The Sunshine Coast - Our Journey to Texada Island

Around the beginning of December we start to dream... of green forests and quiet beaches, ocean views and no traffic. We dream of our next trip to Texada Island.

Travelling to Texada Island requires a trip up the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. This road trip is one of my favourites in our province. It involves windy roads, three ferries, great big forests and lots of geocaches! And so much more for the explorer in you.

After getting off the ferry in Langdale we make our way first through Gibsons. Now if you're from Canada you know that Gibsons is home to Molly's Reach of the Beachcomber's TV show that ran from 1972 to 1990. If you have no idea what I'm talking about just click here. It's a Canadian icon and part of our genetic makeup! This great cache (GC137C1) will give you an awesome view of 'the Reach'.

Continuing north we meander through the beautiful little town of Sechelt and then through places with lovely names like Redrooffs Road, Halfmoon Bay and Maderia Park. Just past Maderia Park, to the north, is Mount Daniel. Historically Mount Daniel served as a spot of local aboriginal importance. Young teenage girls were isolated at this spot to assemble rocks in "moon circles" as way of entering puberty. The hike up to to the top of Mount Daniel is about 3km one way. The view is incredible and of course there is a cache there... (GC20PZK). If you have time then make your way up Mount Daniel.

After Mount Daniel we're almost at Egmont and the next ferry to Saltery Bay. But wait... before the ferry, no trip up the Sunshine Coast would be complete without a side trip to the Skookumchuck Narrows. Skookum means 'strong' and chuck means 'water' and that's exactly what you will witness at this incredible display of nature... very strong water. Skookumchuck Narrows forms the entrance of Sechelt Inlet and before broadening into Sechelt Inlet, all of its tidal flow, together with that of Salmon Inlet and Narrows Inlet, must pass through Sechelt Rapids. On a 3 metre tide, 200 billion gallons of water flow through the narrows connecting Sechelt and Jervis Inlet. The difference in water levels between one side of the rapids and the other sometimes exceeds 2 metres in height! There are, of course, a few caches in Skookumchuck Provincial Park including a very educational earthcache (GCMXRA).

Now it's time for the ferry to Saltery Bay (don't you just love that name too?). This ferry is a little cozy one compared to the ferries that cross to Vancouver Island but we just love it. We grab some soup & crackers in the gift shop and settle down by one of the big windows and just soak in the incredible scenery of Nelson Island and Captain Island. It is just spectacular.

Finally we are on the last leg to Powell River. As the crow flies we've only traveled about 144km but really there is no where in British Columbia where you can travel "as the crow flies!" Going around inlets, skirting mountains and the odd ferry trip makes the trip to this point about 6 to 8 hours long, depending on ferry waits and how many geocaches you stop for!

Powell River is a gorgeous little town with beautiful views of Texada Island, Malaspina Strait and Vancouver Island (waaay in the distance). Originally home to world's largest pulp mill, Powell River has grown into a adventurer's playground. From hiking to beachcombing, from geocaching and everything else in between... Powell River is the destination for outdoor enthusiasts!

We spent the night in the cozy Westview Centre Motel which we love. It's clean, very affordable and minutes away from the ferry to Texada (though their driveway is an experience!) and then, the next morning, we treated ourselves to an awesome breakfast at the Marine Inn. There is nothing like a cup of tea, delicious eggs benedict and a view of the ocean all rolled into one!

Finally it's time to take the last ferry to "our island." Yes, we have to admit that Texada Island has become our island. It feels like coming home. We drive up to our 'Retreat' and the weights and worries of reality slip away. We are here once again and it has been worth every mile to get here.



If you'd like more information on exploring Texada Island, check out some of our previous posts.

A Golden Birthday

About two months ago Tony asked me what I wanted for my 50th birthday. I told him I'd get back to him.

Not long afterwards I found out that one of the Gold Country Launch Events was happening in Clinton and it was happening on my birthday! "I know what I want." I told him. "I want to go to this event, I want to geo-cache ALL day and I want you to be happy about it ALL day." "Really?" he said, "Can't I just buy you some jewellery?"

Honestly it was the best day and I thought it was very appropriate to be celebrating my 'Golden' Birthday by seeking a bunch of Gold Country caches.

