British Columbia From The Top Down

Here's a journey I did a little while back that I thought I'd share with you. Brock Hopper here. Let's take a drive from the top of British Columbia at the Yukon border and head south and see BC from the top down. We'll explore remote corners of the province, see wildlife such as bears and bison, view waterfalls and the wonder of fall color, and meet a guy walking more than 10,000 miles. I'm walking from Alaska to Argentina. Let's first have a brief look at a portion of southern Yukon I'd traveled through, passing by shacks and charming and rustic roadside attractions like Moose Lodge, built in the 1960s. Southern Yukon is a land of lakes and mountains, and there were plenty of both along the way. In the Yukon, pump first, then pay. One nice thing about Canada is they tell you exactly where to find the local radio stations as you're approaching these really remote towns, as you may not have been in radio range for 100 miles or more. Atlin is a tiny settlement beside Atlin Lake, with a scenic backdrop of mountains. It was where Never Cry Wolf was filmed, and it continues to be one of my favorite movies. Atlin also has a special place in my heart as the terminus of my mountain bike ride that began in Lakeview, Oregon. In Atlin, I made several friends while I stayed there, before heading south again. The town began as a gold rush settlement in the late 1800s, and the unpolished, rustic charm of the town is evident today. By road, Atlin is only accessible by going through the Yukon to get to it. A one-road-in, one-road-out kind of place. I headed out of Atlin and British Columbia, and was back onto Yukon roads for a while before dropping back into B.C. again. The poplars and aspens were ablaze with fall colors and gave the hills and mountains a radiant glow. I was bedazzled by all the colors surrounding me, a vibrant carpet lighting up the landscape. I was driving through big country. This is the land of bears, both black and grizzly, as well as other large creatures such as moose and many smaller ones, too. It's gonna be a surprise pandemic. 18 months later, there was a surprise pandemic. I know what I'm talking about. I am science. Surprise! XBB 0.1. Happy birthday to COVID. Happy birthday to COVID. And many more. Dr. Anthony Fauci, and I am rich. I love COVID. It's beautiful. I got a better jab than Muhammad Ali. I have a dollar sign on my face mask. Who's the greatest now? Got me a buttload of money. No, it got me a truckload of money. No, it got me a trainload of money. No, it got me ten trainloads of money coming right to my bank and unloading it all. I'll show you Liard Hot Springs. Here's the hot spring. Ah, it feels good. Now if you go up, that way, it gets hotter. If you go downstream, cooler. Right here, just about right. Somebody said I had to go to the end here. Said it was really cool, so let's go check it out. I went up the road a few miles and found a dirt path, so drove a couple miles along it and parked for the night. It was like I'd entered another world, a primitive, primordial place that was somewhat haunting in a way, knowing there could be a bear nearby hidden in the thick bush, and I wouldn't even know it. The next morning, I was enchanted by the fog undulating in waves like a misty river trailing across the mountains. The combination of the mist and the fall color against a large river lent an ethereal aura to the land, a land that looked and felt like a corner of heaven. As I drove, the feeling that I was traveling through some piece of heaven continued, the mist enveloping the car and transporting me to a misty dreamscape. This is Atsushi. He's from Japan, and he's doing an incredible walk. He's going to tell us about that. Tell us about what you're doing, Atsushi. Actually, I'm walking from Alaska to Argentina. Yeah, on my foot. All on foot? Wow. And this is your trail? Yeah, like a Japanese trucker. Yeah, like a rickshaw. I bring my country, and I'm walking. About a hundred kilometers. It's so tough for me. Yeah, I'm very tiny, so... Yeah, now, windy and huge, so it's too much task. And you started in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and you're going to walk all the way to Argentina. And have you encountered any bears or anything? Sometimes. Yeah, two days ago, I was a black bear. Yeah, but I have bear spray. Okay, you got the bear spray. That's good. What's been the most difficult thing along the way so far? The rainy is so tough. Yeah, but enjoy. It's fun. Glad you're out there doing this. I wish you all the best of luck. Yeah, thank you. Have a great journey. Thank you. A large pasture with a backdrop of mountains aglow with color and horses below made me feel as if I'd reached the pastures of heaven. As I continued south of Racing River, so did the magnificent display of color and the impressive mountain backdrops. Here in northern BC, upon the existing asphalt, they lay down a seal and then put loose gravel over the top of it and just leave it that way. I guess they hoped that enough cars go by that it presses it down and it sticks. But it's really just the perfect recipe for chips in your windshield. Like this guy coming at you. Yeah. Oh, look at that. Moose up ahead. I went looking for the moose south of Summit Lake and instead I found this little guy and he was very intent on checking me out. Talk about pop goes the weasel. This little creature that turns completely white in winter is sometimes referred to as an ermine. And this one seemed to be playing a game of hide and seek with me, darting about and disappearing and then reappearing somewhere else. After he'd had his fun, he bounded off and vanished. Another example of where they put the gravel over the top of the asphalt. Boy, does it make a lot of dust. Wow, what happened here? This is insanely smooth. Brand new asphalt. you can camp for free here at the Moskva Recreational Area. It's got