window. And they had parked next to us. “Yeah, how you going”, we replied. We spent 20 minutes or so exchanging travelling tales. They are rice farmers from Denilliqin in New South Wales and had just been to Alaska. Nice to chat to folks from home.

We spent some more time chatting to some local folks and watching steelhead (a kind of ocean trout) jumping through the rapids. So an entertaining hour and a half. We walk back to Ronnie and get on the road again for a couple more hours and pull into the township of Merritt.

Merritt is recognised as the country music capital of Canada and is situated within the scenic Nicola Valley. We park in car park of the local swimming pool and ice hockey venue. Our overnight venue for the night. Decide to go take a gander at the game, just a practice match, and a first for me, never seen ice hockey played before. Those boys can really move it. We spent half an hour watching the action and then returned “home” for din dins. A good day.

10th August

Before breakfast we take a walk around the township of Merritt. It is the biggest country music town in Canada. It also boasts the Merritt Walk of Stars, a collection of bronze stars bearing the handprints and signatures of country music superstars and popular newcomers including a young Keith Urban. So we followed the route as part of our exercise walk before setting off. There was also some very good artwork murals of many country music stars painted on brick walls around town. Very well done – and no graffiti either – no vandals here obviously. Nice to see. Back to Ronnie, have brekky and then we hit the road Jack. We are going to make Kamloops today for our overnighter – not a big drive – but we have time to take in the sights en route. We have morning tea at Lake Nicola, pretty area, lake and bush setting. We stop for a photo opportunity at Quilchena, a beautiful old hotel there that dates back to 1906, very picturesque. We drive into Kamloops at around lunch time. The scenery on drive has changed dramatically. It is very dry; hundreds of dead pine trees, the pine beetle is to blame. Up to 75% attack in some areas of central BC. The mild winters have allowed it to flourish.

Kamloops is quite a large town, it gets quite hot here, sits low in a bowl but today weather is coolish. We park in the large car park of the information centre. I wander over to find out what there is to do in the area. We have lunch and decide to go and do a recommended walk in Petersen Creek Nature Park. After a frustrating drive up and down city streets to find the park – and after some instructions from a helpful local – it was located. We parked and set off, followed one of the walks – well, what a walk – it wasn’t really a walk – but an arduous climb – great views though and we enjoyed the challenge and the exercise after driving for half the day. At the highest point we were 1600 feet above Ronnie. Back to Ronnie for a rest and a follow up phone call to Eddie, a friend of Sandy’s friend Mary (from Bribie) to say we would drop by to say hi. She had been waiting to hear from us. We put her address into Tom Tom and arrived there with no dramas. A very friendly Canadian lady and her friend entertained us for an hour. Beautiful house, a b. and b. with glorious views over the township of Kamloops. We took our leave and drove to Riverside Park. There is a free concert in the park tonight. We park and walk on over to the concert venue with our chairs. Quite a good folksy band playing Canadian stuff with an Irish flavour to it. A good evening of music and then home and we cook dinner. We decide we’ll stay put in the park car park for the night – a nice quiet venue although I do wake with a start in the night – a train track runs adjacent to the car park and one of the Rocky Mountaineer trains passes in the early hours of the morning. Another good day.

11th August

Start the day with a bike ride around the pretty lake of the park, lots of folks doing their early morning exercise, walking or cycling. We saw two more Rocky Mountaineer trains and a number of coaches off-loading passengers about to embark on the train trip. We spend time watching this precision operation of unloading passengers from coaches at various points of the train. Very impressive train with glass roofs for maximum viewing potential.

Back for breakfast and on road. We stop at a very scenic lake area for morning tea. We have lunch at an area called 100 Mile House. This is logging country, the main industry in this region. We encounter many trucks carrying logs on the road. We stop at a logging operation where they build log homes, big cranes dropping logs into place, huge machinery etc. A good photo opportunity.

