Tunkwa Provincial Park near Logan Lake, BC REVIEW

Looks like we got everything ready for our five-day camping trip. We are now going to take you to Tunkwa Provincial Park and give you an insider's look. There are miles and miles of hats on fence posts here. We have no idea why but we're going to ask our friends and get the inside scoop. And it was a gentleman who used to fish here all the time. He passed away and his family found boxes and boxes of hats and they knew how much he loved to camp and fish here that they decided they would do a little tribute to him. Putting hats on the posts and people have just slowly added to them. How many sites do you have here? There's 101 in Tunkwa, 18 in Leighton and there's 21 in North Leighton. And the campsites are unusual here. We call them open sites because they're not actually a group site. So we could have any number of trailers in one site. We just got a report that the bugs get pretty bad here once the wind dies down. So we're going to use our fancy DEET free bug spray again. It's like relatively effective. Not as effective as DEET but you know won't give you as much cancer either I guess. So we're trying something a little bit different with the Starlink. Mel did not like having the Starlink underneath the table by our feet. So I'm going to try and put it where all the other electronics are. So we thought about putting the router under the bench but then realized that it would have no airflow. Under here we've got airflow. We've actually got a fan that can blow extra air in if we need it. And there's a convenient little spot up here that I can run the wires through. Since we were able to stop in Merritt and get some Bannock, we decided tonight we're going to have Bannock burgers. I found these great little cups at the grocery store. The saying is just so perfect for us. I think we've discovered something here with the Bannock burger. All right so it's almost midday and I went to make lunch and the Bannock is still frozen. While we wait for that to thaw we're going to go for a little walk. The Layton Lake loop trail. There's lots of people out fishing today. If you like fishing this is definitely the place to be. Tall grass is bothering me a little bit. Mel hates tall grass. All through the park you can see signs of the big fire that came through here last year. It's a little bit sad. Yeah you see a lot of burnt dead stuff but you also see stuff that is doing just fine. The breeze has picked up a bit and it's really really nice. Very tall grass. You know people might think that you're a wuss. I'm okay with that. We are here with Doug and Sue, the park operators here at Tunkwa Provincial Park. Thank you guys for sitting down with us and chatting, taking a few moments out of your busy days. Well you guys open in May? We opened in April. Ice off. You're 3,800 feet here so winters are long and cold so the lake's freeze. We can open as soon as the ice is off. That's when some of the best fishing is actually. So when people come here what are the top things that they like to do? Number one is fishery. Coronamid fishing is really good here because of the feed in the lake. And bird watching, mountain biking, hiking, horseback riding. We got two corrals here that we horses come and stay here. And that's about it I think. We can't seem to go camping and not have hot dogs. I like hot dogs. I feel like it's a bit of an unhealthy tradition we have. We may have to look at changing that in the future. No we won't. I heard that. We are staying on site 88 and we are really really happy with the position and location of this site. We've got a lake view. So we've got a few little trees here to keep us extra wind sheltered. Before we started filming you had told me before that you're famous for your outhouses. Yes we are. Yesterday on our walk I had to use one of the outhouses and I gotta show you what their outhouses here are like because I've never seen a cleaner outhouse in my entire life. There is like not a cobweb in here. The floor is clean. The toilets are clean. Like even the inside. They've got hand sanitizer. They've got nice big rolls of toilet paper. Not even a speck of dirt on the walls. I also forgot to mention there's absolutely no odor. All of the sites here at Tonko Provincial Park are dry camping so you've got no hookups so come prepared for that. And what about water like filling and emptying tanks in RVs and stuff? We have a water pump. These kind of old-fashioned looking water pumps. They're kind of fun. You get a little bit of a workout. If you wanted to fill up your trailer you're better off to drive the 15 kilometers back to Logan Lake to the sani dump. In front of the public works yard. It's by donation only. And there's potable water there too. Potable water. Our water is very drinkable but you can't. It's kind of hard to fill your trailer with it. They also have handy dandy bear proof garbage and recycling available. So there's no cell phone signal in most of the park but there is an old school pay phone. One thing about Tonko Park that you might want to consider is that it does get windy sometimes. We had to put in our awning. It's kind of moving the trailer around a little bit. I've been taking a look up at the Starlink making sure that it's not moving around too much but that pole mount seems to be holding well. So it's a lot less windy today. So we're going for a little walk. It's sunny. A couple clouds. Not too hot but warm enough that Mel has shorts on. We just saw what we think was a golden eagle. Sadly it flew away before we could get a really good shot but we'll see what Jay's camera skills did as it was flying away. I'm very curious. What's a typical day like for you guys? We're in charge of the whole park. So we're responsible for all the campers and all the maintenance. We have good staff here which is good. Okay, so you do have help. Yes, we have a couple wonderful volunteers also. Typical day is we get up and bathrooms, garbage, sites, collecting and then whatever else needs to be done. Whatever else comes up that day. There's never two days the same. Well thank you so much for again for taking some time out of your very busy days. It was nice for you guys to finally come up here. Yeah, we're definitely going to come back. We'll bring more people next time. There you go. It's our last night here so we're going to build another fire and we're going to cook our Indian food on it. See how that works. So that worked out really well. This was a quick meal and so good. It's so awesome having Indian food on the campsite. It's a beautiful day out here at the campground. I'm gonna start over. You know what could be really funny? Renting a bear costume and like hanging out in the field somewhere here. That'd probably be really funny until you encountered a hunter. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Maybe go into amenities now. No. Oh yeah, okay. Just be ready for a little bit of... Picnic tables over there are almost clustered like a herd of animals. And I probably will run out of battery on one of these at some point. Make sure you don't miss the next video by liking, subscribing and turning on notifications. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you in the next one.