Babine did as they promised and got the truck in first thing this morning, and finished around 3:30. We drove back into town to pick up a few groceries at the Real Canadian Superstore, fueled up, and then headed about 40 miles south to another free BC Rec Site campground, Chubb Lake, which is beautiful and quiet. We saw one other camper on our way in. In the morning we will go for a walk, and then continue towards Vancouver, probably via Whistler. 

Took a hike at Chubb Lake this morning, then drove to Alexandria to take a hike to a dry waterfall and cool basalt formations. Continued south on 97 to 100 Mile House where they have a free community dump and fill station to fill with water, then drove to Valentine Lake Rec Site campground, only to find it packed with moose hunters. We drove another mile down the road and found a pull off more than big enough for our rig, where we’re parked by ourselves for the night…much quieter and better than a packed moose camp!

Took a walk by Valentine Lake, then showered and did a load of laundry since we knew we could refill in 100 Mile House, which we did. We then drove south on 97 to the 99 junction towards Whistler, again amazed at the beauty of British Columbia. We stopped just west of Lillooet at another free BC campground, Seton Dam, a part of BC hydro, although this one is busier with tourists than any of the others where we have stayed. And no moose hunters!  In the morning we plan to take one of several hikes from the campground before heading for Whistler. 

Took a walk along the canal full of dead salmon at the campground in Lillooet, then drove along the very beautiful Sea to Sky Highway 99 to Whistler. Tried to park in Whistler but there were too many people, too many cars, too many closed roads, and just too much confusion, so we drove south to this very quiet BC rec site free campground, Chek Canyon,  used mostly by rock climbers, just a little north of Squamish. Tomorrow we’ll take a hike here and then head for Vancouver. 

Took a walk up the mountain at Chek Canyon, then drove back into civilization through Vancouver to Carlton & Lorraine’s house. 

Although we had intended to get up and take a hike in either Hyder or Stewart, it was pouring rain that morning.  So, we watched the eagles on the river next to the camper, and then took off and headed south.  When we got to internet range at Kitwanga, we looked for some place to take a hike on All Trails, and found a bunch of hikes around “The Hazeltons.”  I took a look at iOverlander and saw that there were a number of places to camp in the area, and that the area visitor center had a free dump/fill station for RVs.  We headed to the visitor center, where we filled with water, had lunch in the parking lot, and got a lot of good information about where to hike and where to camp.  We ended up at a free provincial park, Anderson Flats, which has no amenities, but which is astoundingly beautiful with snow capped mountains on one side and a confluence of rivers on the other.  We took the dogs for a short walk in the park, and then took ourselves on a longer walk on the dirt country roads just outside of the park before settling in for the night.


In the morning, we took the dogs for the same walk as the previous day at the Anderson Flats PP before we left, not knowing if they would be allowed on the other walks we planned for the day.  They were lucky, because we did two more great hikes, and dogs were welcome on both.  After stopping at the visitor center to refill our water since we had taken advantage of sufficient water to shower and do laundry the night before, we went to the Breakover Trail at the edge of New Hazelton, which was a ~2 mile loop along the river through the trees, which was beautiful since the foliage seemed to be near peak.  After that, we drove to Ross Lake Provincial Park, about 5 miles outside of New Hazelton, to take another 2+ mile walk around the lake.  That was a really pretty walk, with views of the mountains over the lake and the changing foliage.  We didn’t get done walking until almost 4 o’clock, so we found a free municipal campground about two and a half hours towards Prince George in the town of Burns Lake.  The campsites are right on the lake, downhill from a really nice community center with a skate park, huge playground, boat launch into the lake, dock with a slide into the lake, indoor community recreation center and curling rink…and all were being enthusiastically used at 7:00 on a Wednesday night when we pulled in, although we were joined by only one other camper that night. 