On road again and we come across a little pub in an area called McLeese Lake. Decide we’ll stop for a beer. We go out onto the veranda and get talking to the locals including a couple of young girls; they work at the local Gibraltar Mine, a gold and copper mining operation. So a pleasant hour spent chatting to residents, we have found everybody to be very informative so far and they are interested to hear our travels plans and where home is for us. Our destination tonight is the town of Quesnel. We park outside of town at Wal-Mart. Wal-Marts are always on the outskirts of town. There is no problem with parking RVs in their huge car parks overnight. In fact they welcome it as we are going to spend money in their store. Have a look through the store – another first for me – a shop in Wal-Mart and a sleep in the car park of a huge supermarket!!! What a huge complex, you can buy ANYTHING here. Would be easily six times the size of our Hypermarket. Every day is different.

12th August

We start the day with a fuel refill; our most expensive part of this trip is fuel. Filled her up - $300 worth equaling 210 litres. You have to pay before the fuel fill. Nobody can fuel and hit the road here. She filled with a little less than the 300 so you then receive the change plus a voucher to spent in the adjoining supermarket – 5 cents a litre – we got just over 10 bucks so we spent it on few needed groceries before getting on the road. During the fill we got chatting to Elton (no, not THE Elton John) and he didn’t sing “Yellow Brick Road”. But he did hunt for yellow stuff – gold. He travels through Canada following gold panning competitions. He showed us some exhibits in little bottles. Refueled and on the road again – just a little drive into the main town centre of Quesnel.

This is a place of gnarly old lumberjacks and laser guided sawmills 10,000 year old native cultures, mysterious backwoods, curio shops, and a city of bridges, flowers and logging trucks.

We parked in the large car park of the information centre, very pretty with loads of flowers and baskets of beautiful blooming pansies and petunias. A lovely spot for breakfast. Noel got some information from the centre of what to do in town while I cleared away. He said we were going on a walk to look at 22 fire hydrants. “Mmm, right, this is going to be an interesting walk, can’t wait to see all these fire hydrants.” But one should never prejudge – it turned out that each hydrant was a painted replica of prominent folks who settled in Quesnel dating back to the late 1800s. So we saw hydrants depicting one of the first school teachers, the banker, an engineer, a Judge (had photo with him), I bowed of course and said, “G’day, Your Honour”, a pilot (Noel had photo with him) naturally. And most of the others. We walked over the old wooden bridge too, the longest foot bridge in BC, there was a lot of old farm machinery, part of an old paddle steamer paddles and other stuff on the heritage grassy area beside the bridge. We then spent an interesting hour in the museum that adjoined the information centre. Many old exhibits and information about the gold rush days. This area has huge logging operations; we saw dozens upon dozens of huge trucks carrying their log loads to local mills.

Left Quesnell and drove to a very nice lunch spot location, Hush Lake, had to be very quiet here! Extremely peaceful and beautiful, lots of trees, couple of blokes fly fishing on the lake.

We drive on. Our overnight stop tonight is Whistlers Bay which is on McLeod Lake. We’re in the middle of nowhere but a nice peaceful spot for an overnighter.

13th August

We wake to a foggy morning. We’re on the road by 8 a.m. A wild moose is sighted 170 kays short of Dawson Creek. We clock up 100 kays and then stop for breakfast at West Pine rest area and then we continue our drive to Dawson Creek passing through Groundbirch, Progress Hill, and Arras.

Dawson Creek is a natural hub for the north as it lies at the junction of four highways and the railroad. It is also the starting point of the world famous Alaska Highway dedicated in 1996 as the 16th Wonder of the World. We take photos in town of the exhibit which reads zero miles on the Highway to Alaska.

Dawson Creek is the trading, transportation and service centre for the vast Peace River country. Agriculture, forestry, tourism, gas and oil all support a strong economy. The railway and natural gas pipelines convey the area’s wealth of petroleum and agricultural resources to distant markets.

We arrive in D/C in time for lunch and park in the information centre car park. Did the usual pick up info of what to do in the area and had a walk through town. Today we had a splurge and bought lunch, discovered a little café which was part of an antique/second hand shop. We bought extremely tasty corn bread salad wraps, a most hospital proprietor chatted to us. Quite a quaint little place.

