Monday, May 24th
Victoria Day
You could walk a hundred thousand miles and never find a home
You always knew someday you’d have to strike out on your own
You look up at the clouds and you can see which way the wind is blowing— Jay Semko and Bryan Potvin. Due South Theme.
It seems to be the same game again: The sun is out as I open the curtains, but when I am finally ready to go, clouds have rushed in. Only far in the north seems to be blue sky left. It is also freakishly cold. Today will be a rather unremarkable day. Having gone ever so much further north, I have to cover quite a bit of distance to get down south again.
Unfortunately, towns are spread rather thinly in northern B.C. so my destination will be Prince George, a mere four hundred kilometres away. I stretch things out a bit by way of a little detour to the town of Tumbler Ridge. The road there, labelled as highway 52 on the map, turns off suddenly and doesn’t carry any number in reality. Good thing I remembered the name of the town.
For quite a while, we climb up, then down again. The landscape turns into a real mountain range, so we have left the prairies for good. For the first miles, there is snow by the road again. To take care of that, some rain showers start. We are also back in perfect wilderness: a deer grazes by the road.
Tumbler Ridge is a small community literally in the middle of nowhere. It has a number of houses located more or less in the middle of the forest and some commercial sites clustered along the main highway. The town was only started in 1981 as a company town for two coal mining companies. Which also explains the surprisingly good infrastructure: two well maintained highways, a railway, and an airfield.
The town runs along Flatbed Creek which is home to a little park, Flatbed Falls Regional Park, which is maintained by the community. It has a number of trails leading from the road down to the river. As I feel in the mood today and it is dry for the moment, I go for a little one-hour walk. The trails are nice, really just trails through the forest and not forest roads like you so often find in Europe.
Driving on, the road crosses many streams and their valleys by way of high bridges. After crossing a ridge, it runs along the bottom of a wide valley. It passes Gwillim Lake Provincial Park, but it is fifteen kilometres away and it has started raining again. So I just go on driving, thereby waking up a deer that seems to have had a little nap by the side of the road. It looks at me rather baffled as I drive by. A girl is bicycling up the hill with a dog satelliting the bike. Just before the road ends and returns to the main highway, yet another dear sprints manically across the road behind a large truck.
The road’s end is just outside the town of Chetwynd. It seems to cater mostly for highway travellers and features about ten inns. It also has a large community recreation centre with a bistro next door.
The main highway, nickname the Great Northern, runs along the Pine River valley, thereby slowly climbing up into the mountains. At a cottage site by the road, a Belgian flag is flying. A big sign warns that this is a ‘high mountain road,’ but right after the sign, the road starts to descend a bit. But it is a nice road for sure. It has long straight stretches which allow the many slow vehicles on the road today to be overtaken. Hoards of RVs and trailers are on their way, presumably back home after a long weekend.
As a reward for a very long construction side, the sun comes out for a bit and turns the landscape into a steaming pot. Further on, high slopes line the road. Their tops are still covered in snow and have clouds sticking to them. The Powder King Ski Area makes use of them. The road reaches its highest point and Pine Pass and starts its long descend.
The town of Mackenzie lies thirty kilometres off the road. Although I am tempted, I skip the one-hour side trip this would entail. Instead, I continue onwards, passing the tiny unincorporated community of MacLeod Lake by the lake of the same name. It looks as if it has seen better times or, possibly, as if its people like a rustic environment.
The sunny part is over by now. It starts raining in big, angry raindrops. But it is only short showers. Some of them are quite intense, though. The strongest one makes me slow down as the wipers can’t really deal with all the weather. Then, all of a sudden, it is nice and sunny again.
Eventually, I reach Prince George, biggest city of northern B.C. On this holiday, its strictly commercial centre is rather empty. A few cars and even viewer people, most seem to be from the lowest end of the income curve. I check into a motel, make a quick trip to a liquor store, and thereafter enjoy a quite evening.
Beer of the day: Tree Brewing’s Cutthroat Pale Ale (surprisingly fruity ale made by a Kelowna microbrewery.)