An interesting day... a bear scare, forest fires, and helicopters

We had delicious bacon and egg breakfast with my cousin Calvin and his wife Brenda, but being a work day they were soon off to the daily grind, leaving us to depart whenever we were ready.

I decided this was a good opportunity to change Sherman's engine oil, so I got everything out and crawled underneath Sherman to drain the oil and change the filter. I was about to screw on the new filter when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and had to do a double take!

Well, four new tires are better than none

We went back over to the Kal Tire store first thing Thursday morning to get Sherman's new tires installed. But unfortunately, the two tires we were waiting for didn't show up! When I had ordered them, we were told they would be in "Wednesday at the latest"... but it didn't happen.

So, there were four tires there. The other two they were now told would show up Monday, which is too late for us!

Out with the old, and in with the new...

We knew that Sherman's new tires wouldn't all be delivered to the tire shop until close to noon, so we headed out early to the Twin Falls Recreation area near Smithers. We had read that it was just a short hike to the falls, but we wanted to do a little more than that so we parked where the paved road ended and walked the 2 kms (1.3 miles) each way on the gravel road to the trailhead.

Well, we spent a chunk of money yesterday.

And the spending is not over yet!

It used to be, during our full time working days that when we spent a bunch of money, the attitude was "oh well, we'll make some more tomorrow!" But it's not so easy any more with our sporadic income.

Let me tell you how we spent $776 CAD ($600 USD)...

A bit of frustration, but it ended up better than expected

Yesterday's first stop was back at the visitors center in Hazelton to use their free wifi. They also have a free RV dump station there, so we took advantage of that by using Sherman's shower and dumping the grey tank and filling the fresh water tank.

Hazelton is what we would call an RVFT. What's an RVFT, you ask...?

We can't believe there are empty campsites at this beautiful place

And last night, we were the only ones there!

Like I said yesterday, Anderson Flats is a kind of an odd Provincial park. We found out a little more about it when a couple of conservation officers stopped by to warn us about the current fire ban. The area has only been a provincial park since 2007. Apparently somebody (with the last name Anderson) died and left the land to the province.

We think we'll stay here another day!

Another beautiful day. Clear blue skies and high of 28C (83F).That doesn't help the forest fire situation southeast of here, but it sure is nice for us travelers!

We had originally thought about making it to Smithers yesterday because it's not that far. But we're in no rush, and we got sidetracked to a beautiful campsite!

Totem poles near Kitwanga, British Columbia

We had a nice drive yesterday from Stewart to Kitwanga, British Columbia. And the weather was perfect. We didn't leave Stewart until almost noon. I tried cleaning the idle air control valve on the throttle body to fix Sherman's high idle problem, but as I expected it didn't change anything.

It may need a new one, or it could be something else entirely. We'll get it checked when we get to Smithers.

Sherman is getting old

Just like the rest of us!

We woke up yesterday morning and drove the short distance back across the Canadian border from Hyder, Alaska to Stewart, British Columbia. It was just starting to spit with rain as we pulled up to the border station. The Canadian guard asked a couple of questions, and scanned our passports and we were back in Canada... almost as if we never left.

We heard a commotion with lots of splashing water!

It's an interesting situation here at the border of British Columbia and Alaska.

The town of Stewart, British Columbia (pop 500) is located right on the border with Alaska. And the town of Hyder, Alaska (pop 84) is located right at the same border. There is a Canadian border station here, but there is no U.S. border station. It's probably the only place in North America where you can legally cross in to the United States and not be interrogated by the border patrol people!

This has to be one of the best drives in Canada...

We've done a lot of driving the past four days! That's actually a good thing though, it gives us the opportunity to take a couple of rest days as we want to if we're at a place that we think warrants more time.

And we think we're at one of those places now. The scenery around Stewart, British Columbia at the border with Hyder, Alaska is amazing!

Forest Fire!

Yesterday, we planned on driving as far as the town of Dease Lake. But at our first stop of the day at Boya Lake Provincial Park, we spoke to the park operator and she said "oh, you won't want to stay in Dease Lake, it will be a zoo". Apparently there was a bad forest fire burning at the nearby community of Telegraph Creek, and that area is under a full evactuation order.

We had all day that we could drive, so we weren't that worried. We stayed at Boya Lake and had breakfast and went for a 3 km (1.9 mile) hike to get the blood flowing.

Goodbye Yukon!

Wow... that was a great trip to Canada's north, wasn't it?

It was on June 5th that we arrived in the Yukon, and we crossed the border heading south into British Columbia yesterday, on August 5th. So while we figured we would be approximately two months in the north, we didn't plan it to be exactly two months!

Fantastic views above Carcross, Yukon

We wanted to get our hike in early, and we had overnighted at the trailhead, so we were on the trail at 8:15am.

We've been using a great website called Yukon Hiking and they listed this trail as "moderate". Well, maybe it's moderate to a 25 year old, but for us we would have rated it "difficult". We sure wouldn't want to do a hike any more difficult than this one!

Good thing we didn't meet any oncoming traffic!

We went into downtown Whitehorse on Friday morning, filled up the fuel tank, and emptied the holding tanks. Also did some stocking up at both the grocery store and the liquor store, There aren't many services along the Cassiar Highway so we wanted to be prepared.

Then, we headed back down the highway that takes you to Skagway, Alaska. Only as far as Carcross though! I had read about a fantastic hike in the area, and we wanted to have a better look at the town as well.