Quesnel, British Columbia, CanadaQuesnel
One thing I may should mention: as we
approached Quesnel – you could see the smoking stacks of the Mills – we are
really in forestry country here.
Lake view at 10-Mile Lake
This provincial park has two campsites
one for the drive through to Alaska big rigs and one lake front, we got a super
nice sight with view on the Lake – and finally we can rest for two days and
feel like camping: coffee – let’s not forget hot showers!!!! A walk along the
lake and after supper more enjoying the sunshine and outside. Ok there are a
few mosquitos around here – that means we need to keep the door closed.
And Mandy is now already a pro: from
front to back and back to front easily, checking out and coming down once we
are camping…
We look forward to a nice hot sunny
day tomorrow.
Red Sky at night
We were heading inside even it was not
that cold and still daylight – but there are mosquitos (which are not Gine’s
best friends). But once in a while Gine had to go outside and check out the lake
– as the sky was beautiful with the red colors – that means we will have a nice
day correct???
Sunshine means: nice Canadian
breakfast
We woke up and sunshine on the
campsite – coffee in the sun in the T-shirt, now that feels like perfect camping,
that clearly rewards a nice Canadian Breakfast (ok we did slim it down a bit as
we had Spam instead of bacon). But it was a perfect start to the day.
Mandy is exploring
As we clean up and get ready Mandy got
curious and walked outside and around the campsite, never to far away, always
checking where the truck was and if she walked to far in a direction and we
walked there she right away came back…. Guess she surprises us on how well she
is adapting.
We are in Quesnel:
- During the Cariboo Gold Rush around 1862 it was an important gateway to Bakerville and the goldfields: the steamships ferried passengers from Soda Creek (near Williams Lake) to Quesnel and the final leg was by road
- Today it is a busy logging town: forestry became a big business during WII when birch wood was needed to build the mosquito bomber
- Simon Fraser explored the River and named one of the tributaries after his clerk Jules Quesnel (I bet the clerk never thought that one day a town will be named after him) – and yes even here gold was discovered in 1857 in the Fraser River
Quesnel has free dumping
Gine read yesterday that there is a
free dump station in Quesnel and there is, it is really beautiful set up with
picnic tables and greenspace – what a great town.
Over the old bridge
We did park then right here, to walk a
bit along the mighty Fraser River – wow that river flows fast!!! And when you
think how far it is still going from here until the ocean. We walked over the
old historic bridge which got built in 1929 (until then they had a ferry
crossing – I wonder how much pull that was on the cable or how they did it
before with the canoe).
Gine thought it was funny that horses
are not allowed to go faster than pedestrian – it was fun walking over the
longest wooden truss walking bridge of the world with 831 ft, when you look
down you can see even more how fast the River is. From here you can see the new
Moffat Bridge which opened in 1971 – I can’t even imagine driving over it.
Here we also saw some old engine parts
from an old Stemwheeler as well as a water wheel: which was used to mine gold
as they were diverting the water and then the buckets could bring the ore to
the surface: yes we are here on the Gold rush trail.
Across from the road from here is an
old wooden house which housed the Hudson Bay company
Shopping for a kettle
As we discovered that the pot is not
very easy for pouring we decided to get a water kettle otherwise it will be
difficult to always get fresh coffee. And so we went from Walmart to Canadian
Tire and back to Walmart…. On the parking lot we met a couple who are pulling
their trailer and with a Sunwest RV spare tire we talked to them they will be
on the road for 4 weeks and are going up to the Artic ocean – lots of driving
in such a short time frame
The Visitor info & the gold pan
And our last stop for today was the
visitor info: to get some info about tomorrow and wifi to check our emails and
What’s apps, send some quick messages. Oh and let’s not forget we also could
see from here across the road the largest Gold pan!!!! (I think the Canadians
really have a tendency to make everything the largest).
Sunshine at the lake
Time to head back and to the sunshine,
parking and we set up near the lake for relaxing and soaking up some sun. After
all the stress and the last days of lots of driving and getting used to the
road we needed a bit a break. We even found a water tap close by to cool
ourselves off – perfect!!!!
A busy evening for Mandy & Paul
As a few raindrops came we were
heading back to the campsite: and see there the sun came out again, so we got
busy. Paul was under the truck trying to fix the backup camera which we really
missed – job well done!!! Mandy came out to do a lot of exploring around the
campsite which then kept Gine busy because she had to walk behind Mandy to make
sure we don’t loose her and also jump in and out of the truck as Pauls put the
truck in reverse….
Good thing we could have a nice long
hot shower before we relax for the evening.
2025-05-22