The Cariboo Way

Welcome Back!

We've made it to Prince George, BC, en route to Prince Rupert.  In an interesting fact, we have now driven essentially as far north as we will drive.  The ferry will take the us the remaining amount of the way up north, and we will then continue west to Anchorage!

We've had an exciting few days.  As of our last post, we moved on to the town of Whistler.  You may have heard of it.  It was the site of the 2010 winter Olympics:

Given that it is summer now, and given that the town struggled enough in February to ensure there was enough snow, skiing and snowboarding were not options.  So, we opted to go for a short hike around the area.  The town of Whistler has actually done an amazing job converting its winter cross-country skiing trails into biking and hiking trails for the summer tourists.  This led to some awesome hikes with beautiful views around the lakes.

Along the hiking path, Tammy learned a new interesting fact.  As a special treat for our lack of posting recently, today we'll have a few.  So, for interesting fact number one, Whistler has a special type of toad that is really small.  In fact, because it is so small, the resort is forced to close some trails for 4 weeks every summer to allow the frog to migrate without humans stomping on it.

We also decided while in Whistler to do a hike around our campground.  We stayed a few kilometers north of Whistler, by Nairn Falls.  This also led to some incredible hikes with amazing views of the area:

The hike also led to an amazing waterfall that was exceptionally powerful.

Yesterday we left Whistler, and drove to Barkerville.  Barkerville is an old gold mining town about 2 hours from Prince George.  Tammy's friend, Wayne, recommended we stop there on our way to Prince Rupert.  Tammy fact number 2 is that, at its peak, Barkerville was the largest town west of Chicago and north of San Fransisco!

For those from Michigan, Barkerville has become a tourist destination very reminiscent of Greenfield Village.  There are tons of people walking around in costume and acting out the 1880s time period, the buildings all have little displays inside set to look like the time of the town's golden age (no pun intended), and there is a theater that does a musical revue show.

In Barkerville, we also went on a stage coach ride.  We got to sit on top, above the driver!

In fact, by sitting above the rider (or close to next to her) we were sitting "shotgun."  This is Tammy fact number 3, which is that the term "sitting shotgun" originally referred to the person who sat next to the driver of the stagecoach.  This person carried the shotgun rifle, ready to attack anyone or anything that may try to prevent the party from moving forward.

Now we're relaxing in Prince George with the long trip to Prince Rupert ahead.  Then we'll be hopping on the Alaska Marine Highway on Tuesday, taking the 40-hour ferry ride to Juneau!  As of Wed evening, we'll finally be in Alaska!

Hooray!