If you're not familiar with British Columbia's Gold Country GeoTourism program you really should check it out. Recently featured in the Wall Street Journal and listed under GeoTours on geocaching.com, Gold Country GeoTourism is a world class program that draws geocachers & explorers from all over the world to our beautiful province.

Along For The Ride 1 & 2

The morning of the launch, August 26th, we all descended upon Reg Conn Park. It's always so great to meet up with old caching friends & make some new ones. Even Tony made some new friends as he hung out with the guys we had dubbed "Just Along for the Ride." I think they're planning to start their own support group!

After a speech by the mayor of Clinton and even the local Member of Parliament we were off and running. Literally. The thirteen new caches we were given that morning took us to amazing vistas, historical sites and even filming locations - a new twist in Phase 2 that I absolutely love! Every cache was well researched and well written and fun to find.

So thanks everyone for the awesome weekend!

DisneyGirl & the Wild Thingys

with Knitting Chick & fisher007

• Thanks to the Wild Thingys (aka Peppermint Patti, Rallymaster, Nature Owl, laphamclan & Chilcotin Sam) for hosting a great Meet & Greet on Saturday night. I haven't heard so many good caching stories (or laughed that hard) in a long time!
• Thanks to Knitting Chick & fisher007 for joining us on the hunt and the adventure. What we won't do for a smilie eh?
• Thanks to the people at Gold Country for their GeoTourism program. I love that it encourages us (and the world) to get up off the couch and explore.
• And a big thanks to my very patient hubby, who searches for 'geotrails' and 'geopiles' like an expert and who has put thousands of kilometres on the truck just for me. And thanks for asking me what I want for my birthday!

Leap, Leap, Leaping

February 29th.
It only comes once every 4 years. For most of the world it is just an extra day in the year but for a geo-cacher February 29th represents the 366th day. The chance to fill that elusive square in your 'Each Day of the Year Calendar'. It's a huge motivation to take the day off!

And that's just what a whole bunch of us did this year on February 29, 2012. Our fellow cacher, Adroit Seeker, planned an event called "Leaping From Cache to Cache" that took us along the Suiattle River in Washington State. The plan was to hike the trail and then get as many caches as we could along the road on our way back. This power trail includes more than 100+ caches in all. It meant that many of us would break records that day. It sounded like a whole lot of fun.

5am is so early!! but it still astonishes me what I will put myself through just for a whole whack of smilies on my caching profile page. I met tabbywmn at the border, we picked up Fisher007 just across the line and then we made our way to Bellingham where we met Adroit Seeker, Cyclepath Cacher, sweet-marie, 32fordroadster & Team ItTakesTwo. From Bellingham we travelled an hour & a half to the Snoqualmie National Forest where we met our American cacher friends. It was time we got started on our Leap Day!!

The road to the Buck Creek Campground has been closed for about 7 years but if you're up for an easy 5km hike then I highly recommend it. We were treated to beautiful views of the river, waterfalls along the way and towering trees. We had lunch at the end of the trail in a great log shelter with a view of the river, watching the snow drift down as we ate. It doesn't get much better than this.

 I had never cached on a power trail before but now I know what "power trail" means! With about 20 of us we literally leapt from cache to cache and we made short work of the series and a bunch of us broke our 'most caches in a day' record. On top of that we also had the privilege of watching fisher007 find his 1000th cache. As you can see he was pretty excited!

After we finished the trail and the road (in record time I might add) we made our way back to Bellingham for one more event hosted by the Three Bottles family. Yummy Mexican fare, an ice cold Corona and meeting more cachers. What a perfect way to end the day.

Thanks again to Adroit Seeker for planning such a great day for us and thanks to all my caching friends, those kindred spirits, who made the day so fun and enjoyable. I had an awesome time. Hope you did too! I'm sure we'll all remember Leap Year for a long time....too bad we have to wait 4 years to do it all over again.

Finally.... Haida Gwaii!

We've been married for 30 years. Yeah us!!
And for most of those 30 years we've talked & dreamed about making a trip to the Queen Charlotte Islands (now Haida Gwaii). As our 30th Anniversary drew closer we thought... "What better reason did we need?" Celebrate 30 years of marriage & exploring British Columbia by going on the ultimate road trip!
So the planning began. Those of you who know us know that we don't go anywhere without a plan & without doing a lot of research ahead of time. For us that's half the fun! If you're reading our blog right now because you're thinking of a trip to Haida Gwaii I hope you'll find this entry useful & helpful. I've written it with some how-to's, recommendations & must-do's!!

