Heading for Alaska: Crossing the Border into British Columbia (plus a Lookback to Florida)
- Alison (No Fixed Address)
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
Observations from the first four days of our mapped-out 7,000+ mile journey through the "North Country":
1) Walking our dog Hershey at 10pm does not require a flashlight - it's still twilight.
2) The number of miles we planned to cover in a day did not take into account the many scenic views, waterfall hikes, and tourist centres/museums that our guidebook, The MILEPOST, notes as interesting. We're only 240 miles from the U.S. border on our fourth day.
3) Crossing the border (at Sumas WA / Abbotsford BC) was not difficult, and required only about a half-hour wait. (It looked to be about the same in the other direction.) Because the Canadian website lists a variety of foods and items that cannot be carried across, we had made sure to use up our produce, eggs, and raw meats. The Canadian border agent did ask about apples, chicken, and cannabis, but was most interested in whether we had firearms or firearm parts or ammunition. He seemed to find it hard to believe that Americans from Florida (Isabel has a Florida driver license, we have a Florida license plate) would not have guns...
4) Having our younger daughter Isabel join us for the first month of travel is delightful! (We actually knew this already, as she had traveled with us for over a month in the summer of 2021, in Washington State and Montana.)
Our first stop was in Chilliwack, British Columbia, 15 miles from the border. It was featured in The MILEPOST, but also made known to us by two Chilliwack residents camped next to us in Troutdale, Oregon, who recommended a stop there. In addition to a grocery stop to restock our refrigerator, we stopped at the Atchelitz Antiques Museum and Pioneer Village. This would be the first of many heritage and museum stops for us! This site had a collection of historical buildings, including a general store, a schoolhouse, and a church with a pull rope we tugged on to ring the bell! Chilliwack's pioneers in 1857 were gold seekers; the town grew up as a busy steamboat landing on the Fraser River.
Our first Canadian campsite was just up the road from Chilliwack, next to the Bridal Veil Falls Provincial Park. With the campground having its own entrance to the Park, we enjoyed the short uphill hike to the Falls on both our check-in evening and the next morning.
Our drive for the next two days would be up the Fraser River Valley and then the Thompson River Valley (one of the Fraser's tributaries). This area was a major center of activity during British Columbia's gold rush, which began in 1858 when gold was discovered washing down the Fraser where it could be panned for on sandbars. After a couple of years, miners traveled inland for the sources of the river gold, which was becoming harder to find on the sandbars.
Continuing northward to the town of Yale, at the head of the easily navigable portion of the Fraser River (flowing south to Vancouver, British Columbia), we visited our second heritage site. The Yale Historic Site includes an example of a gold rush tent city street from the late 1850's: canvas stretched over wooden frames to form small "buildings", outfitted here as a general store, a doctor's office, and a saloon, and fronted by a boardwalk to protect the residents from mud. Historical artifacts are displayed in the Creighton House, an original building from 1868. The site also includes St. John the Divine Church, one of the oldest church buildings still in existence in British Columbia; it was active from 1863-1976, and currently holds an exhibit of embroidered linens from the (no longer standing) girls' school.
Yale profited from its location for a quarter century: near the early gold rush sandbars (1858-1860); at the head of the navigable Fraser River for paddlewheel steamboats (1858-1885); as the starting point of the second Cariboo Wagon Road into the interior gold mines (1865-1885); and as a supply center for building the Canadian Railway through the new Canadian province of British Columbia (1880-1885). The heritage sites and signboards in Yale also share interesting details of Chinese immigrant participation in both the Canadian gold rush and railroad construction.
Our next stop was the old Alexandra Bridge, now a foot bridge spanning the Fraser River. The river is named for Simon Fraser, the first European to descend the river (southward). He and his team traveled with difficulty via canoe and portage from the confluence of the Nechako River at the town of Prince George (established by Fraser as Fort George), past the mouths of the tributary Quesnel River (present day town of Quesnel) and Thompson River (present-day town of Lytton), and past the Hell's Gate rapids to Yale, then more easily to the Strait of Georgia (east of present-day Vancouver). Throughout, Fraser and his crew were aided by the local First Nations peoples. (We ourselves would be following the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, albeit northward and by highway, from Chilliwack to Yale to Lytton to Quesnel to Prince George. We also often paralleled rail lines that were laid (1880-1915) to utilize the Fraser River/Thompson River route.)