picnic tables, fire pit, and the campsites are not far from the river. There's even a shelter with a wood stove inside. Just go 4.5 kilometers down the gravel road, just off the highway. Another fire? Really? It's autumn. Come on. Wow, what happened? It's 81 degrees. Indian summer is what must be happening. Up in the far north, Fort Nelson. Looks like another fire out of control out in the distance. Another fire raging. Smoke on the water. If we were closer, we might be able to see the fire in the sky. Down the road, yet another fire. This one south of Prophet River. The trees in the foreground aren't burned from this fire. That was from a previous one. Be advised that the roadsides in British Columbia might be toxic, but at least they put signs up. Good morning. Another day, another fire here in British Columbia. I'm just about 40 miles north of Fort St. John, and you can see the smoke's really moving in. A half an hour ago it was clear, and the wind is blowing this way, so I think the fire's coming this way too. I think we better get out of here. This is bad smoke. Getting really thick out here. Heading toward Fort St. John. If climate change is real, and from my interview with a climate scientist in the Arctic who explained that it is, and that it's exacerbated by human activity, then these oil and gas towns are contributing to their own demise. By furthering exploitative practices that harm the environment, deforestation from logging in BC that releases carbon and eliminates trees that could supply oxygen, and Alberta, an oil, gas, and tar sands province contributing greenhouse gases, the bitter irony is that places like Fort McMurray are burning down due to their own activities that create perfect conditions for the megafires that destroy their towns. On the BC-29 and feeling fine. Saw the Aurora Borealis last night. It wasn't much, no color, just some very wispy whitish stuff. I thought were cirrus clouds at first. But when I watched them undulate and move around, I realized it was the aurora. A cute little log church here in Hudson's Hope, BC. Inside the little museum in town is a buffalo hide coat from the 1930s and it looks like that. To stand beside a fire in the wild is to connect with one's primal roots of humanity. The fire is warmth. A means of cooking food and a feeling of protection from creatures lurking in the night. A fire calms and mesmerizes us. To peer into the flames of a fire is to peer into the eye of one of the earth's mightiest elements. Looks like we're coming into Chetwynd. Looks like a very industrial type of town. My first impression of Chetwynd turned out to be accurate. Lumber mills and a coal processing plant. Originally a trading post called Little Prairie, it was renamed Chetwynd in 1959. Forestry products, a gas plant, sulfur processing, and a coal mine have been the town's industries. Welcome to Chetwynd. You probably aren't going to want to stay there. Lumberjacks. Hey, that's pretty cool, the share shed. If you need anything, just come here and look and see if they've got it, and take it. Why don't they have more of these? Pine Le Moray was a natural gem. A calm and beautiful lake reflected the colors of autumn and a drab cloudy sky upon its glassy surface. Each tree radiated like a bright yellow flame. I appear to have found another free camping spot. You can park it for the night right here at Pine Le Moray Provincial Park, and it appears that it's free. It definitely looks free in the off-season anyway. And it's got a beautiful lake. There's even a swing rope, so you can go flying out over the water and let go and jump in the lake on a hot summer day. So don't grouse about this place. It's free. And I think the views are stellar. Right, Jay? Stellar is Jay. Here we go again. Approaching the city of Prince George, I didn't see anything that looked particularly interesting or aesthetically unique about this town. I stopped in one of the libraries, which was housed in what looked to be a mini shopping center. This is the town of Quenelle. Quenelle had a more laid-back, small-town vibe. I had a look around, and then walked into an outdoors shop selling skis, backpacks, and such. There I met a cool guy who eventually asked if I'd like a beer or two from the mini keg he had in the back. After our beers, he drew me a map to what he said would make a good place to park for the night. He gave me a really good map he drew, and that would have been great, except for the fallen tree here. So I'm going to try and get around it to get to the campsite he told me about. Whoa! Oh! Okay. Ah! I think I just scraped the side. I got around the tree, not far of the campsite, hopefully. I found the parking lot he was talking about, so this is going to be camp for the night. There's a picnic table there. How about that? And a trash can. And, just like he told me, a pit toilet. Hey, bonus! The cigarette warning labels are a little bit more graphic here in Canada than in the States, where they just have the Surgeon General's warning that says something like, smoking may negatively affect your health or cause lung cancer or whatever. The journey continues as we explore southern B.C. down to the U.S. border. Along the way, we'll visit a First Nations cultural center. This looks like an interesting structure. Let's go inside and have a look around. View a place called the Chasm A husband and wife, along with their dog, are dead after an encounter with a grizzly bear. And I actually moved the car away from him, but he managed to find me again. A little kid about three years old ran up to me and gave me this. And to top it all off, we'll drive to the top of a mountain range to see what might be one of the best views in southern British Columbia. I hope you enjoyed traveling down British Columbia with me. Don't forget to give me a like on the video, share, and subscribe. Until next time, this is Rock Hopper. I'll see ya.