Before we left on our trip there were a few things we needed to do ahead of time. We reserved our spots on the ferry for there and back. Since the trip there was an overnight run we also booked a sleeping berth. I was very pleasantly surprised at our cozy little room on the Northern Expedition. With our own TV & bathroom and very comfy beds we actually slept a lot better than I expected. Another thing we did was book all our accommodations. We decided that we wanted to move around and explore different areas of the island so we reserved three different places - the Hecate Inn in Queen Charlotte City, the Sand Dollar cabin at North Beach Cabins near Massett and for the last three nights we stayed at Chateau Lawnhill in Lawnhill. The last thing we did (OK..I did) was put together a "Our Trip to Haida Gwaii" binder complete with copies of email correspondence, ferry confirmation numbers, special places we wanted to see and even a copy of tide table on the dates we planned to be there. The binder was also handy for writing down all the caches that I found during the trip. Yes I'm a geo-dork and just a bit of a type A personality!

Exploring Haida Gwaii was like being on the pages of a National Geographic magazine. Everywhere we went we were struck by beauty. I think Tony got so tired of me saying... this is soooo beautiful! But it was true. We spent a week exploring from one end of Graham Island to the other. Here are some of our favourite spots that we found...
RENNELL SOUND

black bear at Rennell Sound

Almost everything we read about Haida Gwaii said don't miss Rennell Sound so we figured that we'd better make sure to go there. Well the books weren't wrong.
We went to the sound on our first day on the island. We sure enjoyed the drive there....driving through beautiful forests on gravel roads has always been one of our favourite pastimes! We knew that there was a steep hill at the end of the drive but Tony managed the 24% grade like a pro! After the hill we continued on to the trail head for Gregory Beach. I was excited to learn that there was a cache hidden on this trail... just another bonus for visiting here. After we found the cache (GCX55R) we continued on down the trail to the ocean. Wow is all I can say! Rennell Sound is the only west coast beach that is accessible by road and apparently one of the best beach combing beaches on the entire west coast of North America. We didn't find anything special that day, no beautiful sea shells and no coveted glass fishing floats, but we did see an enormous black bear walking along the beach ahead of us. A once in a lifetime experience! Thanks to geobyrd for the great cache...absolutely one of my all time favourites and one I highly recommend!

THE GOLDEN SPRUCE

sad end to Kiidk'yass

A beautiful legend & a mystery all rolled into one....that is the story of Kiidk'yass or the Golden Spruce. Kiidk'yass was a tree with a rare genetic mutation that made its needles yellow. For centuries the Haida Nation had revered Kiidk'yass as a mythical force... sitting on the banks of the Yakoun River, it was a thing of beauty and according to the Haida, would be there till the end of generations. Then in 1997 an eco-terrorist named Grant Hadwin cut the tree down as "a wake-up call" against industrial logging. The logic of this act escapes me but that is not the end of the story. Released on bail, Grant Hadwin disappeared while on the way to his trial. His broken, abandoned kayak and belongings were found on a remote island but no trace of Hadwin was ever found or has been found since.
Fortunately, about 20 years previous, cuttings had been taken from Kiidk'yass by a group of botanists from UBC. After the Golden Spruce was felled UBC offered one of the new golden saplings to the Haida people which they accepted and planted near the base of the original tree.
Today, beside the Yakoun River, you can still see the once mighty tree, now lying on its side, with a brand new yellow spruce planted at its roots.
The 10 minute walk to the Golden Spruce is accessed from the road to Juskatla and takes you past some of the most amazing old growth forest we have ever seen. Of course there's a geocache there too - thanks geofran - (GCXE4C)... just another reason to come to the wonderful place.

NORTH BEACH

We arrived at our cabin on the very northern end of Graham Island on a beautiful sunny day... perfect timing to explore this amazing area. If you love long walks along the ocean (like me) then this is the place for you... sandy shoreline as far as the eye can see. Just to put it in perspective, Long Beach, on Vancouver Island is about 25km long. The continuous length of sandy beaches on Graham Island starts at Massett, continues all along the north coast, around Rose Spit and down to Tlell on the east coast, approximately 100 kms of sandy beach. Incredible and just waiting to be explored.

