Finally out of the dust.....

Today is Saturday August 13, and we are in Quisnel BC, on Fraser Lake, Robert’s Roost CG.  We arrived here on Thursday and decided to stay thru the weekend.

We stopped in Stewart/Hyder BC/U.S. for two days and viewed the bears chowing down on the salmon making their last run up the Salmon River.  We were there a little late in the season, and the salmon run was declining, and only a couple of bears showed up to entertain the crowd.  It was a bit of fun anyway, despite the dust from the road. 

The CG that we stayed in didn’t seem to have dependable electricity, and our power went out a couple of times.  Last time we lost it was early in the morning, the day we were leaving.

Hyder is kind of like Alaska’s orphan.  It is the last town in the State’s southern territory, which is a narrow strip of land  alongside the Pacific Ocean on one side and Canada on the other.   Since it is cut off from the rest of the state, it operates on Stewart BC’s economy, collect all their funds in Canadian cash.  The U.S. Customs Service doesn’t even bother to operate a facility on the border….after all, when you get to Hyder, you sure can’t go any further.

We drove the 30 miles past the creek where we watched the bears, up to the glacier, and the no longer operating gold mine which was most of the area’s total economy for a lot of years.  Price of gold is increasing, so there istalk of reopening the mine.  We saw signs of test drilling alongside the road.  You cross back and forth between the U.S. and Canada a number of times while travelling on the road.

On the road again, we stopped for the night of the 10th at the Glacier View CG near Smithers BC.  Nice view of a glacier just in front of us.  We made a deal with the owner to allow us to wash our RV’s while there.  Vehicle washing is strictly foridden in most CG’s because of the shortage of water.  Don and I spent the better part of the afternoon trying to get the grey dirt off.  Almost impossible to do.  We still have the dust up in the storage compartments….have to stay there til we get home.

Two couples from Switzerland in a rented Class C MH parked next to us for the night.  They were curious about our MH, asked a lot of questions.  Only one of the men spoke English, and would repeat everything for the other three.  They said such a large RV would not be possible in Europe because the CG’s are so small.  They are spending a month travelling around the Northern part of BC, which, incidentally, is similar to the mountains of Switzerland.  In the evening one of the couples brought out two of the long horns familiar to the Swiss, and entertained the CG with some tunes.  We wondered how in the world they ever got those things on the airplane.