Travel Guides | Stoness Travel Blog

Historic Hat Creek Ranch

Way back in the mid 1800’s travellers seeking gold flocked into the Cariboo and Chilcotin Plateaus of British Columbia. The building of the Cariboo Wagon Road provided an easier way of getting to the gold fields than crawling over the individual animal trails over the canyons and hills.
The road ran from Lillooet (Mile 0) to Barkerville. Local homes, ranches, and road houses provided lodging and refreshment for the tired potential miners. Today we still see towns named after the stopping points, such as 50-mile house, 100 mile-house, and several others. The Hat Creek Ranch Roadhouse was one of the popular places to stop and rest.

Today, a visit to the Historic Hat Creek Ranch will take you back into a different era. As you join your guide, who is dressed in the clothing of the day, you will be taken through the old Roadhouse, dating back to 1860. The rooms look as if they’d be very inviting to a weary traveller. You can visualize them sitting around the tables in the barroom, warmed by the old box stove, quietly sipping a libation, or more likely having a noisy reunion.

The beds look more comfortable than sleeping on the ground and there was wall paper to brighten up the room, and to cover the cracks to keep out the drafts. The wall paper is still there, although much the worse for the wear of the intervening years.

Stagecoach takes you on a portion of the Cariboo Road.

Outside, you can hitch a ride on a stagecoach, and actually ride down a portion of the old Cariboo Waggon Road. You might stroll through the apple orchard and over to the display of antique machinery.

Enjoy and old rocking chair on the veranda.

The present day ranch caters to groups who want to come and celebrate some event, such as a wedding. Their 75 seat restaurant is ready for present day travellers, and if visitors want to stay over, there are cabins, a Tee Pee, and several campsites available.
For a pleasant, and unusual trip into the past, you won’t find any place that is better.

Banff National Park

Canada’s Banff National Park is known the world over for its mountain scenery. If you visit the park you will see people from many different countries who are busy enjoying the wonders of the park.

RVers come from all across North America to enjoy the camping and to enjoy the pleasure of driving through the park. This is a place where high grey mountains puncture the deep blue sky with majestic ease. On their sides, glaciers cling to sidewalls, or fill beautiful cirques. Hidden alpine meadows call to hikers to come and explore their quiet domains cloaked with rafts of colourful flowers, the silence broken by the sudden whistle of the marmot,

or the sharp crack of shifting ice in a nearby glacier. Walk around a shoulder of rock and suddenly revealed below might be the immeasurable beauty of a tiny emerald lake, one of the jewels of the mountains of Banff.

The park is huge, at 6,600 square kilometres (2564 sq. miles). Setting aside the land for protection began in 1883 when workers building the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) discovered a cave with hot running water. The Banff Upper Hot Springs are now are great place to soak in the natural hot water spring, with the facilities for your comfort just at hand.

There are campgrounds for everyone. A favourite place to stop is at one of the Tunnel Mountain campsites, just a short distance from the Banff Townsite. If you stop at the Lake Louise campsites you are close to the entrance to Lake Moraine and the Valley of the Ten Peaks which is perhaps the greatest view in the Rockies, and is easily reached.

Lake Moraine, and Lake Louise have become a magnet for every tourist that come to the park and this horde of people is spoiling the beauty of what they had come to see. When I first visited lake Moraine, it was at the end of a long dirt road with a little camping area. Now the road is paved, and there is a huge parking lot, and no camping. Now your experience is fighting for a parking spot, and working through jostling crowds. Try to avoid the summer months, if you want to experience what stirred those who realized what a gem there was here.

For years visitors had the opportunity to see a herd of buffalo just outside of town, but they were removed. The good news is the buffalo herd may return to the park although they will be placed in a remote back-country, and not up close for viewing as they were formerly. However, they may expand their range if left alone.

Come to the park and enjoy the great scenery. If you can arrange it, avoid the summer months.

Happy RVing!

For more than four decades James Stoness has travelled the roads of North America, photographing and writing about what he has seen. His travel articles and beautiful pictures have been published in several magazines and newspapers. He is also the author of five western novels. Visit his website at: www.stonesstravelguides.com

Gold in the Yukon

Gold in the Yukon! Those words echoed around the world and like a magnet they attracted people by the thousands. Of the approximately 100,000 who set off for the Yukon, only a puny 25,000 made it. Some of the dreamers were miners, others were people in other walks of life who suddenly saw a pot of riches at the end of a rainbow.

Many of the potential miners, called Stampeders, took a ship up the west coast to Skagway, Alaska, and then hiked up the 50 kilometre Chilcoot Trail. This was not a route for the faint hearted. It consisted of a perilous climb over Chilcoot Pass to Bennett Lake.

The Canadian government required miners to have about 1 tonne of supplies before they could enter Canada. Since the climb was too steep for horses, they had to pack the material to the top on their backs. Some 3000 horses and other pack animals died, leaving their bones to litter the canyon floor below. Stampeders left items they didn’t need along the trail realizing that they had purchased more than they could carry.

Frequently this trip was done in the winter and once they reached Bennett Lake, they spent the winter cutting timber to build boats and rafts to complete the next 500 miles on the Yukon River and reach Dawson City. Many died when their makeshift rafts and boats disintegrated in the turbulent rapids.

Some people travelled on a trip that took over a year going across the rugged country north of Edmonton. Yet, no matter how they travelled, there was no easy access to the Yukon in 1897.

Life wasn’t easy when they finally reached Dawson City either. Gold was not sitting around just waiting to be picked up. The easy sites had already been staked when these late comers got there. If a person were lucky he might find a job shoveling gravel for someone else, or in constructing buildings for the miners. Jobs were scarce and when their supplies ran out these new arrivals became hungry and depressed, and they returned to where they had come from in droves.

When you visit Dawson City you can drive to the gold fields. In fact you don’t have to go far before you begin to see the damage to the streams caused by the mining dredges when they took over.

Happy RVing