Thus sated, went back to the info centre where we explore yet another museum. It is situated alongside the railway line and the original railway waiting rooms and station master’s accommodation is part of the museum. Lots of exhibits to view that depict early days in Dawson Creek. We watched part of a film that told the story of the construction of the highway to Alaska. It was built in 1942 and took nine months to build the 2500 kilometer road and employed 27,000 civilian and forces labour. An amazing feat.

Then into the art gallery housed in an old grain silo. Some nice pieces here some of which are displayed on staircase walls.

Noel sighted a sports store – a must look zone. I was quite amazed at the range of rifles and guns on sale. Noel, the ex gun shop operator, was most interested to look at the merchandise.

There is full shooter licensing in Canada, but just a formality of registration and you can buy anything. I was taken with the Steyr .5 BMG single shot rifle with 24X scope. Even had my pix taken with it! Their handgun sales have risen 40% since the licensing was instigated!

After a busy afternoon we go back “home” for a welcome g. and t. and a rest. Decide we’ll have dinner out tonight too – a complete day off – no cooking. We had an extremely nice meal in the local diner, very quiet, just the two of us. We stayed put in the car park opposite the restaurant for the night, not exactly a scenic venue but once curtains were closed we could have been anywhere.

14th August

We leave Dawson Creek and get on the road, find a delightful spot to stop for brekky off the main Alaska Highway and onto the old extremely bumpy road before the new road was built. Would not like journey on that one. However, our pull in spot is above a lake shrouded on each side by a blanket of pine trees reflecting on the little lake, sunshine breaking through, so peaceful. The engineering marvel that is called the curved bridge is located on the old track and towers over the river. Wooden and intact after 60 years; it is magnificent in the morning sun.

Destination today is Fort St John. In 1952 gas and oil was discovered and in 1957 a refinery at Taylor and a pipeline to the south had been built. This city is rich in natural resources mainly oil and gas, timber and hydroelectricity and agriculture. More grain, forage, seed and honey is produced here than anywhere else in British Columbia (BC).

We have a possible contact here, alas we can’t track him down but in so doing we again spent some time talking to local people firstly in a sort of services club; The Legion, the lady that runs the catering there and some old guys who were born and bred in this area and still living there 70 old years later. We are offered free coffee and a mini doughnut while listening to their stories. Next stop is the art gallery, a beautiful art and gift shop there and Sheh who runs the gallery was happy to show us around and talk. Some beautiful exhibits here, pottery and many other ornamental type things, all very unusual.

I; (Noel) being the designated photographer, asked Sheh if I could take a photo of her in the middle of this lovely gallery. I suggested that beside the battered rancher’s hat that was part of a display. She then went on to explain it was the actual headwear of famed Bush Pilot Jimmy “Midnight” Anderson. I mentioned that I had an hour or two in the air and was presented with a copy of his Biography!!

We leave Fort St John and head off, want to get some kays under belt this afternoon. Destination is Fort Nelson. Arrive early evening and a beer and nibblies go down well while we check the prices of petrol at the 3 gas stations in town. 152.9 cents seems to be the best deal per litre. We are at 58 degrees north!! We fuel up and on way home to cook when Noel sights two huge semi’s with tipper trailers. We wander over and chat to the two guys standing beside them. The trucks are carrying 25 tonnes of contaminated soil so the boys talked “boy talk” about all things to do with semi trailers. After getting on best buddy terms, I was invited to sit in the driver’s seat of one of the trucks. So up I clamber and feel like I am in the cockpit of an aeroplane. My goodness, the amount of dials and switches that operate this huge piece of machinery is incredible. The other driver then said I could have a look at his “cockpit” too. So up into that one – same sort of thing. He had a very nice “bedroom” behind the driving area, a ceiling with small lights and little motives dangling from the ceiling. These boys obviously have everything they need to make life comfortable in these huge trucks. We eventually wandered on back to Ronnie, tuned in to the Olympics and cooked dinner. An eventful day!!!

15th August

Fort Nelson is a thriving community with an economy based on forestry, oil, gas and tourism. North America’s largest gas processing plant and two of the largest wood product operations in BC are located here. Established as a fur trading post in early 1800s, Fort Nelson flourished as the result of the construction of the Alaska Highway in the early 40s.

