July 20, 2008

Well I didn’t end up paying a fee at Watson Lake, no one showed up. It rained all night at Watson Lake and the morning was wet and miserable. We got up ate breakfast, (bacon and eggs as well as hash browns)  then we were off to town with a shopping list. We weren’t after groceries this time but other necessities, like propane, ice, beer, laundry facilities, and a sani-dump. Of course everything costs more money up here. Ice $3.25, sani-dump $5.00. I think the only thing that was not over priced was the beer, or was it. I don’t buy it very often. $23 for a 15 pack, you be the judge. We also had to stop at the sign post forest and we took in the laser show at the northern lights center. That was pretty interesting. It even kept Rylan’s attention for most of it. Considering it was past his nap time he did pretty good until he fell asleep. Once the laundry was done we headed off to the west. We past highway 37 the way we will be taking south. I almost turned down, but thought that I am already this far I really want to see Atlin. As we traveled west the mountains began to come back. I stopped quickly at Rancheria falls which are twin falls, not too big. That was a nice spot. The trail is 500 meters long and has been heavily modified for handicap access. There was some cool boardwalk work done there. By the time we reached Swan Lake it was getting late and I started looking for a place to camp. About half way between there and Morley Lake I passed a small lake with a muddy road down to it. I could just see the lake and see that there was a trailer down there. Just after the road there was a rest area on the right hand side of the road. I turned in there and back tracked the 100 meters and turned in. There was a nice big turn around so I pulled around a leveled the trailer and pulled the bikes out (the first thing I do when I stop now. The kids got busy finding the nearest mud puddle which so happened to be 8” deep and they promptly got soaked. I met the nice folks from the trailer. They were four, a mother, father, brother, and sister. They were from just out of Kamloops and decided with 2 weeks notice to just up and head to Alaska. They were really nice and had great sense of humors. I guess they pulled that old trailer through so really nasty shit as they had broken the frame in half twice already and had to get it welded up. The trailer was an old early 70’s tandem axle about 18-20ft long. The bottom edge along the front side (skirting before the wheels for lack of a better word) was missing and behind the wheels on the side was all bashed it. They laughed as they told me the story, over beers, of trying to find a lake. They were following what they thought was a mini van down a road up in Alaska. They caught up with the van and discovered it was an Expedition and the guy was a local. He laughed his as of at them for bringing a trailer through the road and laughed even harder and told them there was no lake anywhere near them. So anyway, three of them were fishing this lake when I got there. When they came in they had caught some pike. They were 30” long and about 11 lbs. They were having a blast out there as the fish were really fighting. That night we said our goodbyes and nice to meetchas as they were heading out the next morning. I decided to stay another night so I moved the trailer into where there trailer was ( the only area in front of the lake) and made… you guessed it Hash browns, bacon and eggs. I unloaded the trailer and got the boys out fishing. I was worried that Rylan was going to have a fit when we saw one of these freshwater barracudas in the boat. I decided to let Zach fish and I would just run the boat. I get a line ready (with a steel leader as these fish shred fishing line) and tell Zach we needs to hold on to the rod tight or it will get pulled into the water. He is using my rod as I wasn’t sure if his could handle these fish. In about 5-10 minutes Zach hooks one and my trout rod is bent right over and he is hanging on for dear life. I am laughing so hard I can’t do much to help at that point. I do get the net ready eventually and net the beast. I don’t have a scale but if I compare his fish to the others I saw the night before and they were 11lbs, his was about 8 and 25” long. Man these things are tough. I wasn’t putting my hands any where near the mouth of that ugly mother, so it took a while to get the hook out even though it was a single barbless hook. He had teeth like needles and they are ¾ of an inch long on the big ones. It took me 3-4 minutes to get the hook out and I just threw the fish back in the water (I wasn’t going to eat it… shudder) it didn’t even have to sit there for any amount of time. It just nonchalantly swam away. Zach caught another but the line touched the back of the boat edge and the line just snapped like it was thread… I think I have 12 lb line on that rod. The time was 12:30pm and Rylan was getting antsy so we headed in to cook hot dogs and cut up some cantaloupe. Rylan had a huge nap as he didn’t get to sleep til late last night. Man at 12:30ish am it was still super bright like the sun had just gone down, I have pics. The weather today started off nice but now we are cooped up inside at 6pm watching it rain.

