Family Travel

We spend most of the day in the car driving to Mt Robson Provincial Park, which is about an hour west of Jasper National Park. The campgrounds in Jasper fill up early in the day, so we decide to stop at Mt Robson for the night. This campground is huge, but has also been filling up the last few nights. Apparently the first weekend in August is the most popular weekend of the summer for camping in Canada since it's the last 3-day weekend before school starts.

The scenery is okay but nothing special today,

until we get close to Mt Robson, the tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies.

We’re at Mt Robson Meadows Campground, a very nice provincial park. The campsites are large and lots of trees between campsites. Quite different from many of the parking lot RV parks that we’ve been staying at recently.

We set up camp and walk over to the visitor center. Mt Robson’s top is covered with clouds, but it is still picturesque.

Then we have dinner and spend the rest of the evening relaxing around the campfire. Of course if there’s a campfire at the Engelman campsite, there are always s’mores :-)

We found out yesterday that it is a 3-day holiday weekend in Canada. We have asked several people what holiday it is and finally someone today tells us that it is a civic holiday with no reason except to have a holiday. Odd, but having a civic holiday simply to have a 3-day weekend in August sounds like a good idea to me :-) Maybe we'll find out Monday if there is a different reason for the holiday weekend, but considering the number of people who responded 'I don't know' when we asked what holiday Monday is, I think it is simply an excuse to have a holiday in August--great idea, Canada!

Today is another beautiful, sunny day. We pack up, drive a few miles and then stop to take pictures of the suspension bridge that we drove across yesterday and today to get to & from Ksan Campground.

It is a one-lane suspension bridge that was built in 1931. It traverses a very deep canyon. We were a little nervous yesterday when we first saw the bridge, especially when we saw the sign that said "One Truck at a Time".

I have no idea how many feet deep the canyon is and the pictures can't really show the depth, but it is definately a long way down from the bridge to the river below.

We take lots of pictures of the bridge and the old church on the other side of the road. Then we're on our way down the Yellowhead Highway (Hwy 16).

We're less than an hour down the road when we see a lot of people stopped at a roadside rest with cameras and binoculars. So of course we stop. There is a narrowing of the river here and there are rapids (Moricetown Canyon), but I can't figure out why everyone is here.

So I ask someone and they explain that the local tribe fishes for salmon here using their old methods of nets and harpoons.

A few minutes later we watch one of the natives use his 20 feet long harpoon/pole to catch a large salmon.
It was so interesting! We watched two fishermen catch several fish this way. They lift up their 20 ft pole that has a large hook on the end, place it down into the water, lift it up and down several times, and in a surprisingly short time they snag a fish on the hook. We watch them for about 30 minutes. A great stop!

We continue our scenic drive through British Columbia til we get to Smithers. We stop for diesel and Joe somehow talks us into stopping at McDonalds for lunch. After lunch we continue driving til our next stop, Houston. Houston's claim to fame is the world's largest flycasting fishing rod. We take a few pics, talk to some locals and look at the stuffed grizzly at the visitors' center.

The ride between Houston and Vinderhoof, where we stop for the night, is okay, but not as scenic as this morning. We stop at Dave's Campground for the night. This is a nice park. Not only does it have cable TV and wifi, but a miniature golf course with real grass and a gigantic checker board.

The park has a lot of RVs by evening; many of us heading south after visiting Alaska.

We sleep well on the ferry, but not long enough. It’s only a 6.5 hour ride from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert.

So we’re up at 6am, drive off the ferry, and wait in line to get through customs.

Customs goes well, except the agent spends a lot of time looking at Rosdale’s (our cat) vaccination papers and I start to get worried that something is wrong. Still not sure why he took so long examining the paper, but he handed it back and said we were free to go.

The day starts out somewhat overcast and the tops of the mountains are in the clouds. By lunchtime the clouds lift and we can see the top of the mountains. Very pretty scenery.

We stop at Terrance, British Columbia for lunch. Plus we get some groceries, fill up with diesel, and exchange some travelers’ checks for Canadian currency. We’re in Canada, but the towns are still few and far between for the next few days.

We notice that everyone is wearing shorts except us. It feels like it might be close to 80 degrees here and we are not used to the heat. We haven’t worn shorts for weeks. The warmth feels good and we’ll change into shorts later today.

We’re tired, so around 3:30 we pull into the Ksan Campground near Old Hazleton, BC.

The Ksan campsite is a very nice campground by the river. I was concerned that we would have problems finding a campsite on a (Canadian) holiday weekend, but lots of empty sites here. We relax in the afternoon (I take a nap). Then after dinner we walk around the Ksan historical village (First Nation village)

and then through Old Hazleton. Old Hazleton has many restored old buildings and turns out to be more interesting than we expected.