In the morning, we decided to do the dreaded change the composting toilet task, and then talked to some workers at the campground for quite a while, so didn’t get out for a hike until almost 11. But, the 6+ mile hike around a small lake in the Burns Lake Provincial Park was beautiful, and worth the time for us and the dogs. We then drove to Prince George where we shopped at Walmart and got oil for the truck for the oil change which scheduled for the next morning.


Oil change day did not go as planned.  The plan was to get the oil changed, and then head south.  Instead, when they did the oil change, they noticed that we have an exhaust leak under the cab, which could be dangerous since toxic fumes we can’t smell are probably leaking into the cab.  So, instead of driving out of Babine Truck & Equipment at 10:30 Friday morning, we spent until mid afternoon with them doing diagnostic work and figuring out what parts we need, when the parts could get there, and when they could do the work.  Of course this was all happening on a Friday afternoon, so nothing could be done until Monday, but the final decision was that we don’t need any parts they can’t get, and they can start the work Monday morning at 7:30am, and think they can do it in a day. 


While they were getting estimates for the work we took the dogs out for a walk around the industrial park where Babine is located.  We were delighted to find three people out walking their dogs on their lunch hour, because they take their dogs to work.  While we weren’t too impressed with Prince George because it’s a lumber town and it smells, it can’t be all bad if so many people can bring their dogs to work.  The service manager at Babine told us that we can park in front of Bay 4 on Sunday night so that the engine will be cold when they pull it in on Monday morning, and we’re glad we’ll be in a dog friendly neighborhood.  


When we left Babine, we went to Cottonwood Park, which had a few recommendations on iOverlander as a place to park for the night.  We pulled into the very busy parking lot and decided to take the dogs for a walk while we figured out what we were going to do for the weekend.  Although the walk along the river with the dogs was quite nice, we decided we didn’t want to stay in the city with the smell, the train noise, and all the traffic.  We found one potential spot about 25 miles northwest of Prince George, but while Tom was driving towards that, I got on FreeRoam and found a free BC Recreation Sites & Trails Campground on Shesta Lake, southwest of Prince George.  The last 3 miles or so to the campground are on a gravel forest service road, but it’s very well maintained and easy driving.  


We pulled into the campground and found a guy already there, who told us he was waiting for his brother and nephews to have a guys’ night around the bonfire before a moose hunting day tomorrow.  They warned us that they might be a little loud around the campfire, but they wouldn’t be up all night since they were planning to head out hunting by 6am.  We made sure we wouldn’t be crashing their party if we parked there, and they assured us that as long as their noise doesn’t bother us, we wouldn’t bother them.  We figured we could use it as a good excuse to not worry about the volume of our movie, and their noise would be a good bear deterrent, which were told is needed.  As it turned out, we didn’t even hear them, and over the course of the next couple of days we had a lot of nice chats with them. They set up their camp for a week, and we were actually a little disappointed that we couldn’t stay longer.  But, after two long road walks to keep us out of the woods since we don’t have any blaze orange with us and everybody is out hunting on the provincial land, we said goodbye to Shesta Lake and headed back into Fort George to park in front of Babine so they have a cool engine to work on Monday morning. ​

We drove the 20 miles or so through the pass from Skagway to the Yukon border, and had the most extensive grilling yet at the Canadian border.  We aren’t sure if the immigration agent was just bored and wanted to talk, or if she really thought there was some sort of a problem with us, but she kept us there a while because she said she couldn’t figure out how to put our Belize registered vehicle in the computer.  The whole time she was trying to do that, she was asking us about everything, including things like our best estimate of how many litres of wine remained in our two opened boxes.  She wanted to know to the dollar how much cash we had, and when we told her we have cash from Canada, the US, Mexico, and Belize, she wanted us to convert all the non-Canadian currencies to Canadian dollars and give her a total in Canadian dollars.  After watching us count cash, add together what we each carried, and run the non-Canadian amounts through a converter for what seemed like forever, she finally said it didn’t seem like we were going to come up with more than $10,000 each and told us we could stop, which was sort of stupid because I don’t think our total was much over $1,000, US or Canadian.  After more questions about the dogs, what we did for work before we were retired, whether or not we were really retired, and a few other truly random things, she finally waved us through, mostly, I think, because another car had pulled up behind us. We drove to Whitehorse where we had a much anticipated shopping trip at the Real Canadian Superstore. We got permission to stay in the car park for the night, so we took the dogs for a walk along the river and settled in for the evening. ​

