British Columbia Adventures in a 30' Beaver: Episode 6

This is Lola and this is Monty and that old school rumbling sound is what you get in 1997 when you create a 30-foot pocket cruiser and stick a 300 horsepower caterpillar diesel into it. We won't talk about Lola's engine, it's pretty pathetic. But the two of them get along really well and today they're going to take us on a continued journey throughout British Columbia. At the end of our last episode we were about to leave Smithers, nestled below the Hudson Bay Glacier in northern British Columbia, where we had spent five glorious days alongside the Bulkley River in this beautifully maintained municipal campground. But today we're returning south and we're going to show you points of interest between Smithers and Vailmont, which is a little bit to the east towards the Jasper area, the British Columbia Alberta border. Okay, a brief interlude here. We stopped by this really cool general store on our way north about a week ago and the owners, who were really interesting people, had a really cool life story. Sent to us, look, if you'd like to come in on your way south and talk with us, do an interview, we're happy to share things with you. So we planned to do that. We pulled in as we are now, we set up our cameras, we were passing out the microphone, getting ready for all that and a school bus pulled up and in walks a teacher with a with a couple of kids and one of the kids just throws up all over the floor in front of us. Well, that ended the filming session pretty quickly. We could see we were not a priority. We got out of there like flint. This is our destination for tonight. It's another municipal campsite within the boundary of the town of Vanderhoof and it's our rendezvous point with Sarah and Ross, friends in their Volkswagen Westphalia, and interestingly Vanderhoof is the geographic center of British Columbia. So just a one-night stay tonight and then tomorrow we're going to take a side trip to Fort St. James, which is going to be really interesting. So you're going to want to stay up for that. Now for today we're going to take a side trip and we'll stay overnight in Fort St. James, which is on Stewart Lake. It's about 60 kilometers, so say 40 miles north of Vanderhoof. Stewart Lake is huge. It's about 70 kilometers long, so that's about 45 miles long and as you can see from the lake sizes to the west of there, there's a long sliver of a lake, that's Babine Lake. It's about 153 kilometers long, so say 160 kilometers long, which is 100 mile lake. They're remote and they're beautiful. So let's get going. We seem to be having a run in municipal campsites and we found another one in Fort St. James, right on the lake, but what we really wanted to do was visit the National Historic Fort. It's beginning to just be amazing, like this is really cool. Fort St. James is really a historic gem in British Columbia. It was established in 1806 and it's one of the oldest fur trading posts in North America and now it's a National Canadian Historic Site. You can go into any of the buildings and there's staff in there depicting that era and they'll tell you stories of trade, culture, community. It's all surrounded by these beautiful landscapes from its rich indigenous heritage to fur trade history. It's really a must-see if you're in this area. You just got to go. Yeah, so six beavers means six pelts of beavers. Thank you so much. Yes, so the painkillers were one of the most expensive ones. Oh, yes. And they did use actually mercury to clean the so there would be a lot of sick people with the mercury, right? Yes, and he was a clerk, you know, doing business, doing paperwork, accounting, all of that. The officers say he will be here. So the fur oil and the... No. Excuse me. Excuse me. What are you guys doing in here? Okay. Okay, we gotta go to the chicken. We're going to the chicken race. Let's go to the chicken race, buddy. So what is this? This is a chicken race run. Yeah, exactly. So in race number one, you have And we're good to go. So all together, we're going to count down from three, and they'll let the birds go. We had some ducks amidst the runners. Geez, that's not fair. Oh, wow. Oh, it smells good in here. Oh, sorry. Oh, this is... Realizing there was no money to be made betting on racing chickens, we headed back to the parking lot. Time to head south to Prince George where we planned to stay the night before heading off to Vailmont the next day. Okay, kids, fire in the hole. Fire in the hole, bud. Bubby, fire in the hole, okay? Now, for those of you who have been traveling with us, you know we've stayed at this place before. Northern Experience RV Park. It's very nice, but let's not go over it again. We'll drive you nuts. Our drive from Prince George east to Vailmont towards the Rocky Mountains and the Alberta border started out beautifully, but unfortunately, the rain settled in, so we don't have too much to show you before getting to our campsite in Vailmont. Look at the wind. Look at the wind. There's lots and lots of camping here. I guess we don't go straight ahead, do we? No, it's this way. You were making a funny? Yeah. Idle zone. Well, you're gonna have to idle for a minute, but I told her we could do it because we're pretty nimble. What's that? I'm trying to make sure Lola doesn't get knocked off of the tree. What do you want me to do? Tell you where to stop? Yeah, slide me up. Okay. Oh, it's beautiful.