Day 50 -- Pine bugs, buffalo steaks and a marble canyon

Travel   From: Beaumont PP, Fraser Lake, PP   To: Marble Canyon, Cache Creek, BC area   Distance: 380 mi (611 km)   Travel time w/brks: 9 hr 14   Distance since start: 10,362 mi (16,662 km)

Wednesday 8/9/2006

We slept well. It was nice and cool overnight. During breakfast I snaked a hose over from the faucet on the other side of our access road and got a little bit back into our tank. I looped through the dump station but did not have enough in the tanks to bother spending $2 for just a few gallons, never mind getting gloves on, etc. So we just rolled out of the campground and headed west for Vanderhoof. British Columbia is suffering from a huge infestation of pine beatles. They are normally held in control by cold winters, but five warm winters have created a devastating infestation. We saw serious signs of it when we entered from the east, shortly after we left Jasper. We heard about and smelled major forest fires exasperated by very dry conditions and these infestations. Shortly after we had gotten off the boat in Prince Rupert we ran into the same thing again. All saw-mills are packed in BC. They basically have a maximum of two years to harvest a tree after it has been hit or the lumber is wasted. The situation has gotten to the point where the only hope is a couple of very cold winters.

You can easily spot pines affected by the pine beatle. We saw massive mountainsides with 50-70% of the trees affected.

The pine needles in a close up

You can also see that the trunks are weeping

We stopped in Vanderhoof to buy gas and then continued east.

Here is something we've not seen for a while: farmland. We barely saw any of that in Alaska.

We quickly went through Prince George and the campground where we stayed on our way up. About 1/2 hour outside of Prince George we drove by a Bison Farm and bought some ground beef for burgers. It was an old lady from the German part of Switzerland that sold it. She could barely speak English even though she had been in Canada for 18 years.

Bison meat for sale from a local farmer south of Prince George

About 70 bisons were out in the field by the farm

We continued down and passed through Williams Lake. We turned off before Cache Creek and tried our luck for a campsite in Marble Canyon Provincial Park. The spaces were very tight and they had about 10 or so that could accomodate our trailer. There was no ranger there and it had a self service station for fees. When we arrived the weather was so-so and this later turned into overcast and a bit of rain. We cooked the bison meat for dinner. It tasted great. The campground had some good views so this one is worth going back to.

Parked in Marble Canyon PP, BC

Isabella tries her luck fishing in the little lake below the trailer

Cooking bison burgers for dinner

We did not stay up too late since we wanted to get going south as quickly as possible.

Campground   Name: Marble Canyon PP, BC   Our hookups: None   WiFi: No   GSM service: No   TV Channels: Don't know   Cost: $14/night   Reservation mode: Drop in

[Next day] [Previous Day] [Main] [Summary]

All Pictures (c) 2006 Hamnqvist, Background features the Yukon Sky.