Should The US Be More Like Canada (Not The Other Way Around)? BC From The Top Down - Part 2

It's Autumn and the Canada geese are migrating South and so am I the fall color is stunning and I've been following it South too the whole way from the Yukon in part one of British Columbia from the top down we started at the Yukon border traveling Southward we had a look at The Rustic settlement of atland BC saw Bears bison moose and a sto and saw hills and mountains covered in glorious fall colors I soaked in leard Hot Springs did an impression of Dr Anthony fouchy I got a better JB than Muhammad Ali and met a man walking more than 10,000 miles from Alaska to argen join me as I continue down to the very bottom of BC off season and nobody around looks like it's a cultural sight overlooking this River this looks like an interesting structure let's go inside and have a look around inside this building nice woodwork there wow this is kind of cool so I'm not sure this was a ceremonial area or what like a Kaa perhaps some sort of a shelter here duck down and have a look in there looks like the makings of the start of a wik up type shelter or maybe a sweat lodge lake lahash has the most unique thrift store I may have ever seen that's my new buddy he slept outside in my car all night hey bud I [Music] we're coming into Clinton I love this town I really do it's my favorite town they named it after me you know oh yeah they did Hey where's all the pretty women oh where are you [Music] the landscape becomes drier and more similar to a desert [Music] heading east towards saona and [Music] cers Forest roads in BC are often good places to camp like this one and it has a little bit of a view out there kind of reminds me of BLM land in the states it's free to Camp down below is the road that goes to cam loops to the east on the way to saona is what looks to be a fake ghost town how do I know it's fake well ghost towns never had plywood for one thing it says 1885 up there and plywood wasn't invented as well as a lot of other reasons but if you want to pay to see a fake ghost town it might be fun [Music] cam loops Lake rainbow at the end of it all Savona m m my Savona [Music] [Applause] [Music] see it before it's all gone cuz it's all just becoming a big Golf Course subdivision just back there because it's by the lake tonight's stay is near the Duffy Recreation Area coming into downtown cam loops cam loops is situated at the Confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers looks like this is the big city for this region a lot of growth here and as with big cities you have things like art galleries and theater and other amenities originally a railroad Town Incorporated in 1893 it has grown to about 120,000 residents in the region these days the city is known for hosting numerous tournaments and events logging cattle vegetable farming Transportation viticulture Healthcare tourism and education all contribute to the regional economy [Music] leaving cam [Music] loops this little place is called fauland the Okanagan Valley is known for its fruit growing coming in toward Vernon here's a real quick look at Vernon just passing through the Okanagan Valley is much more populated and quite sprawly probably because it gets much more Sunshine than some other places in BC and we're in the southern portion of BC where the generally the population is more dense the Okanagan is kind of like the Southern California of Southern BC at sunshine traffic sprawl a lot of people in an endless string of development and houses and ongoing development for past 30 to 50 m or so Colona sits beside Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley the name is derived from the Okanagan people's name for a grizzly bear with about A4 million residence it's the third largest metro area in the province known for abundant Summer Sunshine and a milder climate than most places in Canada it's popular with tourists just like cam loops this place is growing too quite a bit big skyscraper going on back in the distance there heading out of Colona it took quite a while to get through there a lot of stop lights and traffic spoke too soon we're not out of Colona we're just getting into w W Colona yeah this town just keeps going and going and going like I said Southern California endless new subdivisions sprawl all that stuff there's also Vineyards and fruit orchards in abundance as well as cattle ranching I think I may have taken a wrong turn if so it wouldn't surprise me I am incredibly tired because for the past several nights maybe even a week I've had this endless thing where the mice find a way inside my car every night and they're scampering around and last night I actually shined the flashlight right on him and saw him grabbed him by the tail and he had wedged wedged himself inside like the door kind of thing and he was incredibly strong his adrenaline must have kicked in I just tried to hold him and he he wedged himself so tightly he was not coming out but you would have thought you know doing that to him he would have got the message like get out he saw him outside the car so I jumped inside started up the car and and I actually moved the car away from him about 100 yards but he managed to find me again to a mouse I must seem as large as a Tyrannosaurus Rex and you know if a tyrannosaurus had me by the back of my shirt I would get the hint and get the heck out of that area I wouldn't think hey I'll go back to the place where the Rex is these mice have been driving me in Saint screaming around through the car making a bunch of noise looking for food running over the top of my blanket sometimes while I'm trying to sleep and running behind my head and everything who was in the car for a few days I think 7 hours later there's another one getting in the car to replace him there's just a lot of mice here in British Columbia I guess I overheard someone saying that they have a friend