Thursday September 3, Chase, BC

Quite sad leaving such a beautiful spot this morning, although it was a little cooler and there were a few menacing clouds. Rejoined the Trans Canada that took us through the Canadian Glacier National Park and then Revelstoke National Park. It is the most beautiful scenery, sheer rugged beauty with some amazing glaciers. After weeks of sunny hot weather, the cloud came in and we couldn’t really see the full beauty of it.

By the time we got to Revelstoke the wind had got up with spits of rain. We wandered around town with our jackets on, and stopped in a café for our morning fix and to go online. By the time we left the full brunt of the storm was hitting, tables and signs were getting blown over in the main street, and everyone was highly excited as there had been very little rain for weeks. The power went out in town and the trees were bent over.

By the time we rejoined the main road it was really raining heavily and the van was getting blown around quite a lot. Trees were down on the road and crews were out cleaning them up, but luckily it eased up pretty quickly and by the time we got to Sicamous the rain had stopped.

This area on the Shuswap Lake seems to be a very popular holiday destination which reminded me of the Marlborough Sounds, many arms with bush covered hills rising up, although of course it is not on the coast. They call the town “The Houseboat Capital of Canada”, and for obvious reasons…we drove past the marinas with rows and rows of houseboats available for rental.

We had heard about the numerous bush fires in BC, and Calgary was extremely hazy as a result of them. Approaching Chase we saw large areas of forest still smoldering, but hopefully the rain today may have helped a little.

Chase is a small town on the edge of the lake, where it flows into the river. In the past it has been a great fishing spot for the big red salmon nearing the end of their journey to spawn, but in the last few years the numbers have sadly reduced dramatically.