Boya Lake

Boya Lake

Further up the Cassier Highway we found an exquisite lake called Boya.  The lake water is exceptionally clear and, depending on the sun, sky blue or aquamarine blue because of its white marl bottom.  Boya is touted as a paddling gem.

With the infamous Canadian holiday known as August Long (see last year's debacle) quickly approaching, we arrived early, hoping to find a site.  Thankfully, there were many to choose from.  We quickly set up camp and checked out the nearby path to the lake.  We had great access to the water.  Unfortunately that beautiful white marl bottom was a bit of a sticky issue.  When David stepped on what he thought was solid ground, he sank to his ankle.

Although a bit mucky, we were able to launch Calypso.  My "motor" trolled around the lake while we tossed our fishing lines in, dragging them behind us.  The water was so clear we could see the bottom, even in the deepest places.   Alas, however, the fish again refused to bite.

There are two interpretative trails, one at either end of the campground.  That afternoon we decided to take the path past the boat launch to a beaver dam.  The hike was only suppose to be 1-1/2 kilometers both ways, but it felt more like 1-1/2 miles.  The terrain was lovely, however, and mostly in shade.  We passed a very curious set of markings high in a tree.  Could it be a set of bear claws scraped in the bark?

At the end of the trail was an enormous beaver dam.  It was over six feet tall and spanned forty feet wide.  We found a nearby tree, easily ten inches wide, that the beavers had gnawed to ground.  Amazing engineers!

Beaver dam on Boya Lake

That evening, David chatted with some nearby campers.  They were coming down the Cassiar, while we were headed north.  David mentioned we wanted to take the Campbell Road.  One of the fellows said that it had just been closed due to fires.  Fires, in fact, seemed to burn all around us.  Distant mountains were barely visible in the smoke.  Both David and I had constant headaches with all the smoke in the air.

We tried fishing again the following morning.  The wind blew more stiffly than it had the day before.  My "motor" tried his best to fight the wind.  We finally gave up and gave in.  There would be no fish for supper again.

With our time on the Cassiar and British Columbia soon coming to an end, we decided to pack up Calypso that afternoon.  In the morning we would head for Watson Lake to see if we could take the Campbell Road.  If not, David had come up with a plan... we would head to Haines, Alaska, one of our favorite bear photographing spots.  What a marvelous idea!

Boya Lake

Telegraph Creek Road

Telegraph Creek Road from bridge crossing the Stikine River.  Note the road rises above the river on the right.

One of the side trips we have been wanting to take has been Telegraph Creek Road.  The write-up in Milepost suggested an adventure.  The last time we were here, however, a major bridge was being rebuilt.  Pilot cars were only allowing folks in and out twice a day.  With Morgan arriving in ten days, we didn't feel we could take the chance of being stuck behind the construction.

This year, however, we had it on our bucket list.  Telegraph Creek Road takes off west of Dease Junction.  Once a First Nation's trade route, it is considered a dangerous road... narrow, winding, and hairpin turns with as much as  20% grades and sheer cliffs on one... or both sides.  The road rises from the valley floor to the top of the canyon and back again.  It is considered the Grand Canyon of British Columbia.  It was a thrilling ride, to say the least!

The town of Telegraph Creek, about 70 miles down Telegraph Creek Road, gained modern-day historical significance in the 1860s when gold was discovered on the Stikine River.  Telegraph Creek once functioned as the northern outpost for the Yukon Telegraph line.  Completed in 1901, the line connected the Yukon with southern Canada.

Today approximately 300 folks still call Telegraph Creek home.  David and I strolled the main street along the Stikine River, reading placards.  I heard a familiar piping call and looked up to discover an eagle in a nearby tree, right over the river.

Across the street was an old, wood-framed church.

Historic Anglican Church Telegraph Creek, BC

We continued our trek another 11 miles to Glenora with promised camping.  However, we found only rugged fish camps.  Our Milepost is a 2008 vintage, so we often find things out of date (our most recent one was stolen last year).  The temperature had also soared to 98 degrees... much too warm for sleeping.  So we decided to turn back in search of cooler climes.

Again we drove the high passes, hairpin turns, and steep grades.  We wove our way up and down narrow dirt roads with sheer drops down to the river below.  We crossed the rim with nothing but a 2,000-foot drop on either side.

Stikine Canyon on Telegraph Creek Road

We reached Dease Junction at nearly 5:30 that evening.  Thankfully, temperatures had dropped to the low seventies on this side of the mountain.  By morning, the temps were in the mid-40s.  Once again, God had smiled upon us.

Kinaskin Lake

View from our campsite on Kinaskin Lake

As many of you know, Kinaskin Lake Provincial Park is one of our very favorite places to camp on the Cassiar Highway.  The pristine water is lovely.  The campsites sit right on the lake.  And for those of you who remember our beautiful Roxanne, she loved swimming here and sunning herself. 

