Another check mark on my "wow I never thought that could happen!" list - we went to the Yukon. Commonly known here, the Great Northern Circle Route can be traveled in either direction. We went from PG up to Dawson Creek and north to Fort Nelson, Liard River Hot Springs, then Watson Lake (Yukon), then back down the Stewart-Cassiar highway through Jade City, to an overnight in Stewart and then down and back across through Smithers and hwy 16 eastbound home. We did it in nine days, though really we could have spent weeks and taken more time to go farther north and/or to poke around more at all the incredible spots to see along the way.
Mike had done this trip in varying degrees over the years, sometimes with off-roading as part of it, but this time we took our RV and camped every night in a different spot along the route. To give you a visual of the route and this part of BC in relation to the world here is a screenshot of our map:
This was the longest I had ever gone without talking to my girls... six. whole. days.
But it was worth it, we had a tonne of fun along the way, wildlife views galore, adventure of course, and a sprinkling of peril here and there to keep us modest.
I was intrigued by this trip from the time Mike suggested it, in part because I grew up with some vague knowledge of the far northwest from my Dad's truck-driving days. I knew from his lore that he used to haul dynamite somewhere up here at some point in history, perhaps for mining, or for highway building? I don't know the specifics but maybe my Uncles will be able to correct my missing details - I do know there was dynamite involved, crazy driving narrow northern highway passages, and Dawson. I'm assuming Dawson City, Yukon, though we couldn't go that far (yet), we have been to Dawson Creek a couple of times now, so that will be my Dawson-Dad connection for the sake of this story. :-)
In any case, as we were planning this trip and knew we would be stopping at the iconic "Sign Post City" in Watson Lake, it felt like the perfect time to commemorate my Dad in a small way. He passed away in 1998 when I was 21, and since then I have had in my possession his cowboy hat. It lived with us in Cambridge, then Meaford, Waterloo, back to Meaford, and then came with me across the country when I moved here to Prince George. Now it was going back to the Yukon.
Another part of the allure of this trip was traveling the famous "Old Alaska Highway," which was built during World War II to connect the contiguous United States to Alaska, across Canada. It begins in Dawson Creek, at Mile 0.
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To get the trip started, we left mid-day for Chetwynd, a few hours up the road to get a head start, fill the gas tank, and camp the night in order to be close to arrive at Dawson Creek first thing in the morning.
We were pretty excited this was to be my first time "boondocking" - camping here can be quite wild in general but I was new to boondocking: no reservations, no organized park with hydro or water, just bush, wildlife, darkness, and whatever supplies you brought yourself. Here there is so much open land and it is not illegal to just pull up a piece of riverbank and set up camp on it. I was quite astonished when Mike first told me about it and my Ontario-brain couldn't comprehend, as I am used to two options: all the land everywhere being privately owned so you can't camp there unless you're invited, or an expensive and densely populated campground. But here there is so much open land the options are endless. Boondock wherever!
We used the iOverlander app to pick a cool-looking site on East Pine River outside of town with good road access. It was a former rec site so no problem, it was a nice easy way to break me in to being in the bush with no services (except of course for the glampy luxury of our trailer shower, battery, lights, heat, and propane lol 😇).
We pulled into the little roundabout and settled in, left the trailer hitched, quickly BBQ'd dinner and then dashed back inside the trailer to eat without mosquitoes! We played cards in the shelter, hung out and passed the evening, making jokes about the remoteness of the location and slightly creepy road in - this is where I was introduced to "The Hills Have Eyes" reference. We did go for a quick walk (if you walk fast enough the bugs can't get you) (or the potentially creepy other inhabitants) and that confirmed our plan to get out of there ASAP in the morning.
All primed for the trip, we hit the Alaska highway. The evolving scenery and glimpses of wildlife began immediately, and we had a couple chances to pull off the main road to see historic sites and cool stuff on our way to Fort Nelson.
Every day on this trip brought us different types of mountains
...and wildlife
and crazy curvy roads!
In Fort Nelson itself too we got a great tour (outdoor tour, it was covid at that time) of the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum. It was quite something! And it was a short walk from our campsite so a fun way to spend the evening after the day of driving.
We hit the road again in the morning, with the Liard River hot springs as our next destination. On the way we passed Muncho Lake, the bluest water I have ever seen. Gorgeous! And more mountains, and more wildlife.
And treats!! (did I mention we travel in style?)