who has mice in their brand new house so for some reason there's a lot of mice down in BC I got mesmerized by the traffic and the stop lights and I just kept going when I should have turned I get to see Colona twice sprawl sprawl sprawl subdivision [Music] sprawl after many days of a little mouse hiding in my Dash in the daytime and coming out at night and scaring all around the car and keeping me awake and being very annoying I finally caught him in my makeshift catch him alive been so he's inside here we're going to let him go get rid of him they can really jump since this mouse has managed to find his way back when I drove the car a 100 yards away from him I've walked him about a third of a mile away so there's very little chance he'll find his way back okay time for you to leave Mouse get out hit the road Jack come on you're free you you can go now bye-bye Hit the Road Jack and don't you come back no more you here [Music] heading south I've been falling fall for several weeks Arlington Lakes is off the 33 Highway Arlington lakes with big white ski area way in the background up on the mountain here at the Arlington Lakes Campground I was just walking along the lake having a look and then a little kid about 3 years old ran up to me and gave me this and I looked at the mom and she nodded like yeah go ahead take it so I did and uh you know it's kind of cool I've experienced a lot of random acts of kindness up here in Canada I just needed a quick and simple pair of headphones I knew they'd be $150 at the Dollar Tree in Canada I brought in a $2 coin only to find out that there was a dollar tax on the headphones because they were electronics and I didn't have enough money so I said oh that's all right I'll I'll just put it back as I was walking away to put the item back they H shouted back to me hey come back here sir so I walked over there and it turned out that somebody in line behind me decided to pay for the remainder of the headphones a little headphone fairy and it was cute everybody in line denied that they did that I've also tried to share kindness as well along the way I want to see somebody hiking or cycling long distance I'll stop and I'll ask them if they need some water and food and give them some just to help their Journey out heading onward toward Greenwood then Grand Forks we're passing through the little teeny town of Midway right there probably closed cuz it's Sunday we can have a look yeah it's closed have a look at this train station from 1900 there's the reason most people in Canada probably 60 to 70% live within 200 Mi of the US border it's just warmer down here historic [Music] Greenwood we're here in Greenwood and it turns out it's a historic copper mining town going back to the late 1800s and it was one of the most booming and prosperous towns in the province this town's kind of cute actually it sort of reminds me of Bisby Arizona I guess it's no surprise that this place reminds me of Bisby because they're both copper towns the claim to fame here is the smallest city in Canada a copper smelter was built in 1901 and the town prospered there were three hotels a general store a livery stable two assay offices a mining broker an opera house and a dozen other establishments but it was shortlived when copper prices plummeted after World War I people vacated and the population once 3,000 in its Heyday of 1899 shrunk to only a few hundred [Music] [Music] [Music] look at that old Chevy it fits right in in a town like [Music] this the toaster place this place is toast literally there must be over a 100 toasters in this place [Music] [Music] [Music] crap Ola I just discovered I have an entire Mouse family that moved in my car so that one I caught he's got a brother and a sister apparently and I just caught one of them but I just saw another one Scurry off when I opened the door in the car so I've got to catch that one tonight as well okay beat it I've got to go catch your sibling now beat it get out go bye-bye I heard on the radio last night that two people were killed by a grizzly bear in bamp National Park and because of that they had to kill the bear so things do happen up here on occasion but it's rare you've got a far better chance of being hit by lightning and being attacked by a bear two people a husband and wife along with their dog are dead after an encounter with a grizzly bear in Alberta it was a GPS indicator that first caught the attention of parks Canada an alert came in from B National Park the Red Deer River Valley area Friday evening indicating a bear attack had taken place hampered by weather conditions response Crews were kept from flying to the scene by helicopter instead traveling by ground overnight early Saturday morning the bodies of two people were discovered as well as an aggressively behaving grizzly bear which officials say they euthanized for Public Safety and today the attack area is closed again for Public Safety a report released earlier this year from sports betting site sporting pedia found Alberta had the most attacks by Wildlife per capita of any province between 2010 and 2021 pars kadaa disputed the report though saying most encounters were minor they decided to log right where my campsite is so I can't get out the road now they're logging right back there I walked down the road to find a man sitting in his truck and he seemed surprised to see me pop out from seemingly out of nowhere I explained that their F trees were blocking my way out so he radioed to the tree Feller to come clear the trees from my path heading toward Grand Forks you might think you have some mighty nice spoons just place his Grand Forks I caught Mouse number three last night and let him go so it was was pretty quiet after that but you know I may have actually at one time had four or even five mice in this car at the same time and you know they're in between the paneling and whatnot they hide out or get in