TOW HILL & NAIKOON PROVINCIAL PARK

below Tow Hill

Tow Hill, on the northeast end of Naikoon Provincial Park is a volcanic plug that stands out above the tree line, easily seen from miles away. The 45 minute hike to the top is an easy one since the whole trail is a boardwalk! First time I've ever seen that. At the top you'll find a cache appropriately called "Beware of Cliff" (GC2X0VQ) and a view that is awesome. On a clear day you can see Alaska. Really.

THE WRECK OF THE PESUTA
The Pesuta Shipwreck was the one "must-do" that we never made it to. Weather, time constraints and high tides all made it a little difficult to get to but we have some friends who went there this summer and they really enjoyed the hike there and exploring the wreck.

HAIDA CANOE
It's one thing to see history in a glass case or read about it in a book. It's a whole another thing to see it and touch in the middle of the rainforest. That was our experience when we hiked to one of 4 Haida canoes that have been abandoned on Haida Gwaii. No one knows why these half finished canoes were left to rot but they were. Were they not carved properly? Did they crack? It's a mystery and we love mysteries. You'll find the trail head for the Juskatla Canoe at N53 36.145 W132 16.913 and the canoe at N53 36.121 W132 16.701.

HAIDA HERITAGE CENTRE
This 26 million dollar museum & Heritage Centre in Skidegate is incredible. From the huge authentic totems to the tiny baskets woven with spruce roots... well worth the $15 entrance fee.

BALANCE ROCK
Balance Rock is a huge glacial erratic just north of Skidegate that sits perfectly balanced on the point of another rock in the middle of a beach near Skidegate. "Rock-In-Out" (GC21AMY) is the perfect cache at this location. You've got to see it to really appreciate it.

There are many places to stay on Haida Gwaii... from campsites to B&Bs. The pitfalls of reserving a place through a website is you never know if it's as good as it looks in the pictures! We were fortunate to find three very good ones and I'd highly recommend each one of them.

HECATE INN in Queen Charlotte City was clean and quiet. We had our own apartment with a separate bedroom and kitchen which was great for making our own meals. They also had internet access which can be pretty important if you need to keep in touch with your family. NORTH BEACH CABINS was the most rustic of the three places we stayed. The Sand Dollar, which was our cabin, had no electricity but it was cozy with a propane stove & heater and the incredible North beach was only minutes away. Lisa, our host, has added all sorts of beautiful touches to make her place special... even stained glass windows in the outhouses! CHATEAU LAWNHILL was the last place we stayed and from the moment we arrived Ron, our host, made sure we felt at home. We appreciated all the advice he gave us for exploring the island and sure enjoyed the huge salmon steaks he brought us!

Before we knew it our week had come to an end and it was time to head home. We really hated to see it come to end... there was so much more we would have liked to see but well, reality beckons.

The wonder & beauty of Haida Gwaii is not something we will soon forget. It truly was the trip of a lifetime.

My Day with the Baerg Family



Mount Cheam, British Columbia

When I was about 10 years old my dad went on a mountain climbing hike with a bunch of guys from our church. Their goal? To climb to the top of Mount Cheam. I remember him coming home that night absolutely exhausted but full of stories to tell. Later when I saw the photos...all these guys standing at the top of the peak with nothing but glorious blue sky all around them...well I knew that someday I wanted to be there too.

Fast forward to 2011... almost 40 years had past and I still hadn't achieved my goal. And I was getting a little frustrated. Every time we would drive by the mountain on the freeway I would say, "Someday I'm going to get up there." I think Tony stopped listening to me. Then I discovered geocaching and sure enough, before I knew it, there were a bunch of caches hidden along the Cheam trail and two on the peak! Now I really have to get there!

Climbing Cheam (or any mountain for that matter) is not something you do lightly or something you do alone. Unfortunately for me, Tony is not interested in climbing any mountain unless hunting or fishing is involved, so if I was going to get up there, I had to figure out how to do it on my own.

Enter my good friend Carol (in geo-caching world aka Nurse Hatchett). Carol's family, the Baergs, have a family reunion every three years and every six years one of their family reunion traditions is to climb Cheam. They've been climbing the mountain since the 1970s & this year Carol invited me to join them.
I've decided I really like this family.

