Canada? Well, why not?

Sunday, September 2, 2018

You can bet that I’m extra careful and aware, and even a bit nervous, when I’m doing things with the trailer that I haven’t done before.  And yet pretty much everything I do with the trailer is new.  Almost everything I do is something I haven’t done before and almost everywhere I go is a location I haven’t been to before, at least not with a trailer in tow.

So for me, it’s mostly a matter of taking small steps and doing only one or two new things at a time in any one trip.  So that’s what I have told myself I would be doing … just one or two new things at a time.

Ha!  Guess what. 🙂  I just blew that promise to myself right out of the water.  Here are the things I said I would NOT do that I’m now going to do.

1.  Take the trailer across the border into Canada without more experience just towing it here in the USA.
2.  Spend time camping with people I don’t know very well, and do that a long way from home.
3.  Go someplace far away that I know nothing about and don’t have any prior first-hand experience with.
4.  Go someplace cold.
5.  Go camping above 3,500 feet altitude without testing my reaction to that altitude on some day trips here at home first, where I stay above that altitude for several hours while watching my physical reaction to the altitude.

But all of those things are exactly what I’ve done on this next camping trip.  Watch me go!  🙂  Canada, here I come!

First let’s have a little geography lesson.  Don’t worry, there will be no test.  In fact, I had to look into this stuff myself before I took off on this trip because I wasn’t real sure about the geography.  I learned a lot from my research.

Here’s a map (above) of most of Canada.  It’s huge!  You Canadians will already be familiar with this map, but I’d bet most other folks are not.  Canada is much larger than the USA.  Canada comprises 10 million square kilometers, whereas the USA comprises 9.8 million square kilometers, but that includes Alaska and Hawaii.  Without Alaska and Hawaii, the USA is a mere 8 million square kilometers … and that’s only the land.  That doesn’t include lakes and rivers, of which Canada has more than the USA does, and it doesn’t include the saltwater within the borders of Canada of which Canada has massive amounts.  Canada is the second largest country in the world, after Russia.  China is third.

A wikipedia article about the history of Canada is HERE and the website of Canada’s government is HERE.  Canada achieved full sovereignty from the United Kingdom and became a separate country in 1982, relatively recently.

The USA has 50 states, one of which is the State of Washington in the Pacific Northwest where I live.  Canada has 10 Provinces and three Territories, one of which is the Province of British Columbia (BC) on the west coast of Canada and directly north of the State of Washington (see map below).  [You can ignore Alberta in the photo below, that’s another Province for a future visit.]

Growing up, I always thought BC and Washington were about the same size.  Holy cow they are not!  As I was driving up to Logan Lake (the RED triangle in the photo above), I kept thinking I was getting really really REALLY far up into BC … not so much, eh?

From north to south, Washington is about 237 miles … BC is about 820 miles!

If you measure from the northwest corner of Washington to the southeast corner of Washington, you get about 410 miles.  If you measure from the northwest corner of BC to the southeast corner of BC, you get about 1,270 miles!  In fact, if you were to take a string that was 1,270 miles long and put one end on Seattle, the other end would be in the State of Minnesota, or half way across the entire USA.  That’s how large British Columbia is.  And that’s just one Canadian Province.

A nice website with a bit of information about British Columbia is HERE.  If you do no other research, please do watch this video:

Ok, I think that’s about it for now for research and good background information.  Let’s get on the road and go camping!

The drive up into British Columbia to Logan Lake took me over the Coquihalla Summit (or “up the Coquihalla” as they say there).  It was stunning.  What a gorgeous drive.  Oh my, that country is beautiful and the mountains are amazing.

Even though the speed limit over the Coquihalla is 75 mph (120 kph), that mountain highway is so steep in places that semi trucks gear down to 25-30 mph (40-48 kph) whether they are going up or down … it’s just too steep to go any faster, even down hill, maybe especially down hill.  I was so amazed by the scenery (and a bit frightened by the drop offs) that I geared down as well with the trailer in tow and simply puttered along in the right hand lane with those semi trucks.

