September 2, 2021
Bull Canyon to Alexis Creek to Redston, to Tatla Lake to Kleena Klene, to Nimpo Lake to Anahim Lake, before setting up camp at the Escott RV resort just outside of Anahim Lake.
This was a driving/enjoying the scenery day. Our three-vehicle RV parade left our campsite after a leisurely breakfast and cruised through open cattle country enjoying the vistas while watching (and avoiding) cattle grazing on or near the highway. We had the road nearly to ourselves. We were completely off the grid without satellite radio, cell service, or commercial radio.
The enjoyment was equal parts seeing green rolling rangelands complete with old homestead buildings, and the jagged peaks of the Coast & Chilcotin Mountain ranges in the distance to the west and southwest. In addition, there was the simple joy and wonder for both of us as we entered an area we had never been before and knew little about.
The communities we passed through were very small and for the most part, populated by local indigenous people. (We will add a separate entry dedicated to the indigenous story central to the history of this area).
The ranches and homesteads we passed have their histories tied to the pack-train trail/wagon road that was established from the Bella Coola Valley through Tsilhqot'in indigenous territory, to the developing gold centers to the eastern Cariboo area. Shortly after, settlers began to establish farms and ranches west of the Fraser River.
My personal connection to the area started as a young man reading books about Ralph and Ethel Edwards of Lonesome Lake (located southeast of Bella Coola, nestled in the Atnarko River and Kliniklini Valleys, and flanked by B.C.’s highest peak, on Mt Waddington).
The Edwards left the Lower mainland in 1912 to homestead at Lonesome Lake long before the area became part of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. Ralph Edwards left civilization and vanished into a remote section of British Columbia. He had to make his own tools and learn the hard way, by trial and error to survive in the hostile environment with deep snow, bitter cold, and wild animals. Along with the stories of existing alone in the wilderness, the Edwards story was central to the saving of the trumpeter Swans from extinction in B.C. back in the 1920, 30’s and 40s.
Most British Columbians have not traveled the Chilcotin. Unlike the Cariboo, the Chilcotin was never invaded by swarms of gold-crazed prospectors, so developed much differently. It’s a world of few roads, little industry, and pockets of people, the majority being First Nation. It had an impressive diversity of wildlife, including Canada’s largest population of bighorn sheep, rare white pelicans, trumpeter swans, bears, lynx, wolves, mountain caribou, and hundreds of wild horses. Unfortunately, the wildfires of 2017, 2019, and 2021 have devastated much of the land and locals told us most of the wildlife has been driven further north to escape the destruction. They also said there were some signs that the wildlife will/has returned.