We walk back to the campground and watch a videotape from the History Channel and then have an early bedtime.

We cannot believe it—the skies are blue again today in Ketchikan. It is one of the nicest days weather-wise we’ve had in Alaska. Three days of blue skies in Ketchikan, the rainiest city in Alaska. The one town in Alaska we expected rain. The temperature actually gets above 70 degrees today. We have had very few days in the last month where we’ve reached 60 degrees! So, great weather for our last day in Alaska.

We’re going to be driving a lot the next few days after we get off the ferry at Prince Rupert tomorrow, so we take a day to basically relax. We do some chores in the morning, have lunch and then head out to the state park north of us (Settlers Cove) for a walk through the beach and rain forest. We spend time on the beach just looking around (and watching 2 harbor seals in the water)

and then walk the 1-mile loop through the temperate rain forest.

We drive back to the trailer to grab a few folding chairs and then head to Refuge Cove State Park to sit on the shore for the rest of the afternoon. There are several families swimming in the water, but we didn’t come prepared to swim. Joe rolls up his jeans and goes in the water but Jere and I sit on the shore and read.

Around 6:30 we decide to go get the trailer and drive to the ferry dock. Our ferry doesn’t leave til 12:30am and we don't need to be there til 10:30pm, but we're anxious to leave and we want to get to the dock in the daylight.

We arrive at the dock and make dinner. There are already at least a half dozen other RVs waiting in the parking lot.

After dinner we walk over to the dock and watch a sternwheeler go by the dock

We then take a short walk to the small boat harbor near the ferry and then sit around the trailer relaxing and waiting for the ferry.

Around midnight we start loading onto the ferry. This is the third time we’re traveling on the Taku so the attendant recognizes us, “You again?” The other two times we traveled on the Taku we had to back on the ferry, so Jere asks if we’ll have to back on this time? We’re told not only can we drive on this time, but we can drive off at Prince Rupert. No backing up in the ferry? Yea!!! We're also not the longest rig on the ferry this time--there's a motorhome pulling a boat that is 56' (we're 52').

We’re one of the first ones on the ferry. We get the keys to our cabin, drop off our backpacks and go up to watch the ferry leave. Our last ride on Alaska's ferries. It's been an adventure driving on/off the ferries. Some people would even say that it is part of the Alaska RV Trip experience :-) I really enjoyed visiting the small fishing towns in southeast Alaska, but I'm glad we're done with getting on/off the ferries.

We are in Ketchikan, the rainiest town in Alaska, and we have blue skies! This is the one town we expected rain. Please don't think that I'm complaining--this weather is great!

We eat breakfast and walk down to the dock at the campground.

The tide is really low this morning. We can even see starfish from the dock.

We walk around the dock and look at all the small fish. The fishermen threw some of their waste into the water and the small fish are gorging themselves with food.

Our first stop today is at Saxmon Totem Park, on the other side of Ketchikan (our campground is about 14 miles north of town). The weather is great and we enjoy the scenery on the way to Totem Park, including a dock full of floatplanes:

Saxmon Totem Park is just what the name says: a park full of totem poles. There is also a clan house that is very nicely done, inside and out, and a shop where two men are carving a totem pole.

Then we drive south of town along South Tongass Highway. This again, is not a highway, but it’s name says ‘highway’. It’s a 2 lane rural road. We pull off at a beach and make some sandwiches for lunch. There’s a group of tourists snorkeling along the shore, so we watch them and the fisherman and the jumping salmon while we eat.

The road continues for a few more miles past an old logging camp and several waterfalls. We stop at one of the waterfalls and find some ripe salmon berries to try.

Then we’re off to yet another totem pole exhibit, Ketchikan’s Totem Heritage Center. This is a museum that tries to preserve old totem poles of the Tlingit and Haidi tribes. We learn even more about totem poles and then walk around the area.

Then it’s off to downtown Ketchikan for some shopping and dinner. After buying a few trinkets, we have dinner at Annabelle’s. This restaurant is in the Gilmore Hotel, where we stayed in Ketchikan 13 years ago when we visited. Good salmon chowder and Alaska Dungeness crab cakes.

We visit a few more gift shops and then head back to the trailer to do laundry. The washers are really cheap here, $1/load. However, the water in the campground is brown—tannic brown—pretty gross looking to me, even though I know it won’t hurt me. But I do the wash in it anyway and the clothes look fine when they’re done. Just as my body was clean after this morning's shower in the brown water, but no way will I use the brown water to brush my teeth!

I take a break in the middle of laundry to go down to the dock to look at the sunset—it is gorgeous!!! Several of us are down on the docks taking pictures. Definitely not the sunset I expected in Ketchikan, the rainiest town in Alaska.