​In the morning, we took a wonderful five mile walk along the river in Whitehorse from the Klondike paddle steamer to the dam past the fish ladder. It was chilly but sunny, and very interesting, with a nice mix of history and nature.  We liked Whitehorse when we passed through on our way to Alaska, and we still liked it on our way back.

​We then got on the road to Watson Lake, and marveled at the beautiful fall foliage. We got to Watson Lake around 6 and went to the visitor center to get the milepost guide for the Cassiar, and then went to the grocery store for the local fireweed honey we couldn’t get in July. We were glad we’d walked in Whitehorse in the morning because it was raining in Watson Lake, but that turned out to be a good thing because it meant the fires were out and the Cassiar Highway was open.

On Monday morning, we got up at 4:15 AM and were at the ferry terminal at shortly after five, and we were the second RV in line.  We had time to get breakfast in our camper before we had to board, which was again done very efficiently.  The ferry ride was uneventful, although between slightly better weather and daylight, we saw a lot more scenery than we did on the way from Haines to Juneau.  For the return trip, we stopped in Haines, but then proceeded on to Skagway.  We had been told we could get the dogs out of the camper and walk them in Haines, but with the efficiency of the parking on the car deck, we didn’t have room to squeeze between the camper and the semi trailer next to it to get the dogs out, so they had to cross their legs and wait for Skagway.  That turned out to be a good thing for us, because instead of walking the dogs we watched the loading process in Haines, and saw another traveller named Andrew who we had been meeting up with periodically through Alaska getting on the ferry.  We waited for him to get to the upper deck, and then had time during the hour sail from Haines to Skagway to catch up with him and find out what he’d been doing since the last time we’d seen him.  ​

​In Skagway, we exited the ferry and drove to the more inland of the two RV campgrounds in Skagway, which was an easy decision for us since the other was very near the cruise ship docks.  Tom had to do a little work, and we had laundry to catch up, so we booked two nights at $10/night for a spot with no hook ups. We took the dogs for a walk and then went out for a delicious king crab dinner with beer at Woades, which, despite Skagway also being a cruise ship town, wasn’t quite as crazy expensive as it would have been in Juneau.

​We spent Tuesday morning with Tom working online while I did laundry and worked on the blog. In the afternoon we took the dogs for a walk around Lower Dewey Lake, which we expected to be a made for cruise ship tourists perambulating path, but which was in fact a fairly strenuous hike up a mountain with over 800’ of elevation gain through dense pine forest and around an undeveloped lake.  Because Tom wasn’t done his project, we booked a third night in Skagway, and when I told the campground host how much we enjoyed the Lower Dewey Lake hike, she suggested some more hiking trails on the other side of the docks, which we did the next day and found equally enjoyable and deserted.  Skagway gets definite points for resisting the cruise ship mentality, since you barely need to be off the sidewalk before you’re in the wilderness.  We can’t really imagine what it must be like to live in that very small town in the winter when the cruise ships aren’t docking, when the population of the town definitely can’t support all of the businesses, but at the end of the tourist season, they manage to keep the frontier town feel despite the influx of tourists.

​We left Skagway in the pouring rain on Thursday morning and tried to make a stop at the Dyea village in the Klondike National Historic Site, but we got to an 11’2” bridge so we would have had to walk the last two miles in the rain. We decided that seeing lots of eagles on the way in qualified us to claim a park visit, as well as walking by all the Klondike National Historic Site buildings in Skagway, so we called it good and got on the road to Whitehorse.