From Jasper to Vancouver

It's been a while since I published the last post - technology didn't quite work the way I thought it would. Basically, we have two different ways to access internet while travelling: One is via WiFi, because many private RV parks provide internet access through their WiFi, but usually not inside national parks (obviously you are not meant to be on the computer while enjoying a national park). The other one is with our internet stick which provides internet access whenever we are inside Verizon cell phone coverage - which is not the case in Canada and also not in some remote areas in the US. I thought I could buy a stick and an internet contract with a phone company in Canada, but they require a Canadian address and, worse, a Canadian bank account and debit card. Also, blogging activities were further limited by insufficient connection quality - uploading pictures to the blog requires a pretty fast connection which is often not available. Now we are back in the US, having a decent internet and I plan to catch up with what happened in the last 2 or 3 weeks.

We left Jasper in northwestern direction toward the town of Prince George, the northernmost point on our trip. On our way, we crossed the continental divide one last time and passed Mount Robson, highest mountain of the Canadian Rockies.

Mount Robson

Barkerville Main Street

About one hour south of Prince George is Barkerville, a historic mining town that was founded in 1861, right after the Californian gold rush ebbed out. The first few pioneers were lucky enough to stumble over gold nuggets in the Baker creek and found up to $75,000 gold in a few days, which is at least 100 times more in nowadays value. Within just a few months, about 30,000 people rushed into the valley in pursuit of similar riches. It his hard to imagine what these people had to endure there, with no food, no supplies, no infrastructure, nothing. After a few weeks, all the gold that could be found in the creek beds was gone, and the rest had to be mined from under the surface, in the beginning from about 50 ft (15 m) deep, and then deeper and deeper. However, the area was so rich with gold, that mining continued until 1974 - of course at an industrial scale, which had nothing in common with the gold panning of the old days.



Aquaeduct, water wheel, pump and elevator for gold mining from 55 ft

Benjamin may have been 150 years too late, but he sure had more fun than most of the poor guys then!

 

From Barkerville, we continued southwest toward Vancouver, taking the Fraser Canyon route through the Cascades, the same way the gold rushers took 150 years ago.

 

Fraser Canyon at the town of Lillooet

In the Cascade Range, about 50 mi east of Whistler, known from the 2010 Olympic winter games

 

Vancouver was a welcome contrast to all the nature we we enjoying in the previous weeks. It is a vibrant and interesting city, influenced by many different cultures, and beautifully located between the mountains and the ocean. It is definitely worth a longer stay than our two days (in a lousy and very expensive RV park, by the way). Here are just a few impressions:

 

Gastown Village in Vancouver, a bit like New York City's Greenwich Village