In the mid-1800’s, gold was discovered in BC, then called New Caledonia. Within a year, hopeful prospectors began to arrive from around the world. In the months following the discovery, thousands of people journeyed up the Fraser River and into the Cariboo region of the province.
Between Prince George and Vancouver, there are many old buildings along the highway that herald back to the gold rush days, particularly in the Williams Lake to Cache Creek stretch. Some have been lost to forest fires, others have been ransacked by people seeking old wood for various reasons.
There are fewer than I remember as a kid.
So, since I am trying to get myself back into photography, it seemed like a good reason to throw the big camera in the truck, and something that might make me take my foot off the gas and make a few stops to get out of the vehicle and stretch on the way.
At least that’s what I’d told myself when I left for PG on Friday morning.
The weather on the way up was abysmal though, so I only stopped or fuel and to use the facilities when I did.
I was also trying to get to PG in good time on the way there because I was hoping to catch up with a friend over a beer, but I hadn’t exactly been transparent that I was driving there on Friday; I just sort of dropped little hints….before sending the photo of “Prince George 14” and posting Mr. PG.
After a frustrating drive from Vancouver to Cache Creek, I decided to avoid the Fraser Canyon and the Fraser Valley on the way home. The Valley is a mind-numbing drive since it’s basically straight all the way from Hope to Vancouver (with some big bends, but really, let’s just call it a straight road) and even though the speed limit is about 110km/hr…..one will repeatedly and unexpectedly find themselves tromping on the brakes and dropping rapidly to 30km/hr or less because there is so much traffic, and everyone drives on everyone’s bumper, and the left lane is filled with people who shouldn’t be in the left lane but feel some weird ownership of it….. and everyone is irritated.
It’s mind numbing…but it’s also stressful.
And, if it’s sunny, one is also driving directly into the setting sun in the evening….so that adds an element of suspense to the whole “Is the guy ahead of me, who I can barely see because the sun is in my eyes, going to stomp on his brakes when I least expect it?” thing.
And the canyon, well I usually don’t mind that drive, but BC had pretty much all of it’s major highways trashed last fall when we got some wild weather and you just don’t rebuild all the major highways fully in a few months. Highway 8 was wiped off the map and may never be rebuilt. The rest, like the canyon, have sections that are single lane alternating direction and necessitate the use of a pilot car….and…since it’s summer….there are motorhomes galore slowing everything down.
Yeah….I can do without that on the way home. I decided to take highway 99 down from Cache Creek, to Lillooet, through Whistler and Squamish, and home to North Vancouver. I know the road from Whistler like the back of my hand and I enjoy the Sea to Sky. It doesn’t feel as long or as tiring as the freeway and the technicality of the road from Cache Creek to Pemberton it definitely keeps one from getting drowsy.
So that was the plan.
The first place I pulled off the road was at Alexandria. Alexandria (or Fort Alexandria) is a National Historic Site of Canada on the Fraser River in British Columbia, and was the end of the Old Cariboo Road and the Cariboo Wagon Road. It is located on Highway 97, 103 miles north of 100 Mile House and 28 miles south of Quesnel. (Wikipedia)
I have inherited many things from Mom….I am happy that on of them is not her tiny travel bladder. On road trips, she had a mental list of favourite bathrooms (clean and properly spaced) where we would have to pull over. McCleese Lake was always one of those, but Quesnel was always the first stop. I didn’t stop in Quesnel, and I didn’t need to stop in McCleese, but I did, if only because it’s a pretty little spot to stretch.
Just outside of Lac la Hache is another little scenic spot with an old barn and a little wooden building…maybe an old chicken coop…alongside a duckweed covered pond.
At around 114 Mile House I stopped and ran across the highway to take a few shots of what looks like an old cabin. The roofline suggests that it once had a little covered porch and I’d love to know who lived there and when, and what their life was like.
Just a short few kms down the road, at Spring Lake Road, was a rolling field with lazy cattle grazing on bright green grasses, and a couple of interesting old buildings. I’m guessing that the one on the knoll was a home because of its shape and the inclusion of windows, a chimney, and decorative shingles along the wall below the roofline on the end. Perhaps the other was a livestock building of some sort. Maybe for goats or sheep, possibly pigs or poultry?
I stopped around 105 Mile House and took a couple of photos of a collection of old farm buildings….
…..and somewhere just after that I noticed a white head in the grasses on the other side of the road. As I passed it I realized it was a bald eagle and it was sitting just a couple of feet off the pavement, with it’s right wing laying out to its side. I pulled off and did a u-turn to come back to where I saw it because I assumed it may have been hit by a passing truck and possibly had a broken wing. I was trying to think of what I would do if that was the case. You can’t just walk up to a bald eagle like “Oh hey, I’ll just pop you in the back seat and we’ll go find a wildlife rescue place in the middle of nowhere.” I’d lose a hand trying the first before ever getting to the second step. Who would I even call?
When I stopped the truck, its head swivelled around towards me…..didn’t look in shock….I got out of the truck and it spread its wings and did a bit of a flopping hop-fly into deeper grasses….that’s when I saw a dead and bloody animal trailing in it’s talons.
Not wounded, probably winded. It had obviously caught and killed something and was resting before flying off somewhere to eat its dinner and I rudely interrupted it.
It let go of its meal and flew low over the highway ….great, it hadn’t been hit before but now I was going to get it hit….it made it into a tree across the road and looked balefully at me.
I got back in the truck and let nature be. So much for being a good samaritan.
That was the end of the stops along the Cariboo Highway and I eventually turned onto Highway 99 just before Cache Creek. I didn’t stop until I was across the river from Lillooet. I pulled off in a safe’ish spot to take a few photos from up high, and then pulled in at the place one is “supposed to stop” for that purpose, and ate a sandwich and drank some water in the heat. Lillooet is typically the hottest spot in BC…though Lytton took that crown last year at 49.5C, a day before the entire town was consumed by fire.
After that it was a stop for gas and then straight on home through Lillooet, Pemberton, Whistler, and Squamish. A bit slow in some areas where a motorhome didn’t quite grasp the concept of pulling to the side to let the 40 vehicles trapped behind it, doing a frustrating 30km/hr, get past…. But the drive is technical in nature, twisty and narrow, and keeps you awake. It also leaves the sun at your back and side rather than directly in your eyes, as the Fraser Valley route does. The traffic is also lighter, though it can bog down.
And that’s what 1800km in a weekend looks like.
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