September 6, 2021
After another leisurely breakfast and one more walk around our scenic Tatlayoko campground, we packed up and made the 35 km drive back to Highway 20. We did make one stop at a ranch house to buy some homemade beef jerky from a kindly pioneer resident. It proved to be some of the best jerkies any of us had experienced.
Once we reached the highway we continued to the east toward the Bull Canyon Provincial Park once again. The scenery consisted of kilometers of rolling hills of bunch grass and meadows populated by beef cattle. Cattle have roamed these hills since the start of ranching back in the 1850s.
We made a slight detour to explore Puntzi Lake just 8 km off the highway. From the 1950s until the mid-1960s the government maintained an airbase and weather station here originally built by the US Air force as a part of the North American defensive system during the cold war with the USSR. Puntzi is a high plateau lake and famous for its fishing of kokanee and rainbow trout. While the fish and cabins surrounding the lake are still intact, forest fires have decimated the nearby forests. We made a fairly quick turnaround, returned to the highway, and proceeded toward Riske Creek and our Bull Canyon camp.
After a night’s camping, with one eye open on the lookout due to a “bear in the area” warning, we all piled into Gordon’s truck for a day trip exploring the Nemaiah Valley and Chilko Lake.
We left the highway and turned south just before reaching Alexis Creek. After passing through some cattle ranches we climbed the benchlands and entered the lands of the Xeni Gwet'in band of the Tsilhqot'in people. There were signs that asked people not to enter due to COVID concerns but the control gate was unmanned and appeared to be open.
The Nemaiah Valley is known for being home to one of Canada’s few remaining wild horse populations. The DNA of these horses has been traced back to those used by the original Spanish explorers and traders, likely brought to the area across the historical indigenous trade routes between the Chilcotin and the coast. We kept our eyes peeled to the forests and horizons but didn’t see any of the estimated 800 horses still in the area.
We continued our 130 km gravel road discovery tour to Chilko Lake. The Chilko is a long aquamarine lake stretching 65 km south from the head of the Chilko River. The area encompasses Ts’ilÊ”os Provincial Park wilderness area.
Chilko was a “must-see” for me after watching the Discovery Channels, “Alone”. Season 8 took place on Chilko. The show centers around 10 individuals dropped at various isolated points around the lake and left there to survive with only a satellite phone to “tap out” when they could no longer survive in the wilderness. Each participant could select 10 items to aid them in surviving and a camera to record their own activities. The individual footage makes up the finished show. When I watched the Chilko season the landscape captured my imagination and I had to see it for myself. It didn’t disappoint.
We ended our day retracing our tracks and spent another night at Bull Canyon.
