Monday June 21, Prophet River Camp, BC

200 Miles

An absolute disaster this morning! I got out the little Bialetti stovetop coffee pot that makes the best coffee on the road, only to find that the little coffee basket that you fill with the coffee was missing, I must have thrown it out yesterday morning with the grounds. How can you start the day without a good coffee? Can’t believe I did something so stupid. We had a miserable cup of tea with our breakfast!

We took the Old Alaskan Highway and not far from camp we crossed the last remaining wooden bridge from the old highway that is still in use today. It is 150 metres long and curves over the Kiskatinaw River. They were sandblasting the timber as we crossed and the lad that was working the Stop signs noticed that we were from NZ. He was so excited as he is working all summer and heading for NZ in October for a 12 month holiday. We were able to give him advise on the best surf spots and places to go.

Another few miles on along the Old Highway and we came across a moose walking over the road. I grabbed a shot through the front windscreen, but by the time I opened the side window to get a clearer shot she had crashed into the woods…followed by her twins!

Fort St John, the next town on the highway turned out to be bigger than we expected. A call at the Information Centre and we were directed to a shop in town that was likely to have coffeepots. Sure enough found a Bodum brand espresso pot, not as good as the Bialetti but it should do the job.

Ian wanted to get a fishing licence for BC, spotted an outdoors shop on the outskirts of town so we called in. Turned out to be a great store, it was huge and almost half of it was filled with guns and hunting equipment and clothing. They were most helpful and Ian bought his licence, $80 for the season which ends in March. There is really good fishing on the western side of BC as well, were we will be at the end of the trip.

After a lunch stop at Charlie Lake, where 12 American soldiers died crossing the lake aboard pontoon barges during the building of the highway, we were on our way north again.

There area is full of gas wells on little roads, just off the highway and initially there were numerous huge trucks servicing these well heads, but as we went further north these lessened. There are numerous “camps” for the workers, pretty barren bleak looking places, but this is where the guys come from all over Canada to earn huge money, so guess they cope with a few hardships.

The road so far is excellent and causing no problems. By late afternoon the thunderstorms built up with huge forked lightning and then came the rain, and the temperatures dropped to 11 degrees.

We had read about this old camp in the Milepost book which had been a Provincial park, not sure why it is still not in use, but a good place to park for the night. The light rain continued until about 8. We ventured outside and an army of mosquitoes was there to meet us.  Covered the body as much as I could and then spayed the areas that were still showing, before going for a walk.