More later
j.


July 22, 2008

Yesterday we woke up quickly ate breakfast and headed out on the water. We headed out across the lake by the weeds where Zach caught his other fish hoping to land a big one. I tried fishing as well but with Rylan sticking to me like glue it was next to impossible. I reeled in and just concentrated on running the boat and holding Rylan, and landing any fish Zach might catch. Zach caught a Pike that was a little smaller than the biggest one he caught yesterday. I let him reel it right to the boat and let him play it a little and it managed to get off the hook. No matter we were not keeping these ugly looking things anyway. We were just about to head in to go when Zach got a huge bite. My new Char Rod (an ugly stick) was bent right over and it was all he could to do hold on to it. I told him “reel reel!” and he did the best he could. He had a tough time of it, but he eventually got the Pike to the boat. I netted this one and it was huge! The biggest fish we had caught yet. Of course every time we went fishing I have forgotten to bring the camera. We really wanted to get a picture of this fish so we raced across the lake back to camp. Beaching the boat with a boy clung to you is no easy task (it worse shoving off though) so that took some time. Then I cut a willow for Zach so he could hold the fish up for the picture. I also tied the willow to the boat rack using the rope that holds the boat because Zach couldn’t hold the fish up high enough to get it off the ground! In total that fish had to have been out of the water for 15-20 minutes. I put the fish back in the water and in about a minute the fish swam off. Those fish are tough. When I tried to take the hook out of its mouth earlier it tried to bit me as well. That would not have been pretty (see the pic of the teeth) The teeth are huge. To take a guess the fish was roughly 30” long and about 11-12lbs. I have no scale and no tape, but the willow I cut it almost the same length as the fish was and I kept that. I’ll measure it when we get home. After the fishing we had lunch which, if I remember correctly was hotdogs again then I loaded the boat and all the boat paraphernalia and hitched the truck to the trailer and we were off. We had a ton of fire wood as Zach and I cut down a couple trees as we were running low on wood.
Off we went to Teslin. To get to Teslin you have to cross the third largest bridge on the Alaska highway. It is pretty and it is big. It has the metal structure over it that we are started to get used to as well. Once there we fueled up, dumped the septic and loaded up on water. We parked the truck in the gas station parking lot and walked over to their souvenir/museum shop they had there. I’m not certain who they had create the ( I want to say diorama, but I know that is not right) stuffed animals in their poses and the back grounds, but it really looks first class. It was also free, which is a bonus.
We left Teslin loaded up with fuel and water and headed off to Atlin. Johnson’s crossing if I remember correctly was just a little store/gas station and that was it. We left the #1 highway (which its still the Alaska Highway as far as I can tell) and turned left on the #8 then left shortly after on the #7 highway, the road to Atlin. The drive is scenic, the road is gravel for most of the way but it is in perfect shape. We arrived in Atlin at the info center at 10 minutes past 5pm. The Info center closed at 5. “Bummer” I thought to myself. I looked at the entrance of the one room schoolhouse turned info center and saw a bunch of brochures in the porch area. I found a campsite on the water and I found the directions so we were off. When I got there I was pretty disappointed. The campsite was just a gravel parking lot with large class A motor homes and retired people. They were crammed in pretty tight and there seemed to be no play for the kids to play. The manager also said they had lots of gravel trucked in recently because they lost there beach last spring due to high water and big waves washing into the lake. She said there was to be no rock throwing as they didn’t want there