Burkholder BC-Yukon Trip 2001
Southward Again
Main Trip Page Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Burkholder Homepage
Day 12: June 25, 2001
 |
| Along the boardwalk to the Liard Hotsprings. |
Yesterday we finished our driving at Watson Lake, along the Alaska Highway, still in the Yukon, and just to the east of where we had picked up the Alaska on our Stewart-Cassiar northwards route. The weather was a bit icky, so we stayed in the camper and ate macaroni and cheese and went to bed. This morning the kids really slept in, so it was lucky we only had a short jaunt to the Liard River Hotsprings Provincial Park. We grabbed a campsite, ate lunch and then walked the quarter mile of boardwalk to the hotsprings. Along the way we saw some hot-water-adapted lake chub and a real change in vegetation: lots of warm-climate plants, thermophilic algae, and boggy vegetation.
We all loved the hotsprings. They're really quite magical. There's a simple wooden deck area with changerooms, and then two fairly large pools separated by a waterfall. The pools are pretty much in their natural state with overhanging lush vegetation and banks made up of soil and mineral deposits. They're about 15 or 20 metres in length, and range in depth from armpit-height for Sophie to armpit-height for the grownups. The lower pool mixes with some cooler water from a little creek, making for neat swirling variations in temperature and areas where you can remain comfortably immersed for hours without overheating. Erin did lots of swimming practice, and Noah had great fun getting comfortable immersing his head by dunking to the bottom of the pools for "treasure rocks". We collected black and white rocks to play checkers with later. Sophie had one unintentional complete immersion which was a little traumatic but recovered her comfort in the water quickly. She played catch with her mom and dad; she was the ball, she said, "a walking, talking ball."
 |
| Noah, Sophie and Erin in the Liard Hotsprings. |
We had supper, and then the kids played at the park playground for a while, and we set off back to the hotsprings. That's when Sophie said "Look, a deer!" There wasn't actually a deer; it was a magnificent bull moose, grazing in the bog about 20 metres away. It didn't startle at all, and continued to munch away calmly while we all had a good long look. We'd seen several moose from the van, but this was the first time the kids had ever seen one while out walking, and it was a real treat to see one so close. It had an impressive pee, after which Sophie announced rather loudly "He needs toilet paper, right?" much to the amusement of the small group of hotspringers that had assembled to watch. Eventually we moved off down the boardwalk. The moose remained grazing a few dozen metres from the boardwalk.
 | Erin and Chuck playing home-made checkers with hotsprings stones. |
We had another long soak and swim in the hotsprings and then returned to the camper for stories and games. Erin coloured in a checkerboard on a piece of paper and she and Chuck played a couple of games, complete with much silly banter and narrative. We were planning for a big day of driving the next day, so we tried to get the kids to bed early, succeeding with a 10:30 bedtime. Noah tried the "but it's not night yet" tactic, pointing at the sky, but he knew even before he tried it that it was a pretty lame ploy this far north in June.
 |
| Northern Rocky Mountains: Stone Mountain |
We succeeded in our attempt at an early start (early being a relative term), rolling out of the Liard campsite at 9:15 a.m.. The first part of today's drive was absolutely spectacular. We drove along full lakes and rivers reflecting back lovely colours from their glacial silt, and entered into the northern Rocky Mountains. The scenery was grand and wild, and the huge spring floodplains and washouts between some of the mountain ranges were reminders of the awesome power of the meltwater and the depth of snowpack in the winters.
We drove through some high country, and then watched the country begin to open up on the east side of the Rockies. Our return route carries us into BC and Alberta's northern prairies, and we began to get our first hints of that driving into Peace River country north of Fort St. John. The mountains smoothed into large rolling foothills, the vegetation became shorter and greener, and we could see the weather coming from dozens of miles away. At one point we saw a discrete line ahead of us where the road became shiny and the air became hazy, and sure enough, when we got there we were pelted with torrents of slushy hailballs from a horrid dark cloud above. A mere kilometre later we emerged into calm sunshine, but we could still see the next couple of banks of thunderclouds ahead.