So on August 27th, one day after my 49th birthday, I became a member of the Baerg family for a day. I was so excited.

The forecast was for perfect weather and it did not disappoint. Not a cloud in the sky. Perfect.
We all met near Bridal Falls and 15 of the Baergs, plus me, packed into some borrowed trucks to make the trip up the Chipmunk Creek FSR to the parking lot at the trailhead. The road up to the trailhead is rough, to say the least. In order to keep the snow melt from turning the road into a river in the Spring, there are cross-ditches dug every 200m or so... makes for a very interesting ride in a big pickup loaded with people. Once we got to the parking lot we noticed that the truck with all the teenagers was no longer behind us. We waited a bit and finally we asked some other hikers who came up shortly after us. Had they seen a truck full of young kids? "Oh yah," he said, "They had major car trouble." Great.

I wondered what we were going to do. Were our plans to climb the mountain all for nothing?
But it soon became apparent that the Baergs are not a family that gets into an uproar too easily. By the time Rick (one of the dads) decided to head back down to rescue the kids most of them had already hitched rides up to the parking lot. Thank goodness for Good Samaritans! So let's hike...we'll worry about the truck later!

The alpine meadows on Mount Cheam are incredible. I lost track of how many different mountain flowers I saw and the geocaches were placed just right so that I could use the excuse that "I am looking for a geo-cache" instead of "I can't breathe anymore & my legs are on fire."

There are 12 caches on the way up to Cheam Peak and we found 8 so I was pretty happy with that. I really wanted to find at least one cache on the peak and was happy to find CHEAM - GC1F94M at the top....wow! is all I can say about this cache location. There's another great view from GC2EJ9G and GC1FCKC really was a great spot to take a break! All the caches we found that day were well done and I highly recommend them all.

View to the north from Cheam Peak




Mary & Elizabeth



 



Carol & Me at the top!

The family trudged on & on, the younger set moving at a quicker pace while the rest of us went just a little slower! At this point I have to tell you about the two oldest members of our hiking crew.... Mary & Elizabeth are Carol's aunts... they've been on almost every Cheam hike since the Baerg family reunion began... and they are now 80 & 82! I was pretty impressed by all the beauty that surrounded me but these two ladies and their determination impressed me the most that day.

 About 2 hours later we stepped onto the ridge at the top of the mountain. I was absolutely speechless which is, if you know me at all, quite something. The view was overwhelming. A 360 degree view of the Fraser Valley. Unbelieveable. I had waited 40 years to get here and it was worth every minute.

And that should be the end of the story shouldn't it? But it turns out that our day of adventures was not over yet. Once we all got back down to the parking lot, piled into the one truck that we had left and started backing out it soon became apparent that there was now something wrong with this truck. The power steering was gone! But once again, the Baerg family did not panic... the truck has just enough maneuvering capabilty to navigate the road and our driver, Rick, has, apparently, pretty strong arms. As we start down the road I hear Rick's wife, Annette, ask him quietly, "How's it going?" And he says (also very quietly), "I don't think I want to tell you.... we have no brakes either."

Are you kidding me?
I thought coming down the trail on Cheam was tough but this was brutal. Hairpin turns, gravel road, cross ditches & major cliffs. It took us almost 2 hours to drive 6 kilometres... the whole trip in first gear. But you know, as we turtled our way down the mountain, with Rick white-knuckling the steering wheel, that family visited and reminisced and laughed....mostly they laughed. And I realized then that they were making another family memory. A great one. One that they'll talk about in 6 years when they climb the mountain once again. They'll laugh and say "Remember the last time we were here and the trucks all broke down? Wonder what adventures will happen to us this time?" And maybe they'll ask me again if I want to come along.

the Baerg Family - at the top! August 2011

Thanks, Baerg family, for the awesome adventure. And thanks for the memory.

I finally did it!

History Lessons



under the overhang on the Birkenhead river

There are some places in our province that just exude history....where you can almost feel the past enveloping you and hear the voices of those who walked before you. Lillooet Lake is one of those places.

This past week my daughter and I had the pleasure of joining our friends at their cabin on Lillooet Lake. Joan & Werner built their cabin almost 30 years ago and so they already have a rich knowledge of the area's history but they are always willing to go exploring again, especially when they have an amateur historian along! (that would be me!) And, as it happens, there are new things to find & discover, even for them.