The bulk of this route is extremely remote, with long stretches between places, people, gas stations (we carried a full jerry can of gas with us) and attractions. Because I'm basically highlighting our stops, I may not be properly conveying the long stretches of remote Alaska Highway we traversed. Even the truck nav system went blank and had nothing to say.
But we stopped at the few and far between options, one being this cinnamon bun shop in the middle of nowhere. Super cute little place, and again because it was covid it was pretty empty, though the owner told me on a normal summer day they would have 400 people by 9am!
A LOT of driving... absolutely beautiful, but a lot.
We were starting to feel pretty far from home by this point.
This is where patience really starts to come into the picture, between zero cell service,
winding roads pulling a trailer, and random sheep attacks we had to stay chill.
Mike loves Liard hot springs and had told me about it a few times - and now that I've been there I can see why, and it is one of my favourite places we have visited. It is a natural hot spring, where the water comes out of the ground and into a natural pool with a gravel bottom and literal forest surround, not like a concrete pool fake-y hot spring.
We set up the trailer at our site and headed off down the trail toward the springs. Normally visitors have to book a time to go to the hot spring and swim etc., but because we were there during covid times it was not busy at all, and we had free run to go in and out whenever we wanted to. There is a long boardwalk through the boggy area leading to the hot springs, it is very beautiful and serene. Then the boardwalk goes through lush forest with some sign markers explaining the flora and fauna.
There is a platform of change rooms and a deck with steps down into the hot spring, but beyond that it is all natural. And hot! The water is very warm, it's gorgeous! (even in a record-breaking late-June heat wave) Therapeutic mineral water. You can see where the spring comes out of the ground, and if you can stand it long enough to get close you can place a rock on one of the informal inukshuks people have built there.
We checked it all out, walked the boardwalks viewing the "Hanging Gardens" above the pool area, got smart reading all the signs around, and then headed back for dinner before we'd come back for a swim. These photos really tell the story, but they still don't give full justice to the beauty of the place.
Having had a blast at Liard, it was time to move onto the next monumental stop on this trip: Watson Lake, Yukon! Today was to be the day - if we kept driving, we'd smack right into it! And so we did... but not quickly... it took a while, as every bend in the road risked a surprise. :-)
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One does not speed by these.
But we did make it! And once we were through the covid checkpoint entering the territory, complete with warning to "be fast!" and not interact with anyone (the Yukon was experiencing a covid outbreak that we hadn't heard about as we had had zero cell service for 3.5 days) we headed straight for Watson Lake Sign Post Forest - yay!
So I didn't know this before, but Sign Post Forest is a collection of signs at Watson Lake, Yukon and is one of the most famous of the landmarks along the Alaska Highway. It was started by a homesick GI in 1942. He was assigned light duty while recovering from an injury and erected the signpost for his hometown: Danville, Ill. 2835 miles. Visitors may add their own signs to the over 80,000 already present. *
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We added our own sign, and one for my Dad, along with his hat.
And we found signs from all over the world; I was astonished to see signs of all kinds from many places I had lived or visited, including Meaford! (check out the bottom right of this photo below)
Mission accomplished, we dutifully left the Yukon, now officially heading "south" back into BC, and onto the Stewart-Cassiar highway. It was early afternoon of day four, and we were getting a bit tired from all the excitement, the driving, the heat, plus setting up and taking down the campsite every day. That is quite different from setting up camping somewhere and staying for a long weekend or vacation. So we decided to stop earlier in this day, and enjoy some time at Boya Lake.
Again my breath was taken away by the scenery. Crazy blue water with a white silt bottom, gorgeous to look at, and heavenly to swim in. Cold! But heavenly.
The next morning we suffered one of the perils I referred to earlier, Mike got a pretty bad burn cooking breakfast. And we were hours of driving away from the nearest centre. We patched him up the best we could with the trailer first aid kit, but then swiftly packed up and hit the road for Dease Lake, the nearest community which would have medical care. Mike was gracious for that few hours, but it was a pretty quiet drive. Burns are the worst, ouch! The scenery was a welcome distraction, as the mountains were changing yet again.
Originally our goal for this day on the trip was to stop at Jade City, which you might know from the TV show "Jade Fever." This part of northern BC has the largest deposit of nephrite jade in the world.* We had planned to take a drive into Telegraph Creek as well, but the road was closed so no-go. It all worked out for the best anyway, after a quick tourist stop n shop at Jade City we bee-lined for the medical centre at Dease Lake and got Mike's arm properly fixed up to get us through the next couple of days (which would still be remote). Technically we were in our health region in northern BC so no problem getting care (thinking it was a good thing this didn't happen in the Yukon).
