Saturday, June 24th: The Canadian Rockies

Well, we are once again in a pickle.  One of the kids was hit with a bit of a stomach bug a few days ago, before the Redwoods, and, since it hadn’t reared its ugly head again, we passed it off as something he ate.  Alas, two more kids are throwing up in the back seat as we traverse the Canadian border, and one more is looking a little green. Tim, who always gets ridiculously stressed whenever we cross the border (due to some childhood trauma you’ll have to ask him about sometime), kept repeating that they had to smile and try not to look sick when we hit the border.  Surely they would turn us away.  This is the third time we’ve crossed that border and, just like today, everything went just fine.  Hopefully he’ll chill out on the return trip in a few weeks.

Mt. Rainer in the distance as we reach the border.

Disclaimer:  Feel free to bypass much of my writing. Much of this is a journal for myself and for my family to appreciate our moments not eh road and it may bog down your interest in our travels.  I’m wordy.

If we were traveling the Oregon trail, almost half of us would have died of dysentery by now.  If we were crossing over on the Mayflower, we would have buried several of us at sea at this point.  We are literally traveling the old Gold Rush trail of the 1890’s and we have been reading up on the history and stories of that time.  It took them a WEEK to travel 8 MILES because the terrain here is so harsh, the weather so uncooperative.  Since the trail was too rough for horses, they would haul a load on foot a mile, set it down in their pile, go back to what they left and repeat the mile with another load.  Again and again and again, adding to their “cache” (we just went through Cache Creek, CN). The trail up the Chilkoot Pass was a 1000ft 35 degree angle (which we could all feel with our very bones since it is the exact angle of the Cinder Cone we climbed a few days ago) which was carved into steps of ice.  They again traversed this over and over, pack after pack, load after load, until a year’s worth of supplies (2000 pounds) were over the pass. It took them about 40 trips carrying 50 pounds each time. Someone had a story of carrying a PIANO over the pass piece by piece!! It’s just insanity.  AND after that they camped for weeks on the edge of a frozen lake, building a boat from the surrounding forest so they could raft the Yukon to the Klondike as soon as the rived thawed. It makes you wonder what people were thinking doing all this crazy stuff in the hopes of a few chunks of gold. Or those people that lost their lives along the Oregon trail in search of a better life to land they never had set eyes on, half of them never making it.  Story after story throughout our history of just madness.

And you know, I’ve thought that if Tim and I lived it those times we would probably be one of those crazy nuts.  I know my dad would have been.  Straight up Pa Ingalls right there with itchy feet.  We moved around the east coast like it was something fun to do and people always asked me if we were in the military growing up. Nope. He did take us on a lot of trips to some neat places - packing all 6 of us in a van and tenting as we went.  But I think seeing new places always sparked a bit of curiosity and adventure in me.  I was also always impressed by by Dad’s brother and his family.  6 kids and he and his wife would take them backpacking into the White Mountains of NH.  It looked impressively hard and strangely appealing.  Now, somehow despite all of the adventurous spots we’ve taken our kids, I still have at least one that prefers to just stay home and be inside.  So it has something to do with personality I guess.  But there is something that is just not quite good enough about seeing all of these beautiful places just in photographs.

And so we go.  Dragging our 7 children on thousands of miles of road, doing all sorts of very uncomfortable things. All to have a glimpse of something I could easily see on the internet now in hundreds of pictures probably better than the foggy morning I woke up to or missed in a late overnight drive.  And I know I’m crazy while we pack barfing kids in the back of a 15 passenger van, or

pass food over moving seats as we drive through lunch, or park overnight next to 5 other semis and share a bathroom with a crazy homeless woman and her sleeping bag.

  I guess some crazy part of me wants to see for myself what’s around the next bend.  And I’m always fascinated by people that live in outlandishly rural areas outside of civilization, hauling in supplies and not seeing a soul for months.

Anyway, we made it over the border into the Raspberry capital of Canada, Abbottsford.  There really was fruit growing all over the place - blueberries, raspberries, strawberries.  Apparently, the land is extremely fertile here.  Next we ascended into the Frazer River Canyon. 

It is a strikingly beautiful portion of the drive, even in the overcast and rainy weather.  It was named after the first white man who was able to hike into the canyon and it is treacherous!  There was a story about getting a steamboat up the river by attaching bolts and rope to the side of the canyon and pulling the ship through Hell’s Gate -the tightest most dangerous potion of the canyon.  Following that was a stark contrast - reminiscent of Utah and Eastern CO.  Dry and dessert like but still mountainous as it followed the river.  There was so many tunnels through the mountains on this stretch.

We finally reached Prince George where we stopped at a Walmart for a few things.  Since we didn’t exchange money at the border, we had no Canadian coinage which meant we couldn’t use a cart (quarters wouldn’t work).  So we wandered around Walmart carrying our selections - thankfully there were several hands to help.  We spent way more money (everything is SO expensive here!!) and time there than we wanted bc we had access to wi-fi so we could try to figure out where to stay that night.  I had a few free options that I had planned out before leaving the states while the phones still worked, but I was feeling like we could use a night with running water since 2 more kids were feeling sick - only 3 of us left standing.  But we were out of luck with that endeavor.  Tim reminded me the camper at least was full of water that we could use sparingly.  And so we settled on a spot 30 minutes outside of Prince George - a recreational site on Lake Kwitzil.  It took us a moment to figure out how to get down to the lake - we could see a few campers parked around it.  But the “road” down was steep and looked like it could only be used by ATV’s.  We pulled over and Tim and I walked down to the lake and tried to find a road down, realizing we had just missed it buried in the trees. 

And so we settled in with the mosquitoes (SO thankful we’re not in a tent!) and crashed before the sun would be up at 4am :)  Not even kidding.  We’re in the North Country now!

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