So we found ourselves once again enjoying the view.  This time we not only had Calypso with us but also fishing licenses.  We blew up the boat, donned our life vests, and proceeded to catch some major lake trout.  Unfortunately, our first attempt left us searching the pantry for supper.  

Undaunted, we knew if was probably because we were use to fishing for bass, not trout.  That evening, one of our favorite camp hosts, Margaret, came by and offered suggestions for the morning catch.  So we took note and first thing the next morning we were back on the water fishing the opposite direction we had gone the afternoon before.  Still no luck.

Midday we took our poles and hiked a mile up the lake near a creek inlet and tried to fish from shore. Still no luck.  Finally, we sailed Calypso on the lake again late that afternoon.  Nary a bite. Margaret told us that hardly anyone had been catching fish.  Perhaps it was the weather… it had been in the 90s during the day.  

Margaret asked David how long he wanted to fish.  David laughed and said, "As long as the motor lasts."

View of campsites from Kinaskin Lake

That evening a lovely young couple arrived with four children and a very large trailer.  David helped the young man back his trailer into the spot next to us.  We all had a good chat.  Then the gentleman dropped the tailgate to his pickup, and we saw an enormous generator. It would be loud and noxious.  We decided to leave the next morning and let them have their fun.  

So we lashed Calypso to the top of the rig.  Hopefully the fish would be biting at Boya Lake.

The Nisga’a Highway

Nisga'a Memorial Lava Bed

David discovered an intriguing side trip for us before we hit the Cassair, so we traveled up Highway 113 from Terrace to the Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park.  The lightly traveled road wound through beautiful mountains until we arrived at a fascinating valley layered in moss-covered lava rock.  

Nisga'a Visitor Center

We arrived around ten in the morning, stopping at the small visitor center to learn more about the area. Steve, the cultural interpreter, told us that the unique lava beds were from an unknown volcano that suddenly erupted in 1752.  Because the Nisga’a people did not know the volcano existed, many fled to the water and others to the mountains when the rumblings began.  Most of the people along the river were trapped by the molten lava and noxious gases.  At the time, over 30,000 people lived in the area.  At least 2,000 of the Nisga’a people died when the volcano erupted.

With a map of the auto tour in hand, we drove approximately two hours, past the lava flow, several small Nisga’a villages, and on to the Pacific Coast and the small village of Gingolx which sits on the mouth of the Portland Inlet.  

Portland Inlet

Much to our surprise, we discovered an open restaurant with delicious fish and chips.  To add to the ambience, restaurant owners John and Bonnie told us stories about their lives and their people.  Another gentleman soon joined us.  Although he appeared to be close in age to John, John introduced him as his grandfather.  I asked how that happened.  He told me that in their culture it was important that no one be without a grandfather because of their responsibilities to the family.  After John’s real grandfather had passed away, the new gentlemen was appointed as his grandfather.  What a wonderful idea! 

Ginglox Restaurant

Ginglox Church

On our way back to camp at the Lava Bed Campground, we stopped at the Nisga’a museum in the village of Laxgalts’ap.  The architectural structure of the museum is stunning.  The collection of Nisga’a artifacts and history was well worth the stop.

Supernatural beings of the Nisga'a

The campground was quiet that evening.  We were one of only two other campers there for the evening.  The screened tent proved useful once again when the mosquitos began buzzing.

The next morning we hiked a short distance across the lava beds to a site with a tree cast formed when the lava cooled quickly after burning a tree.  Much of the landscape remained barren except for moss, flowers, and ferns.  Trees were just beginning to grow back in the area, although many were stunted in size. So many fissures weaved through the lava rock that each step needed to be well placed.

Lava Bed Flow

After our hike, we traveled on to the Cassiar Highway.  I leave you with the Nisga’a legend of the Lava Flow that was distributed by the museum:

Long ago this land began to shake and rumble.  Nature’s harmony had been upset.

It all started by the river as two children took a humpback salmon from the water and split open the back.  They stuck sticks into its back, lighted them, and then made the humpback swim. The children were amused to see the fish swim upriver with smoke coming from its back.  The children split open another humpback and stuck a piece of shale into its back.  Then they made it swim, but the humpback floated on its side, weighed down by the shale. The children laughed, despite the elder’s warning.  The ground rumbled.

Finally, a scout was sent to investigate the rumbling.  From the top of Genuu Axwt, he saw smoke and flame in the valley.  Immediately he ran to tell the villagers of their firey destiny.  In a panic, the villagers moved to the mountaintop.  Some canoed to the other side of the river and remained there, but they were killed by the lava.