the dash and I didn't know that mice could travel in packs they all look to be about the same age so I'm thinking it's one family either that or this is the Magic Mouse bus and every time I stopped for the night another mouse would get on and join the [Music] party some of the local residents here in Grand Forks [Music] Grand Fork City Hall Once the site of a large copper smelter operation the town of Grand Forks with a population of about 4500 now relies more on logging agriculture rock wool manufacturing metal fabrication and tourism and from what I could see has created an ambitious mural painting scheme to liven up the aesthetic appeal of the town [Music] there's an interesting contrast in two murals [Music] that's what a packrat looks like they made kind of big and they sometimes get in your car start to make a nest collect stuff sweet parked for the night right outside of Castlegar not too far away next to the Columbia River right next to it the colia river in the morning this is Castlegar might be the last town or near the last town that I see in Canada for a while nice pack trop of mountains here Castle gar is a town of about 8,500 people in the west cutney region in the Selkirk mountains at the Confluence of the cutney and Columbia Rivers it's a regional trade and Transportation Center with a local Economy based on forestry Mining and tourism originally the land of the syx people it was later settled by many dubore Russians it's getting time to return to the United States and you know I've come to think of sadly the United States of a place that's predicated on endless greed and endless growth you got a lot of problems there crime drugs homelessness it just seems to never end the list goes on noisy polluted maybe you could take an example from Canada it seems to be tidier and prettier the towns are more Compact and there's Parklands and open space far more accessible like right now I'm just outside of Castlegar just maybe a kilometer or two and I'm in basically the woods so hey America you claim to be the richest country in the world why not use some of that money to improve your country make it maybe a little bit more like Canada and there's a nice degree of kindness and courtesy in the people here there seem to be more parks within the towns and the open space seems to be more accessible just right outside the towns by the way Canada almost makes the to top 10 list of happiest countries whereas the United States barely makes the top 20 usually coming in at about 19 or 20 in happiness in America there seems to be little thought given to how the decisions of the few will affect the many and how those decisions May adversely impact the quality of life in a community 10 or 20 years down the road people think that a little more money is going to make them happier and their life is going to be better and there may be something to that however money may buy Comfort but it doesn't really by happiness that's true it doesn't it seems that the rich just keep getting richer while the poor just stay where they are and every time they think they're going to get ahead there's inflation or economic downturn or something happens and they don't the middle class in the United States has been gradually Vanishing get it together America make it a better place and don't be sluggish about it just outside Castle gar crossing the river some nice cliffs in the background there I camped down there heading up a steep mountain side up toward the top of cutney pass and then once up there it'll eventually take us down into Crest cutney pass is over a mile high coming over the top of the pass now and on [Music] down that's a nice Mountain backdrop to have for a town [Music] this is the town of Creston and this is the last town I'll be seeing in Canada for a while it's time to head on down south even more into the States originally a forestry and farming based Community Creston has expanded its Horizons to embrace micro breweries and tourism oriented activity here's a look at downtown [Music] Creston lots of fruit stands and [Music] cresten those are some impressive mountains if there's a way up there we should go to the top those mountains I said made a great backdrop for Creston well we're going to the top of them now it's a little steep and a little bumpy but that's to be expected right forest service road yeah we're getting up here all right in case anybody was wondering yes they do have snakes in Canada now this one's just a harmless garter snake so nothing to worry about there I'm just trying to Sho him off the road so he doesn't get run over go on buddy go on get along hurry up about 9 and 1/2 K in so far and I think I can smell antifreeze burning up this is pretty steep and long we're heading up to mount Thompson and uh we'll explore Thompson Ridge from there supposedly has some awesome views we're definitely getting up here we got some snow wow that's pretty awesome so far and we're not even at the top yet good very nice [Music] [Applause] [Music] the sunsets over Canada a nice way to end the Canadian Journey look like this is my last night in Canada so I'll celebrate I having a beer I wanted to get a moose head beer but uh the last liquor store I went to they didn't have any due to some problems with their distributor checked another place a few days back but they had only large cases so I just wanted one or two so I guess I have to settle for an American beer and a raise a toast to Canada and all the kind people here and all the fun times I've had here's the Canada hey US Customs and that brings us back to the States I may not have gotten my moose head beer but I did pick up these beers to try out right before I left Canada I hope you enjoyed heading south down Canada with me on a random sort of mosy back toward the US don't forget to give me a like on the video share and subscribe until next time this is the Rockhopper I'll see you [Music]