Mountain Goats?

We started our history lessons that first evening by boating down to the north end of Lillooet Lake and into the Birkenhead River. Joan had recently read in a magazine of a kayaker who had spotted some pictographs on the cliffs along the river so we had our mission. It took about an hour to get to the mouth of the river. I think that maybe Joan had a few frayed nerves wondering if the river was deep enough for the boat but it was all good. As we quietly floated down the river one could not miss the tangible change in the air around us. "This is spooky." Joan said and I knew we were in the right place. There they were... up on the cliff right above us... the bright red drawings that we now recognize so well. We landed the boat (not as easy as it sounds!) and bush-wacked our way to where, long ago, someone decided that for whatever reason this story needed to be told. There are only two paintings there but both are in great shape. One of an animal under a arc and the other... two mountain goats climbing a hill. The paint is still so bright and the images so clear, it could have been painted yesterday.

The next day we geo-cached around the Pemberton area. The walk around One Mile Lake was especially lovely and we really appreciated the 7 cache series that had been hidden there by fisher007. Each hide was inventive and unique, the hints were fun and the whole series takes you around this pretty little lake where you end up right back where you started. We also appreciated the caches hidden by Tourism Pemberton. Well done! Hopefully more towns in British Columbia will follow your lead!

Our next history lesson took us down Lillooet River Road which was, for the most part, built over the old Douglas Road. We especially wanted to see the Church of the Holy Cross (in Skookumchuck) and see what we could learn about the Mile Houses built along this road.

The Douglas Road or Harrison Trail was conceived by Governor Douglas to accommodate the steady rush of men heading to the Cariboo Gold Fields. Paddlewheelers & steamers on the lakes made parts of the journey relatively easy - it was in between the lakes, the portages, that was the trouble - so the Douglas Road was born. Of course it didn't take too long for enterprising men to realize that travelling over this rugged, mosquito infested land would create some very weary travellers and before too long "Mile Houses" (hotels) were springing up along the way.



Old graveyard beside the Road

 Today, as we pass the occasional house or car, it's hard to imagine that over 30,000 men used this route in just a few short years. By 1861 it was all but abandoned for the Cariboo Wagon Road and now we have to use our imaginations to picture this as a busy road. The Mile Houses are all gone - there's the occassional apple tree here and there - but at one time they were full of hungry and tired men looking for a meal and a place to sleep.

One place that does still exist is "20 Mile House" or "Hot Spring House" - the home of Skookumchuck Hot Springs. Though none of the original buildings are standing today it is not hard to see why this would be a most welcome place to stop along the journey - the chance to have a hot bath. One book we read quoted the aid of Judge Matthew Begbie as saying "This is the first time I've been clean since I left San Francisco!" Yuck.



After leaving the hotsprings we continued south to the village of Skatin (formerly Skookumchuck). This is the location of the Church of the Holy Cross. I don't know what I was expecting when we drove up to Skatin. This place is remote... there isn't a town for miles & miles, so I think I was expecting a little country church. This is so not a little country church! Inspired by prayer cards they had been given by visiting priests in the late 1800s, the residents of Skookumchuck, who had no architectural training and no power tools, designed a wooden gothic-style 'cathedral.' European cathedrals are made of stone but the builders of Holy Cross used the resources that were available to them. Huge cedars were milled for the foundation and placed on stones taken from the Lillooet River. Inside, the altar and stain glass windows are gorgeous and all handmade. Unfortunately time & the elements of the west coast have taken their toll and the church is in bad need of restoration. We left a donation in the drop box inside the church but I wish I could have done more. This spot really touched my heart. Maybe it's because it was such an unexpected & wonderful surprise - a huge church in the middle of the forest - or maybe it's because I work as an church administrator and I know how hard it is to keep a church building maintained. If you'd like to read more about the Church of the Holy Cross (or even make a donation) you can visit their website.  



The interior & exterior of the Church of the Holy Cross. Amazing!

If you're ever in the Pemberton area I highly recommend a road trip down the Lillooet River Road. We explored & geocached, visited a beautiful old cemetery, saw a black bear, visited a hotspring, took in all the breathtaking scenery and stepped inside a 100 year old church. As far as I'm concerned that's about as good as it gets!