As they watched the lava flow over the village, a super natural being named Gwaxts’agat suddenly emerged south of Gitwinksihikw to block the path of the lava.  Gwaxts’agat was very powerful and also possessed the power of fire.  For days Gwaxts’agat lay with his big nose fighting back the lava.  Finally, the lava cooled and Gwaxts’agat went back into the mountain where it remains to this day.

To the Nisga’a, fish is very important.  To ridicule the fish is the first and foremost taboo and to do so would certainly cause misfortune.  The children’s disrespect of the fish led to the unfortunate death of many Nisga’a.

Canada... Finally!

It seems like it has taken an inordinate amount of time to cross from Texas into Canada this year. We crossed into Canada from Oroville, Washington.  This section of Canada is full of orchards.  We stopped by a fruit stand to buy cherries and apricots before heading to Green Lake for camping.  

In Williams Lake, we purchased our first Canadian fishing licenses.  We had our eyes set on catching lake trout… a first for us.  We planned to drive up the Cassiar Highway, stopping by our favorite Kanaskin Lake as well as several others before meeting Morgan and family in Whitehorse on August 9^th.

We camped at Ten Mile Lake but got in too late to blow up Calypso, our little three-man boat.  We planned to stop early the next evening, but ended up at Sealy Lake.  While the lake was described as being secluded and easily accessible by boat, the campground sat 20 yards from the roadway, and the launch site was too far to portage the boat.  So we waited another day.

The crazy part about it all was how hot it was.  It reached into the mid-90s during the day.  We had never seen temperatures this high, particularly for this long a duration, in Canada.  Every person we spoke with complained about the weather.  Thankfully the temperatures dropped into the low 60s at night, making sleeping comfortable.  

We decided to push on. Surely we would find a place to fish!

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

We decided to take a break from hard traveling and set up camp fairly early in Washington’s Selkirk mountains.  We drove through one small campground on Lake Theo but decided to try for something a little more remote.  David located a forest service road, and I turned up it.  

We heard a rock chink hard against the undercarriage.  Within second, the front left tire was completely flat.  I had run over a sharp rock that punctured just between the tread and the sidewall.  The tire was destroyed.  Thankfully, we were off the main, narrow highway, protected from the heavy traffic.  It didn’t take us long to change the tire… once we figured out where the jack went, etc. (Ah, the joys of a new vehicle.) It was, however, a disappointment to know that instead of making it into Canada, we would now be delayed at least another day while we found a place to get a new tire.

We returned to the campground at Lake Theo and settled in for the evening.  The next morning we drove into Colville to see what they might have.  They didn’t carry what we needed.  On top of it all, we were surprised to find that the tires we had were not truck rated as we had been told.  They were only fancy six-ply passenger tires.  We learned long ago to run ten-ply tires, particularly on roads like the Dempster.  

We soon discovered a Discount Tire in Spokane, a company we have done business with for years in Texas. When David called, they pulled up our records and told us they could have the exact tires we normally use in by three that afternoon.  So we drove south another 70 miles into Spokane and waited for the appointed time to have the new tires mounted.

It was hardly the anniversary we had planned, but we counted our blessings.  The tire had blown in a safe area.  Before we hit really rugged roads, we had discovered the tires we were running were not the ten-ply tires we needed.  On top of it all, the tire blew in the Lower 48 where the tires we needed were readily available and at much less cost.  

So we set up camp not far from where we began the day before in Colville and toasted our good fortune.  We joked that for anniversary gifts, David had given me two big rings, and I had given him two big rings.  If the 25^th anniversary is silver, and the 50^th gold, I’m guessing the 42^nd anniversary might be rubber!

Our Trek Continues

Salmon River near Salmon, Idaho

Greetings from Salmon, Idaho!  Unless you have traveled these great United States, it is difficult to realize how large our country is.  We have traveled over 1,700 miles and have yet to cross into Canada.  

Last night we had our first campout in the cool of the Utah mountains.  It was absolutely lovely to don sweatshirts and enjoy the brisk air.  By evening, rain drove us into the camper, and we spent the night with the patter of rain on the roof.

Today we had hoped for the same weather, but ended up in a very arid region of Idaho.  With temperatures in the mid-90s at six in the evening, we wimped out for another motel room.  Showers are definitely necessary, plus we have a few loose ends to tie up before we head into Canada either late tomorrow or (most likely) early Tuesday morning.

Our motel room sits on the edge of the Salmon River in Salmon, Idaho.  We were curious... do salmon actually spawn this far east?  The answer is yes... unbelievably so.  These salmon migrate 930 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean and gain 7,000 feet in elevation during their journey.  Incredible!

If I were to choose two things on this earth that confirm there is a Living God that created this planet and all that is in it, salmon and bees would top my list.  The life cycle of each of these amazing creatures simply cannot be attributed to slime and time (as a dear pastor friend of ours has called it).  

The Salmon River rushes past our room this evening.  How many salmon swim upstream below us?  I am in awe.