expensive beach (read boys fist sized rocks) thrown back into the water. This didn’t seem to be the place for us so I asked if there was anywhere else to camp. She directed me to Warm Bay. There was a campsite there and also a “warm” spring not too far off. So 24kms south of Atlin we go. By the time we got there we are all hungry. I set up camp as quick as I could. The site seemed promising, we were on the Lake. It was too windy and the mosquitoes were bad. We stayed the night that night and left for town the next morning… today. We did laundry and went to have lunch and discovered that there is no restaurant in town. The only place to buy food it a burger cart in town… I am still running to the can with the runs.  We stopped in at the hardware store and picked up some more steel leaders (you need those when fishing pike) and some large single hooks. We checked out the bakery and found some wicked cinnamon buns that were still warm. I think I am headed back there tomorrow for more. MMMM! We then went to look at the large boat that they have there, the M.V. Tarahne. She was a gas powered 78ft lake boat. It was a cargo and passenger vessel, built over the winter of 1916 and 1917. The boat offered elegant tours of the lake for the “exclusive” tourist. By 1927 traffic was so heavy that she was pulled out of the water to dry dock, cut in half and thirty feet was added to he middle. Now a 198 person passenger vessel. Our luck was with us when we were there. Three older local women showed up. They were preparing for a dinner that was happening aboard the ship. They opened it up and let us have a look inside. There really wasn’t a lot to see. She is in fairly bad shape, but it is still nice to see some history. Speaking of history we stopped back at the info center/school house and had a look at the Atlin Museum. There was some unique pieces there. There were a couple of steam shovels at the museum. I have never seen any before, as well as old hydro turbines and old tractors and trucks. We picked up the laundry and headed out to warm bay, passed the campsite to look for the springs. We liked it so much we moved the trailer there. We went for a swim. The spring is quite shallow about 2.5 feet deep (nice to sit in) and it is about the temperature of cool bath water. It would have been nicer if it were warmer, but Zach and Rylan still loved it. Even though it was deep for Rylan, he could stand. After about 20minutes he was throwing his squirt gun and walking out to get it, then coming back to me. This behavior is much better than having a leech stuck to me for the entire time I was in the water per usual. Tonight I put Rylan to bed early and Zach to bed late, trying to stop the fiasco at bed time. They will play together for an hour or more before they go to bed, and by the time they are finished the bed is destroyed. Anyway, long story short, there seems to be once crisis after another with these boys. I had just put Rylan down to bed 10 mins earlier. I head to the can in the trailer. Rylan decided to get out of bed and come down the stairs (5th wheel) to see what is going on. Sleep is definitely not on his mind. I deepen my voice and say go to bed! He turns to head back up the stairs (this is a regular thing) but this time he slips off the second step I’m guessing (remember I’m in the bathroom) and lands on his head on the metal edge of the step that goes outside. He bounces off that and gets stuck between the door and the step. He hit really hard, harder than he has ever fallen (he falls off those steps a lot). So there I am sitting on the can with the runs and Rylan is screaming. Pants down around my ankles I rush over to pick him up and then sit back down on the can of course. Rylan only cries for about 30 seconds. I can’t believe it! He already has a large goose egg forming on his forehead. Just then Zach comes inside whimpering. He has wiped out on his bike and scraped his ankle. The scrape was nothing really bad but painful to a little boy nonetheless. Well I can’t say today was dull at least. I am going to take a picture of the goose egg on Rylan’s fore head tomorrow.

