BC Waterfalls, Lakes, and Dams Oh My!

As I gathered the photos for this post, I had a chance to reflect on all of the ground we have covered traveling in British Columbia over the past two years. I'm never complacent about all of the sights in this province, but they are everyday life for me now. I get to see the Fraser River daily, a thought I hadn't considered when studying elementary school geography textbooks. Funny how life goes - I now know exactly where the Fraser River begins (we've seen it!) and how it flows all the way down to Vancouver, passing directly through Prince George and the Cariboo Region on it's way to the ocean. 

Prince George, where the Fraser and Nechako Rivers meet

Mike moved from Vancouver to the Cariboo in early adulthood, and has extensively traveled the area so he knows it inside and out, from current population, culture, and mapping to historical exploration trails, geological details, and the local gold rush in the 1860's. He's been everywhere man! And now he's taken me to so many of these places. Whether we go by car or take our little RV, we always have an adventure and learn things along the way.

Wells

We have seen countless rivers, lakes, waterfalls and dams - yes, plural damS. I have always lived near water in some form, and northern BC continues to deliver. We camp on gorgeous little lakes all the time, or take drives to explore, find places to kayak or picnic (or kayak-picnic, one of our fave pastimes). One very remarkable lake we have explored in some of our most remote camping is Quesnel Lake, which happens to be the deepest fjord lake in the world, the deepest lake in BC, and the third-deepest lake in North America. *

Quesnel Lake

Mountains too! I didn't know there were so many different types of mountains and mountain ranges. Thinking of BC before I had the picture in my mind of Vancouver and the mossy coastal mountains, or the snowy Rockies from my Banff trips, but in our travels I have seen the many terrains and rock types of this diverse province, from the glaciated rock of the Okanagan, up through the desert hills of the interior, the bush-y gold-bearing river-covered Cariboo, and all the way north to the Yukon and mountains with even more varied rock types and colours. I'll be sharing stories from all of our trips, from the bustling lower mainland to the off-grid north north, but let's start in the middle, at home here in the Cariboo-Prince George region. 

This area is where we camp, explore, gold pan, and trip through historical trails 

(such as Mike's favourite, the late 1700's Alexander MacKenzie Trail). 

Prince George is at the intersection of highways 16 and 97, so we have quick access to 

amazing adventures in all four directions N-S-E-W.

The very first road trip Mike took me on once we settled in from the move was to Barkerville. Barkerville is at the heart of the Cariboo Gold Rush, and is preserved in a living, working "pioneer village" town waaaayy off the beaten track southeast of Prince George. It is stunning! I have visited several pioneer villages in Ontario of course, but this is totally different. It is quite large, and very dense with buildings and preserved like it would have been in the 1860's, with so much historical value and information (we've since gone several times and I learn so many new things every visit). 

There are museum-style exhibits throughout, packed with gold mining facts and history, including a portion of the original town buildings from Barkerville's China Town.  Barkerville is staffed with theatrical folks who actually run the town, ie. blacksmith shop, several stores and hotels/B&Bs, gold-panning lesson area, and I must mention the bakery, which makes the best sourdough bread in the world, serves a traditional "miner's lunch," and sausage rolls that taste like they are straight out of an 1800's gourmet cookbook! I can already tell our Barkerville trips will end up needing their own whole blog post, and at this point I honestly wouldn't even blame you if you left this reading right now to click off to Barkerville.ca - it is SO COOL!

But if you're still with me LOL, I'll move on through our travels. After our first day trip to Barkerville and Wells, we went on our first long-weekend camping trip, north to Azouzetta Lake, through the Pine Pass to where the Rockies begin from the northwest. We don't fish, but we always camping-walk and explore, have fire-building wars, cook amazing stuff, play games, and do whatever adventuring the area offers. On this trip we enjoyed the lake as a home base, and did a day trip to Chetwynd (major chainsaw carving area!) and up to Hudson's Hope and the W.A.C. Bennett Dam.

As autumn set in, we put the trailer away and the Camaro away, and took to flying instead. We spent a weekend in Vancouver to meet Mike's sister and family, get a tour of their childhood area in West Vancouver, and take a ferry to Bowen Island. I had/have flown over that area so many times, and had been to Vancouver, North Vancouver, and even East Van before, but this personal tour was as heartwarming and scenic as it could possibly get. 

So if you know me at all, you have probably started to wonder about the unusually high number of photos of myself appearing in this blog LOL. I have always been the consummate tourist, but Mike has converted me to a selfie and portrait taking photographer as well now too, eager to get photo memories of all the crazy stuff we do. There are literally more photos of me in existence now from the past 2.5 years than from all of my 44 years prior. As you saw previously from our trip across Canada we even pose for pictures at tourist landmarks like giant nickels or Ukrainian Easter Eggs, and I will even admit I now eagerly stick my face into every ‘face in hole board’ or ‘photo cutout’ we find!

I cherish all of this and enjoy getting those perfect shots with Mike at every chance. Could be part of our "live each day to the fullest" thing.

Giant gold nugget pan in Quesnel

My first time panning for gold, in Likely

Mike in the Likely jail

We find all sorts of sassy photo ops!

And will climb into any mine

Or just goof around :-)

Okay back to the tripping. The camping season here runs from the start of May through to mid-September, which is about 18 weeks. In 2021 we were out by a campfire for more than 40 days through that time period, and we camped at all different spots - never the same one twice! We went to Hixon, Bear Lake, Whiskers, Likely (with day trips to Quesnel Forks and the Bullion Pit Mine), the Yukon loop (more on that later), Shuswap Lake, Barkerville/Lowhee, Valemount, Sowchea/Fort St. James, St. Maries, and 10 Mile Lake near Quesnel, with day trips to the Pinnacles plus gold-exploring in the Quesnel Canyon.  

Quesnel Forks

Our humble abode

McGregor

Sowchea, on Stuart Lake, at Fort St. James

Ghost Lake

Matthew River Falls

Off-roading on old tailings from gold mining

Kenney Dam

We harvest our own firewood too, just saying

We've taken a few trips south of the Cariboo as well, with Mike's son and family and friends to Shuswap for a week, for a work trip to Penticton, for the fun of driving on the Duffy Lake road, for an errand to Mission, and most recently to Osoyoos, wine country!

It was a bit smoky when we were at Shuswap

Salmon Arm

Seaton Lake, Lillooet area, you'll hear more about this later too

Near Mission BC, we stayed at the Sasquatch Inn

Chasm Provincial Park, near Clinton

Osoyoos

Fraser Canyon

Speaking of the Fraser Canyon, that kind of brings us full circle, back to the Fraser River and the route that goes along it from BC's northern capital all the way to the lower mainland. This year I've had the opportunity to drive up and down this route (hwy 97) a few times to varying distances for different events - a couple of times on my own even - so it has been a really great immersion into the landscape and culture. 

Hopefully our photos give you a glimpse of all of the water and terrain there is to be found here. We sure love it! 😁

Next stop - the Yukon loop story! 

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Thought I'd share some links to more information about some of the interesting things I just touched on. If you'd like to read more about these places, here you go!

Fraser River

Alexander MacKenzie Heritage Trail

W.A.C. Bennett Dam

Bullion Pit Mine, Likely

Barkerville.ca

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