We had hoped to take the Hell's Gate Airtram over the Fraser River rapids, but, alas, it was closed due to mechanical issues. We had also hoped to see the Hell's Gate Fishways, constructed to help salmon swim upstream without interference from frequent rockslides, but could not reach them (perhaps because the Airtram building was closed). The salmon won't be returning to their home rivers until later this summer, so we wouldn't have seen the Fishways in use anyway.
Our second night was at the Tuckkwiohum Heritage Village and Campground. The Heritage Village includes a few First Nations structures. While very little land in British Columbia is under the direct control of any First Nations bands, there is a lot of signage and information reflecting an acceptance that some 95% of British Columbia was never formally ceded to Europeans by First Nations peoples.
On our third day, we discovered that Canada definitely has the most civilized rest areas, including informational signs, E/V charging stations, and sometimes a fenced dog walking area.
As we continued north, roadside and town information signs often mentioned Francis Jones Barnard and his 1861 pony express business in the Cariboo goldfields region, which he expanded with passenger and freight transportation via stagecoach, winter sleigh, river sternwheeler, and automobile. By 1920, railway competition ended the company, but artifacts of Barnard's Express Company (sometimes abbreviated BC or BX) are presented throughout this area.
We spent our third and fourth nights in the town of 100 Mile House. "100 Mile" refers to the distance from the origin point of the first Cariboo Wagon Road: Lillooet, British Columbia, 93 miles north of the town of Yale (the origin point of the second Cariboo Wagon Road), and on a less navigable portion of the Fraser River. At various points on the first Cariboo Wagon Road, enterprising pioneers established roadhouses for travelers to the goldfields, and sometimes a town would grow up around the roadhouse. We visited the 100 Mile House Tourist Centre, situated in a log building (fitting for the "Handcrafted Log Home Capital of North America", and there were indeed many log homes in town), the 100 Mile House Marsh, wonderful for bird-spotting, and Bridge Creek Falls.
From 100 Mile House, we would be continuing north, toward Mile 0 on the Alaska Highway, in Dawson Creek, British Columbia.
Looking Back: May and November 2024, Florida
We are so enjoying having our younger daughter Isabel travel with us for a month as we begin our Alaska adventure! She lives in Florida, on the Gulf Coast, and has traded 90 degrees F and bright sunshine for 70 degrees F and - well, actually, lots of daylight!
We ourselves traveled to Florida a couple of times in 2024. One purpose was to move our domicile from Texas to Florida (with the passing of Alison's mom in 2023, the many relatives we have living in Florida made that seem a more rational domicile). There was, of course, a lot of paperwork and visits to various state offices, but we were finally successful owners of Florida driver licenses, voter cards, and a license plate. (Florida uses only a rear license plate.) Two issues we had to cope with: Our Texas vehicle title had to be converted from electronic to paper and mailed to Florida; there was a time limit as to when we had to appear at the Florida office to complete the title and registration transfer, which we couldn't meet, so Florida returned the paper title to Texas; we then had to repeat the Texas title transfer request. The other issue was that Virginia had us in their system as letting our driver licenses expire, and, until we resolved with Virginia that we had indeed documented our domicile change to Texas in 2020 (!), we showed up in the federal database as delinquent and unworthy of Florida driver licenses!
Our other purpose was to visit Isabel and her boyfriend. In April, we spent a fun weekend together in Orlando at Walt Disney World.
In late September, Doug rented a U-Haul and moved our Virginia storage units' contents to Florida (while Alison remained in Virginia). That same weekend, Hurricane Helene flooded parts of Florida, but, fortunately, not our new storage building or Isabel's neighborhood. However, two weeks later, in early October, Hurricane Milton ripped into the roofs of the apartment complex where Isabel and her boyfriend were living, and their apartment's living room ceiling collapsed. Fortunately, they had evacuated to Alabama prior to the storm, and Isabel's boyfriend's parents had extra living space to lend them while they looked for a new apartment, which they found in December. We were able to drive down to Florida as planned for a visit in November, but the Thanksgiving that Isabel and her boyfriend were to host was instead hosted by our older daughter Madeline and her boyfriend in Massachusetts. (We did fly, not drive, to that!)
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