There is an interesting looking museum in town, decide to take a look before heading off. It is absolutely crammed full of memorabilia from early days. A hidden treasure. We wander through. It captures the flavour of the early days in Fort Nelson. Outside there are lots of exhibits too. Another building houses old vintage cars from way back including a 1908 Dodge that only this year was driven to Fairbanks Alaska and back, it took four days each way. Amazing. We got talking to the guy that runs the museum, Marle, he has been instrumental in collecting all of the exhibits, he is 76. He gave us a demonstration cycling on an odd shaped bike he had built. He’s doing well for 76.

We talked to the lady who does the gardening, beautiful arrangements of flowers everywhere in garden beds and baskets. Another museum worker opened up an old original cottage, fur trappers lodge and the post office. She was most informative and advised us that we should visit Liard Hot Springs as we would be passing them today. It sounded interesting so we decided to make that our overnight destination.

We had a brunch stop a little way out of town, we always seem to come across a nice scenic area for meal stops – not hard to do though in this beautiful country - and then we got down to covering a fair bit of distance arriving at Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park late afternoon. It is a pay site, our first non boondocking site, $19 for the night, no facilities but you are allocated a camp site area in beautiful bushland setting and access toi the hot springs. We park and settle in. It was drizzling on arrival but shortly after pulling in, sunshine broke through. We decide to go and take a look at the hot springs and take a dip. En route, a talk by one of the rangers is going on so we stop and listen in – informative facts regarding everything to do with bears. We shall remember the safety rules learned. We are in serious bear country now. Our only wild life sighting though at the springs are two cute little squirrels. We walk 10 minutes down the board walk to the hot springs. Water temperature is in the high forties at one end to 42 at the cool end. A beautifully relaxing soak floating through the steaming waters. A most enjoyable way to end the day.

16th August

We decide on another dip in the springs before leaving this morning. So another nice relaxing float. Story has it that any aches and pains you may have are soon dissipated after floating through the health giving waters that are very rich in minerals. We check out and get on the road. Today’s destination is Watsons Lake. A very scenic drive. We stop for photo opportunities here and there including a sighting of a herd of around 50 buffalo.

We leave BC behind today and enter Yukon Territory eventually arriving at Watsons Lake. We decide to stay in an RV park tonight too; we need to do laundry, so we book in one right in the town centre. Almost next door to us is Sign Post Forest. It was started by a homesick Army GI who erected a sign pointing to his home and the mileage there. Today there are over 70,000 licence plates, Town Signs and even a few thousand of one’s hometown and the distance to it!!! and traffic signs mounted on sturdy trunks, decorated and displayed in various ways. Each year more than 2,000 signs are added. Quite a sight. We went for a bike ride this afternoon, nice to stretch legs and do some exercise and see the town by bike instead of vehicle. We decide we’ll spend the majority of Sunday here as there appears to be quite a few things to do. We buy sausages and Noel barbecues while I do the laundry.

17th August

We decide we’ll start the day with a bike ride around Wye Lake Park but on way to park we pass the local soft ball arena, an all day competition is on, part of Discovery Day weekend celebrations. So we park bikes and go watch the game for half an hour. Another first – never watched softball played before. They are quite good players for a small town, good atmosphere in the bleachers. We go on our way to the park; there are boardwalk trails that lead into quite dense bushy forest that loops around the lake. Very peaceful, pretty, we spent over an hour riding through the trails. Lovely. Back for brunch with another ride through Signpost Forest. Afternoon entertainment was at the Northern Lights Space and Science Centre. We cycled there via the soft ball park again and spent about 15 minutes or so watching the current game.

The Northern Lights Centre features daily shows about the folklore and science of the northern lights in the “electric sky” theatre. A very well set up complex with reclining comfortable seats for viewing the “sky”. The second part of the show tells the story of the aurora borealis beautifully depicted on the huge screen. If we are lucky we may view it although not the ideal time of year. Back to Ronnie and we prepare for the road. We have been connected to a power site so we disconnect, fill up water etc. Refuel, discount here as we have overnighted in the RV site. We get on the road and leave town via the old air terminal building. We will overnight tonight at Teslin approximately 200 kays and a half way mark before the city of Whitehorse.

An extremely enjoyable week. Every day was different.