Going to Town?...Buying Kindling?...Where You Guys From 'eh?

Let me explain the title of todays post because I think it succinctly summarizes the description of where we are, the attitude of the kind hearted local folks and the isolated location where they live. Seems like you are always 75 to 100 miles between settlements and there is not much between them - the occasional home, lots of farms and a whole bunch of trees, lakes and rivers...very beautiful, but not much happening.

When we checked into Beaumont Provincial Park on the shore of Lake Fraser we purchased some firewood from the park ranger Naomi. She had a short career as a concert celloist in some big City, can't remember - maybe the Toronto symphony?....hated the big City life and longed for her hometown out in the wilds of BC. Anyway, she chucks it, moves back to her hometown of Fraser Lake (where we are now) gets a day job with BC Parks and starts playing upright bass in a country band at night. Very nice and smart, so we chatted, hit it off and she returned in 20 minutes with 6 of the biggest logs I have ever seen. Jeez Naomi, we're here for 2 nites, not the whole summer. Seriously, these things could have burned all summer long.

The only problem was getting them to burn.

And one small, but major detail was missing, no kindling.

So we have this small axe that was not even denting the stuff. Out of desperation we resort to using a shovel blade as a wedge and pounded it with the axe hammer to try to get little pieces off of these humongous logs to start our fire.
We were making a huge commotion and associated noise with this operation, although Debbie was succeeding in getting enough kindling to make a fire.

Mid way thru our shovel/axe operation another local gal named Laura is camping a few sites away and must have felt sorry for us City slickers 'cause she comes over with a proper long handled axe for us to use. We were mostly done (and, quite honestly I did not want to embarass myself with my horrible woodsman skills in front of this true home girl wielding a proper axe) so we said thanks just the same.
What about kindling for tomorrow nite she asks. Well, Debbie responds, tomorrow we'll just go into town and buy some kindling.
This nice woman looked at us like we were from Mars....Go into Town?... as in, there is no town within a hundred miles of here. She then asks, Buy Kindling?..as if our sole misinformed purpose in visiting this mythical town is to buy kindling. Then, the inevitable question... 'Where are you guys from?'.
Debbie says, you see down in southern CA, where we come from, you get kindling with your firewood purchase to help get it started.
Ole Laura just shook her head, wished us good luck and returned to her camp with the big ass axe.
Turns out she was raised here on Lake Fraser and shared some nice tips and stories of the area with us...extremely pleasant person, like everyone up here.

As a side note, we have met a ton of cool people on this trip with very interesting stories to tell and I would love to have photos of them for our remembrances as well as sharing with you guys. But I've always felt it very rude to take photos of people you barely know, kind of an invasion of privacy I feel - so you won't be seeing any photos of the people we meet along the road, but you will be hearing their stories.

That's good enough for us I think.

Went to Fort St. James and visited the recreated fur trapper outpost from the early 1800's. We're really not big fans of these recreated historical complexes but this one was excellent, probably the best we've visited.......



Got to look at and feel ALL of the various pelts and furs found in this region, very cool.

Spent some time talking to a direct decendent of Chief Kw'eh and was really moved. While growing up in Fraser Lake she was....ashamed is not the right word....maybe self conscious is better...of her heritage. She told us as a young girl she would stay out of the sun as she felt it made her skin darker to make her look even further different from her peers. It drove her to excel in school (high school valedictorian) so she could say, 'not only am I as good as you, I am better'. Good for you Nicole, happy you embraced your heritage and are proud of your roots.



Out in the parking lot I
went agressive friendly on a guy with a pick up truck that had an advert on it claiming his stellar experience in finding underground water aquifers using seismic techniques. Now, you know I wanted to talk with this cat.
I am very dubious of claims such as this so I wanted to hear the whole story straight from the dowsers mouth. I was on board with the ability for seismic profiling to capture a view of the vertical extent of the aquifer but what about the horizontal limits? He claimed that he could determine the yield of the aquifer using only seismic profiling and for that, I maintain, you need to know not only the depth but the surface area as well to come up with a volume. Here, we seperated views on our scientific discussion. Lets just say things got a little fuzzy on his side of the debate. He did say that he would love to spend his winters in San Diego so if we need help finding groundwater, he's ready to go. Google Seismic Waterfinder, Jeremiah Cram. Nice guy that turned me on to this alternative for mosquito abatement...take notes Kim and Sue. Think I'm going to buy one to field check it, report to follow.


The Thermocell in action...maybe just as dubious as his waterfinding abilities, we'll see.

Just in case you find yourself in Fraser Lake, BC and require the services for a tow...or a yank...here's the only number you need....



Got the DirectTV satellite feed for the Stanley Cup finals tonight. Had a bothersome kid come by the campsite asking....'hey mister, where you from?'..a popular question in these here parts it seems. I respond, hey kid, I've got Game 3 on and I'm pounding a few beers...why don't you go find a tree to climb and stop bothering me...yeh, cranky old guy strikes again.

I bailed on the 3rd period to go fishing. Told Debbie at the end of the second period that this one is going to OT, see you in OT after I've fished. Returned to watch the Sharks...come on Pens!...win it in OT.

Went out and nailed 4 trout in less than an hour - 3 of them on 4 casts...decent - all rainbows, nice sized fish. Casting into the setting sun on a beautiful lake with nearby loons calling and distant train whistles bellowing was absolute heaven. Ron, your light casting tackle was the bomb...slaughter on the water my friend, thanks!

Is this guy adorable or what?

All that is required for a successful day of trout fishing in Canada...a Canadian  fishing license, $80 for an annual pass for foreigner, thought that was fair since CA resident fishing license is nearing $60...some lures, click on photo and check out the center one, the Hockey Stick...that's the one I used to slay the 4 rainbows 'eh?...and of course a 12 pak of the Goose.

Speaking of setting sun, was up till round midnight last night coaxing the fire along and the sky at that hour appeared dusk like. Got up at 6 AM and it was dawn...not sure if it ever got dark. Welcome to the northern latitudes in summer.

Our very first moose siting at the Fort St. James Visitors Centre, Debbie is overcome with excitement!

Well we're off at first light to God knows where, maybe Seelye Lake or Meziadin Lake - well, some damn lake, somewhere, hey I'm just the driver...later good folks.