We finished our big day of driving tonight in the Fort St. John area, making for a 700 km day, easily our longest. I read the whole of Roald Dahl's Danny, Champion of the World (highly recommended, by the way) aloud for entertainment and all in all the kids coped fine with the confinement. It was dark, really dark, during the night. No more midnight sun.
Day 14: June 27, 2001
From Fort St. John we did a little bit more driving, just a scant 2 1/2 hours, which brought us into proper prairie and a day of civilization in Grande Prairie, Alberta. We took up residence at a lovely quiet campground about one minute from an assortment of big-box superstores (alas, no Chapters store, though) and spent the day replenishing the fridge and cupboards and picking up a few things we needed and didn't need from city-type stores. The kids watched ducks and blackbirds and picked up fluff from cottonwood trees around the campsite, played bocce, rolled down a grassy hill, and played on the computer.
Day 15: June 28, 2001
 |
| Mountains north of Jasper. |
We started the day on the western-most part of the prairies, and headed south. Within about half an hour we were into the foothills of the Rockies again. By mid-day we were within the thick of the Rockies, heading down the Yellowhead highway towards Jasper and onto the Icefields Parkway. We were greeted by plenty of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep along the highway and by spectacular blue-green rivers and stark mountains. The weather was wonderful, with puffy white clouds and plenty of sunshine. For better or for worse the kids spent much of the day engrossed in a computer game on the laptop in the back seat of the van, and had to be reminded to look out the window occasionally. It seems the end of our holiday, which is imminent, is coming at about the right time.
 |
| Big Sophie, little Mount Hardisty. |
Now we were getting within a day's drive of home and the kids seemed keen on pushing for home tomorrow, so we decided to put on a few extra miles. We debated stopping at the Columbia Icefields for a Snowcoach ride up onto the glacier, but Noah graphically recalled his grandma's description of the bus's near-vertical decent and we decided to satisfy ourselves with the views from the highway, which were amazing. We pushed onwards, camping for the night just north of Lake Louise, almos back in familiar territory. We spent much of the day reading aloud from Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, another popular readaloud, highly recommended .
We found a nice little campground at Mosquito Creek, where the mosquitos weren't bad at all. The kids threw sticks into the blue-green, fast-flowing creek, watching them get whisked away through the whitewater. It was dark before bedtime, so we read by candlelight for a while before bed.
Day 16: June 29, 2001
 |
| Sophie and Erin still like each other enough to spend a few minutes making "daisy bunnies" together under a tree at Shelter Bay, south of Revelstoke, at our last lunch stop. |
Another beautiful day of sunshine dawned as we headed south to Lake Louise and then made the right turn westward to cross the Rockies and hit the home stretch. We were actually going to be able to see the mountains of Rogers Pass! Though we've done this drive probably a dozen times, travelling from our home to Calgary (our nearest big city) or places farther east, we've only rarely had clear weather.
As usual, the conversation in the back seat provided much entertainment for the grown-ups. The kids were speculating about the changes in our garden and the growth of our baby chicks. Sophie said "probably our chickens will be super-hero chickens!" Noah's language enunciation has taken a big leap forward during the trip. Early on I noticed he was occasionally speaking "R's" rather than his usual "W's". By the time we hit the Yukon, we were getting a dozen real "R" sounds a day, and now it seems like his R's are there more often than not. Sophie now counts to ten without skipping nine. The kids engage in long co-operative imaginative "stories" centred around play with small toys, and they make up and sing songs together. Despite the fact that they've spend many of their waking hours over the past two weeks strapped into carseats squeezed in beside each other, they're still getting along admirably.
From Revelstoke, for the last couple of hours, we were retracing our steps from the very start of our journey. The weather was gorgeous and the hot sun and fluffy clouds seemed a fitting sky under which to return to our home turf.
Main Trip Page Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Burkholder Homepage