Looking back on it, I wish I had bought a set of these, but in the moment I cheap-ed out.
But I love my Jade City hat and hoodie! And we have a piece of jade from Claudia herself
in the back yard pond stream now at home.
Anyhooooo... after that we were a bit deflated, hot, tired, and sore, so we again decided to pull up camp a little bit earlier in the day. We found a rustic little place called Red Goat Lodge, at Iskut, on Eddontenajon Lake. We napped, had dinner, and then amused ourselves playing with the washed up sticks all gathered around the little dock on our waterfront campsite. Camp-margaritas helped ease the pain, and I got to see what summertime looks like so far north, in the land of the midnight sun.
Unbelievable sky... and this was 11:30 at night!
Rested and refreshed, in the morning we set off on the next leg on this big journey. Destination: Stewart! Back onto the Cassiar highway twisting and turning and bumping along we stopped to make our lunch at the interesting little hamlet called Bell 2, surrounded by massive mountains. There is a beautiful lodge there, and a helicoptor company that flies in and out. We strolled around the little hobbit-ish buildings before getting back on the road.
Bell 2 Lodge
Next point of interest was to be Meziadin Junction, where we would turn to head out to Stewart. By this long time on the road I was starting to seriously look at our maps to try to stay on track with wherever the heck we were - LOL - planning this trip at home is a far cry from actually doing it! We had had a couple hiccups and plan changes and we were prepared for all of it (thanks to Mike!) but I did have to do the odd double take to understand where we had been, the parts we had had to change or skip, the parts we had added on, and now the road out to Stewart would be the same one coming back out. Confused yet? Might be good to scroll back up to the map for a second!
All that to say... the road to Stewart was breathtaking, in a whole new mountain range kind of way. Massive mountains. AND... drumroll please.... a massive glacier. Bear River Glacier, check this out:
And then we drove into the town of Stewart itself, remote scenic historic artsy colourful quirky little tiny Stewart. Even though it was rainy and misty while we were there the colours were so striking, all the little buildings and houses were painted and decorated brightly and stood out beautifully against the mountains soaring above.
After we replenished some supplies (this was day 6 after all), set up camp, and learned that "May is B.C. Mining Month," we went for a walkabout to explore.
Foreshadow...you have to know someday I'll blog about this and
May being Melanoma Skin Cancer Awareness Month
I fell very much in love with Stewart.
Would have been neat to stay longer; coincidentally we were there the day before Canada Day and they were about to lift some covid restrictions so there was going to be a big town party, that would have been so fun (and funny) to see! But that's okay, I know we will go back again.
At this point we had also regained cell service, so we spent a bit of time catching up with home and kids, and then hit the road again - back to the main highway and head south-east-ish to next stop Smithers. We did a couple of slow drives around the Hazeltons, noted that we needed to come back to the area again to see the lava beds, historical totem poles, and explore westward toward Terrace and Prince Rupert. But at this point we were homeward bound. Well, with a couple of stops in between.
We went to the hospital in Smithers to get Mike's arm re-checked and re-wrapped, and then went toward our camping spot for the next two nights. Tyhee Lake Provincial Park was huge, and really lovely! We set up, had a camping-food leftovers meal, and then checked out the park.
The next day we drove into Smithers to go hiking at Twin Falls.
Long story short, we saw Twin Falls, but we never did actually get TO Twin Falls. We mis-read the trail map, took the "difficult" route by accident and almost fell off the side of a cliff before turning around to take the shorter trail to the riverbed instead.
Gave up on the hiking, went into town to go out for lunch, and then went back to the park to chill for the night before our final drive home.
A little tired, but still smiling :-)
And to home we did get, parked the trailer in it's spot, took in all the laundry, and collapsed. LOL What an adventure! This trip was amazing in so many ways, incredibly memorable, and serves as a major highlight in our travel-together-repertoire. It gave me a huge education in northern BC terrain, history, and culture. And some lessons we learned from it will be very useful on our next big remote-explore camping trip - to Bella Coola!
To add to my highlight reel version of our trip along this route, I have pasted below a link to another website which goes into great detail (and with many helpful links to places and things) about the Great Northern Circle Route. They don't go to the Liard River hot springs (and we skipped Tumbler Ridge on this trip), but otherwise they cover the trip extremely well, and they even list a bunch of stuff about Prince George that I haven't yet shared. Feel free to check it out, we found it very helpful in planning our trip. Enjoy!
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~ In Loving Memory of my Dad ~
~ Cheers! ~
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