Subject: British Columbia Message: Hi Everybody, This is written from the center of British Columbia, a bit west of Prince George. I had very high hopes for British Columbia, and it's been even better than I hoped. British Columbia has always been as much a focus for this trip as Alaska, although 'Going to Alaska' sounds more exotic. It's beautiful! It's huge! There are thousands of miles of gravel roads, mostly going somewhere rather than just dead-ending, offering an alternative to the highway. I've driven 1500 miles since entering BC 3 weeks ago on July 5th, 1400 of those miles on gravel, even though the direct highway mileage from Vancouver to Prince George is only 500 miles. This includes 700 miles on a side- trip to Bella Coola which turned out to be the best part so far. The little harbor village of Bella Coola is on a deep fjord of the Pacific Ocean, in the Coastal Range, and it reminded me a lot of Norway with deep valleys and glaciated spires all around. Seeing the fishing boats and a couple of cruising yachts in the harbor was a little nostalgic, but I'm glad to be doing what I am. BC is roughly the size of the 4 Northwestern states in the US (WA, OR, ID, MT), but with only 1/3 the population, which from my point of view is just great! Makes me think of what the US might have been like 75 years ago. I hadn't expected the thousands of lakes, 99% free of cottages and development, just surrounded by aspen or conifer trees, with perhaps a little primitive 'BC Recreation Site' with space for a few people to picnic or camp in the trees so far they have been 98% empty of other people. But mostly I've been camping in the trees off logging roads, there seem to be an unlimited number of good spots. Much of the driving since Bella Coola has been through forests which is mildly pleasant and interesting although not dramatic, with no traffic (1-2 hours between seeing other vehicles), and some of the meadows and valleys and hilltop views are gorgeous. The SW part of BC was more mountainous with fjord-like lakes, this part is gently rolling forest land. Seemingly unending! I think I'll soon be getting in the big mountain country up toward the Yukon Territory and Alaska. Logging is a very major industry here, with all the roads signposted with radio frequencies for coordination between trucks when one of those guys comes along it's squeeze over on the shoulder and wait for the dust to settle. I've gotten used to seeing lots of areas torn up by logging, but they are only a tiny fraction of the land, and it looks like they are mostly cleaned up and the slash burned and the area replanted. So there's a mix of old growth forest, really beautiful but the very devil to hike through, and areas of new growth of varying ages. I'd expected the great number of conifers, but have been surprised at the vast stands of mature aspen. My first BC campsite was surrounded by delicious brambleberries (black raspberries), which are like small blackberries except the bushes have cats-claw thorns if you stick your hand into the bush, you can't pull it back out again without very carefully peeling away each little thorny branch. I've founds lots of good red raspberries, a few similar but less tasty salmonberries, and vast numbers of thimbleberries which I am not so fond of but apparently bears think otherwise. So far only a dozen blueberries, but I have high hopes. I've seen only two bears, both huge black bears running across the road in front of the truck. But on most of my hikes on logging roads there are lots and lots of bear droppings, and one morning I found a fresh little pile a hundred feet from my camper which I am sure had not been there the night before. I give a loud 'Hey, Bear' call every minute or so when hiking, and am glad to be carrying a shotgun 'just in case'. The experts say to always hike in a group, but I am just a group of one. I've passed through dozens of Indian Reserves; Canada seems to have set aside hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small areas (a few square miles in area, or perhaps a few dozen square miles), presumably in locations where the Indians were living already, rather than setting aside a few large areas (in poor ground, naturally) and forcibly relocating natives there as done in the US. It's hard to tell as a tourist, but these areas seem lacking the squalor so widespread in US reservations, and the Indians in the shops seem more cheerful and friendly and 'mainstream' than I am used to in the Western US. After writing the above, today I emerged from the gravel roads through the forests, onto the highway, and was surprised to find it much more scenic! It's partly from getting into more scenic country, but the highway often offers a much broader view, and sometimes cultivated fields and meadows enhance the scenery. And maybe I managed to saturate my yen for isolated dirt roads in the forest, at least for a while, especially since the last day started getting some traffic and many logging trucks, with clouds of dust miles long. So far coming north I have bypassed what the Alaskan Milepost book, the bible, calls 'The West Access Route', and am now heading west on the Yellowhead Highway, soon to go north again on the Cassiar Highway to the Yukon Territory. There I think I will cross the Alaskan Highway (which used to be called the Alcan) and head for Eagle, Fairbanks, and Circle, via the Klondike Loop. On this entire trip, I may be on the Alaska Highway itself very little. I'm not sure what comes after that, but coming back I think I will detour to Yellowknife, on the north shore of the Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. Another possible detour would be to Inuvik, on the Arctic Ocean also in the Northwest Territories. But I may feel differently after a few more thousand miles. It's great having absolutely no schedule or commitments to time or place! So far the mosquitoes have not been exceptionally bad, but I doubt that I'll escape entirely as I get farther north. I was having fits trying to figure out how they were getting into the camper during the evening, causing great flyswatter battles, until I finally found a long thin crack at the front cabover panel where some hinge screws had loosened up; after I fixed that, I've had relaxed evenings. I've had good luck with the weather: there have been a few days in he 80s, but mostly in the 60s and 70s, very nice. Quite a few showers, but more sunshine and blue skies with puffy clouds. Today I met a very nice couple when I stopped at a nursery/garden shop to try to identify a shrub and tree in my pictures. They enjoyed seeing my BC pictures, and had many suggestions for places to visit off the beaten track during the next week or two. They have two adventurous daughters, one was the nurse in the Indian village Bella Bella, which is on a small island west of Bella Coola, and the other (now in Sydney) was the nurse in the Indian village Iqaluit on Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island. That's really getting out there! I'm sending a CD with the text for this email, and a slideshow 04BC1.exe, to my friend Sean Smith (Firestar Design), who will put the slideshow on his server and use the distribution list from my last trip report to send this email for me. I'll be sending the slideshow on CD to some of you, if others would like a CD just let me know, it is easy for me. Some of you with really sharp eyes may spot a couple of clumsy PhotoShop background retouchings, but I am getting better at it. In Seattle I had a great time visiting my fellow MIT Physics major and ATO 'brother' Michael Meeker and his wife. I haven't seen Michael since 1957! He pointed out that one should rightfully be skeptical of opening any unknown .exe file: I have scanned the slideshow file with Norton Anti Virus as an extra precaution. The address is as before http://www.firestardesign.com/johna. Click on 04BC1.exe, and if using Internet Explorer you can either choose OPEN to view the show once, of choose SAVE TO DISK if you want to have it your hard disk for future re-viewing. Right-Click or Spacebar will advance to the next picture Left-Click will return to the previous picture Pause will pause the show Esc will end the show at any time; use Esc when you reach the last image (a orange butterfly 'Purplish Fritillary') and you find Right-Click 'doesn't work' Regards, John Armitage