Sometimes, because I’ve been a world traveler, I think most things won’t impress me much.  Holy smokes am I wrong.  This planet (and the people in it) are so incredibly awesome!

After the Coquihalla Pass, I stopped in the small town of Merritt for gas and then had a beautiful, comfortable drive on up to Logan Lake, another hour or so up the road.

When I pulled into the Logan Lake Municipal Campground after that long drive, there were my friends (Mark & Robin) in their also-almost-brand-new Escape trailer already set up.  I pulled into my campsite right next to their campsite, and we celebrated. 🙂  How good to see them … and how good to stop driving!

Our two brand new Escape trailers.

So there I was!  With super friends, in excellent weather, after an amazing drive.  And yes, I had broken all of my not-to-do rules that are listed above …

1 .   I had gone through Canadian Customs with not much camping/towing experience.  I have a NEXUS card and there was no one in that lane when I arrived at the border (the other lanes had 20-30 minute wait-times).  The Canadian border officer was more interested in Logan Lake and fly-fishing (that’s my friend Mark’s hobby) than in anything else about me.  In fact he didn’t even much look at his computer or look in my truck, he leaned out the window of the booth and chatted about fishing and camping.  Total time to clear Canadian Customs was less than 3 minutes and most of that time was spent talking about Logan Lake.

2.  I had just met Mark & Robin at Rasar State Park on the Skagit River in Washington.  We seemed to be instant friends having visited with each other quite a bit over two full days at Rasar, but one never knows.  They already had this trip to Logan Lake planned and asked me to come along too.  Their invitation was the perfect incentive.  As it turns out, we have become even better friends after this Logan Lake trip and have more plans for future camping trips.  Besides, Mark brought back fresh fish for us for dinner one day from that day’s fly-fishing outing … yum!  And Robin knitted me a pair of wonderfully warm socks for those cold Canadian nights.  I did a couple of mechanical things on their trailer for them and got some great photos of Mark fly-fishing.  Excellent friends indeed.  How many extraordinary friends can one person have?!  Well, I guess I have two more. 🙂

3.  I had driven to Chilliwack, BC, just across the border, several times to look at the Escape Trailer demo units and to discuss options for my trailer, but had never been further north and had no idea what I was getting into.  I’d never heard of “Coquihalla” and had no idea what it was.  But golly gosh, I sure learned a lot by listening to Mark & Robin and to others and by simply going and trusting that everything would be ok.

4.  Even though we had warm, summer sunshine during the day, it was cold at night.  I left a small vase out on the picnic table the first evening with some wildflowers and water in it.  In the morning, it was frozen solid.  But our trailers were plugged into electricity and so we had safe heat all night and were toasty warm (especially with those lovely wool socks).  But even Little Towhee insisted on being wrapped in a warm kitchen towel that next morning when we first went outside, and I don’t blame her.

5.  Logan Lake campground is at 3,900 feet altitude.  I spent several days camping on the side of Mount Rainier a few weeks ago at about 3,400 feet.  But in the past I’ve had trouble with any altitude above 2,500 feet.  No problem this trip!  I was fine all week at 3,900 feet with exploration trips in the truck to elevations higher than that.

We had a view of Logan Lake from our campsites.  The lake was only a one-minute walk from our campsites.  Robin and I hiked completely around the lake and made many discoveries (one in particular still amazes me and I will show it to you).  We also walked into town one day (about a ten-minute walk) for groceries and a visit to the library.  Every day I drove somewhere to explore the area and got lost only once … and eventually figured out where I was.  We met all sorts of interesting neighbors in the campground.  The three of us ate together every evening and just continued to sit outside after dinner sharing a warm fire and lots of stories about our lives.  We had some deep, serious discussions … and we laughed a lot!

It was a terrific week.  In the next few blog posts, I’ll share a few more photos and stories from this terrific trip to Canada.  Please come along.