A Viking’s Walkabout – Day 27 – Viking Navigation LLC

Prince George to Vancouver, B.C.

Distance: 472 miles / 759 km

Time: 9h15m

South of Prince George on the Caribou Highway, I passed through Quesnel, B.C. Here, the Quesnel Fraser River Foot Bridge.

The City of Quesnel has a nice post about the bridge and its history. They claim it is the “longest wood truss walking bridge in the world.” I checked the bridge I walked across in Ft. Benton, Mont., and the Quesnel bridge seems longer than the one in Ft. Benton. That means the Fraser River in Quesnel (two locations you’ve probably never heard of) is wider than the Missouri River in northern Montana… I keep saying there is a lot of water and lot of big rivers up here.

The “first speed limit” in Quesnel.

The Fraser River speeds beneath the planks.

The Quesnel Fraser River Bridge was the only bridge in town and was open to vehicular traffic and heavy logging trucks (and apparently cattle drives) until completion of the adjacent highway bridge in 1971.

Monument to the construction of the Russian-American Telegraph. It was an 1860’s plan by the eccentric Perry Collins and Western Union to reach Europe by telegraph via Russian Alaska and Siberia. The venture got this far before being abandoned in 1867 when the completed trans-Atlantic telegraph made the project obsolete. The surveys for the line in Russian Alaska played a role in the eventual purchase of Alaska by the United States. But it proved easier to lay a telegraph on the bottom of an ocean than it was to build one on land across the North. I know how they felt.

Half dove tail joins in a log structure. This was the Hudson’s Bay Building built in 1882 to sell supplies to miners and homesteaders drawn by the Cariboo Gold Rush. I saw great variability as to whether “Hudson’s” was spelled with an apostrophe, an S, or neither. The bay itself is officially “Hudson Bay.” The company is “Hudson’s Bay Company.”

Quesnel is a center of pulp, paper, and lumber production. Here are two pulp and kraft plants. The steam from these and similar plants across the Pacific Northwest would regularly fill the river valleys with fog in the mornings. These are both West Fraser Timber plants. West Fraser Timber started in Quesnel and is now the largest lumber manufacturer in North America. On Day 10 in Alberta, on the far side of the Rockies, I drove through mile after mile of West Fraser Timber tree farms.

Logs piled in Williams Lake, B.C.

“The Chasm.” Poorly marked from the road and unknown to me that morning, but “Chasm Road” made me stop, turn around, and explore. It was worth it.

Leaving Highway 97 north of Cache Creek I turned west on Highway 99 for Whistler. Here Marble Canyon.

West of Pavillion, B.C. the climate suddenly changes. For weeks I had been in wet forests or damp tundra. Now, bright blue skies, warm sun, and dry, high mountains with sparse forests and dry scrub. It was like heaven. Here, the Fraser River about 158 miles / 255 km south of Quensel as the raven flies, and the CN Railway Lillooet Fraser River Bridge.

And just down river, “The Old Bridge.”

Waterfall near Mount Currie, B.C.

Logjam on the north end of Duffy Lake.

A (finally!) clear sky reflected in Duffy Lake.

Mountains of the Pacific Ranges.

Patriotic Pemberton, B.C. (Flag over gas station & McDonalds, but you’d never know.)

Glaciers west of the Sea-to-Sky Highway between Whistler and Vancouver. I could feel the building pressure of civilization in the back of my mind as urban speeds and congestion built.

I didn’t stop in Whistler… “What?!?” Yeah… I’ve been to nice ski resorts and after the let-down of late summer Banff, the overwhelming abundance of Arc’teryx and Monclar clothes, fancy purses, and the traffic jams caused by herds of roof-rack Audi’s, I was convinced there was nothing to see here. I’m sure it’s a nice place. “The hat looks good on you, though…“

Waiting in traffic (forever!) to cross the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver where like 20 lanes of traffic merge to one lane.

Post-COVID Vancouver commercial space.

Vancouver was nice, food was great, people were talkative and helpful. I enjoyed it. But Vancouver was also the biggest city I had visited in 23 days. I was in Denver (population 3 million) on Day 04. Vancouver has 2.6MM people. The biggest cities between Denver and Vancouver on this trip have been Calgary, Alta. (1.3MM), Anchorage, Alaska (400K), Lethbridge, Alta. (98K), Prince George, B.C. (77K), Great Falls, Mont. (60K), Fairbanks, Alaska (33K), Whitehorse, Yukon (28K), Prince Rupert, B.C. (12K), Quesnel, B.C. (10K). I think every other town I had been in since Denver had fewer than 10,000 people.

I’ve enjoyed being away. For the rest of this trip I’ll be simultaneously remote and in close proximity to millions of people.