Getting late

j.

July 24, 2008

We woke up early on the 23rd and headed out from Warm Springs. We retraced our steps and headed back to Atlin then past and on to Teslin. We refueled there as is was the least expensive place around then continued on. We reached Nugget City fueled up and had lunch. Prices were not cheap. I had a hamburger for $12.99. For Zach and I (Zach only had soup) the price tag was $35 and change. We did have ice cream though. Zach promptly dropped his on the boardwalk after eating less than half. We ended up on staying a Boya Lake provincial park. The lake is a beautiful shade of blue, strangely shaped, with mountains for a back drop. We were going to stay a day and go fishing there but we are starting to feel the time crunch and wanted to see some other things more than Boya Lake. We left around 9-10am and headed out to Jade City. I like this place much more than Nugget City as there seemed to be less commercialization. They seemed to have decent prices and the owner, Robin, is really nice. From there we headed out to the Cassiar mine and the Ghost town. A girl at the front register at Jade City said there wasn’t much to see out there and they were mining back there. They didn’t want people to go out there. I didn’t drive all this way to be turned back by that. Once out there I was sure glad that I went. The Valley was very nice and there were many abandoned houses to check out. Many of them still had furniture and TV’s. Many windows were still intact. I found what I guessed to be an auto shop. There were old cars inside and many old cars and trucks outside. One of the cars was what looked like a 60’s Chrysler LaBaron complete with no rust. The engine was all there and it had a V-twin York compressor on it. In an old shed I found old trophies, a stretcher, gas cans, hard hats, extra truck doors, and misc snowmobile parts. At an important looking old house I discovered old cats, mining dump truck boxes, legal books and many other things that were of interest. An old shed near that house had a dollar bill stuck to the back of the door. I found an old station wagon, an International pickup, and an old wesfalia Volkswagen van that looked complete as well. After spending about 3 hours snooping about we headed back south to Jade City and eventually camped at Dease crossing. We had the boat out and did a little running around on the lake there, but I didn’t have time to do any fishing. Too bad we couldn’t get the rods in the water as the campsite owner said the fishing was pretty good. We also ran up the Dease River a little but is was a little sketchy. We ended hitting the prop on the bottom and stalled the motor in a fast spot on the river. I turned around in a hurry and got out of there. We spent the night there then packed up the trailer, loaded the boat, filled up with water, did laundry and had a shower and we were off.
We got to Dease Lake and did some grocery shopping. I was very low on milk and that could have disastrous results when Rylan can’t wake up to a morning bottle. Groceries and gas are still expensive here but not as bad as Watson Lake. I debated with myself if I wanted to do the long drive to Telegraph creek and back but reasoned to myself once again “I didn’t come all this way…” so at the advice of about three different people from three different parts of the province, I dropped the trailer in the parking lot in front of the post office and headed west. The road is entirely gravel. At first I find the road just a twisty gravel road nothing too out of the ordinary. It did make Zach sick though and he didn’t quite make it out of the truck so now it smells a little nasty in the truck. I cleaned it up the best I could with what I had (MacDonald’s napkins and water) but you can still smell it. After he lost his “cookies” he felt much better and we continued on. You could travel at a speed of 60kph for most of it, with a long straight section you could travel at about 110kph. After the end of the straight stretch about 50kms in, you find a park sign. Here is where things get interesting. Some of the corners have signs saying to slow to 20kph. They mean it. If you don’t make that gravel corner you don’t live. There were two large canyons that the road winds down then back up the other side. The grades were at least 20% and maybe even 22% (can’t remember for sure). Not only did you have to contend with the extreme steepness but you had the deal with the 180 degree corners at the same time. There was one place I distinctly remember that was this steep and had a big corner of about 180 and at the bottom it had the tightest one lane bridge I had ever seen! I don’t think the trailer could have fit through there with the corner thrown in. When they say they don’t recommend RV’s going there, they should almost make it law. The road was scary, I shudder to think of driving it in the winter or very wet conditions. You have to just see it for yourself to get an idea of what I am talking about. We took a few pictures at telegraph creek and headed back as it was getting late. Most of the pictures we took were of the “grand canyon of the Stikine” on the way in. It was a very cool area and a very large canyon. It was worth the drive. The kids were starting to complain on the way back (I couldn’t blame them), but they fell asleep on the way back out of Telegraph creek. I quickly gassed up then I quietly hooked up the trailer and took off. I was hoping to put some miles behind me while they slept. I made it to where the Stikine crosses the highway. Is was getting dark but I could still make out the nice sand bank of the river as I crossed the bridge. We pulled into the first road that turned off after the bridge and it took us back to that nice sandy beach. We made camp there and that night it poured rain. The area has a serious “no seeum” problem as well. Here it is three days later and I am still killing them. We have got chewed for three nights now. I killed at least 50-100 a night, the past three nights.
The next morning we passed Iskut and Tatoga. I am pretty sure I saw the old rail bed paralleling the highway north of the Stikine the night before and at Tatoga there was really only one major logging road that traveled east. It should be pretty easy to find the rail bed if I ever make the trip up there with a 4x4. We got to Bell 2 and fueled up and kept going (today was long day). We got to Mesiadan junction and turned west to Stewart and Hyder.

Later
j.