Once again our time at the cabin has ended all too quickly. We had such a good time with our awesome friends and we appreciate their hospitality. We're already looking forward to next year and, hopefully, a bunch of brand new history lessons to learn!

Back in Time to Barkerville

I had barely got home from Alaska and two days later I found myself on a road trip with my 'sisters.' I knew this was coming but still felt like I needed a little time to catch my breath. No such luck! Every year I take a trip with my friends. We call ourselves the Seven Sisters though, sadly, there is rarely a time when all seven of us manage to get together anymore. Last year we went to Disneyland (incredible) and this year we thought we'd try for something completely different. Barkerville, British Columbia.

Billy Barker

In 1862, Billy Barker came down the Williams Creek valley from the town of Richfield in search of a rich strike. After digging through 42 feet of hard clay he found the richest strike to date in August of 1862. After spending the winter of that year in Victoria, Barker returned to his claim in the spring only to find that an entire town had been built around it and was named in his honour. Barkerville had been born!

The wonderful thing about Barkerville is that that same excitement (read 'gold fever') and historical accuracy have been painstakingly preserved to this day. Over 100 of the buildings are original and many are standing in the same spot they were built. Townspeople wander about, seemingly oblivious that you are from a completely different timeline. A hurdy-gurdy girl told us that contrary to what we had heard "she didn't do that sort of thing" and a wobbly lawyer weaved down the street in front of us after one too many visits to the "apothecary." At least he never forgot to tip his hat. To really enjoy Barkerville here's my advice. Just let yourself be transported back in time.

For those of us who live in the Fraser Valley, a trip to Barkerville means travelling up the Fraser Canyon. It is one of my favourite road trips. After you pass through the historic town of Yale you can almost feel a palpable change. Time slows down just a teensy bit and the history envelopes you as you travel along the same road that so many went on before, risking their lives for that one thing. Gold.

Now, almost 150 years later, we whiz along in the comfort of our automobile. It doesn't take long and you go through the first of seven tunnels. Do you know the names of the tunnels off by heart? Thanks to my father, the school teacher, I do. I've tried to make my friends memorize them but they don't seem very interested. Not sure why but since this is my blog I'm going to recite them for you. They are (from south to north)...Yale, Saddle Rock, Sailor Bar, Alexandra, Hell's Gate, Ferrabee and China Bar (the longest).


the 8th tunnel



It is at the Hell's Gate tunnel that we make one of our first stops. Did you know that there is an 8th tunnel? I didn't either until we went to look for GC29TEX - what a wonderful surprise that was! If you're travelling and caching up the Fraser Canyon this is one cache that I highly recommend.



The Sisters at the Kelly House



There are far too many wonderful spots to explore and caches to find along the Fraser Canyon to list in one blog entry so instead I will recommend two excellent books you should have for a trip like this... especially if you're a geocacher. The first one is Gold Country's "GeoTourism Adventures" and the 2nd is New Pathways to Gold's "Chasing the Golden Butterfly." We love them both, especially when someone reads them aloud to us while we're driving! 

When we arrive in Barkerville we are pretty excited because, months ago, we booked the "Kelly House" as our accomodation. A Bed & Breakfast right in the heart of Barkerville means that we can explore to our heart's content and go back whenever we want - to rest, to eat or for a glass of wine! Not only is it convenient but the back-in-time illusion continues with feather beds (honestly, the best sleep I've had in a long time), clawfoot tubs, no TVs & a Cariboo breakfast every morning. Because there was no TV we read aloud in the parlour every night from "Cariboo Runaway." Great story. 




We spent three days exploring Barkerville and yes, you can and you should spend at least that many days there. We took the Barkerville Cemetery tour, panned for gold, took the Barkerville town tour, took the Chinatown tour, visited with an archaeologist, hiked to the Richfield courthouse, rode on a stagecoach and of course, got our portrait taken at Louis A Blanc Photographic Gallery. We found all seven caches around Barkerville and they're all great and well done. My favourite though was GC12A7A because, in order to log this cache, you need to watch the Cornish Waterwheel show.. one of the best shows in Barkerville!



After a wonderful three days it was time to road-trip home. We drive south, through Spences Bridge, Lytton and Boston Bar and then, before we know it, the familiar Fraser Valley farmland stretches before us. We're home. It is good to be home again but we know that life is going to speed up any minute now. The illusion was wonderful while it lasted.