Day 58 - Saturday July 15/17

(Posted Friday July 21, after many days without cellular service!!)

This morning was dull and wet with a temperature of 12 C. Michael got soaked as he did the bulk of the outdoor preparation for departure. Nancy stayed drier doing the inside tasks, but still became uncomfortably damp during the joint aspects of the departure routine. We were on the road by 9:45 but stopped for a major grocery shop at the Prince Rupert Safeway. By the time we had finished shopping and picked up a free McDonalds coffee (using our completed McD's “frequent flier” cards) it was 11:30 before we left Prince Rupert.

As we drove eastward along Highway 16 – one of the few times on this trip that we will retrace our steps – we noticed large numbers of pickups and SUVs parked along the side of the highway next to the Skeena River. We would learn later that this was the first day that the salmon fishing season had been re-opened on the Skeena. It had been delayed by a month due to the expectations of a small spawning run this year.

Photos of the Skeena:

We had thought to make it a relatively short travel day by returning the ‘Ksan Campground where we had been last weekend, but we did something unusual – something we had never done so far on this trip. WE CHANGED OUR PLANS!. 

On the advice of folks we’d met on Haida Gwaii we decided to include in our itinerary a visit to the Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Park tomorrow. To facilitate this we plowed on to Meziadin Lake Provincial Park. We arrived about 6:30 and found no information about the park routines and no staff to ask. We drove around the campsites several times, noting that those sites with electricity were either filled or labelled ”Reserved”. We did find an unserviced site where it was easy to park the trailer so we took it. The rain had stopped but a large number of mosquitoes made our setup uncomfortable. We left the trailer hitched to the truck in the expectation of moving to an electrical site if one became available tomorrow.

In our shopping this morning we had bought a frozen pizza which we augmented with extra peppers, sliced tomatoes, fresh mushrooms and onion. We used our oven for the first time to bake the pizza. It was quite good and very easy. (Eaten with a green salad, it even felt a little healthy!!)

Nancy introduced Michael to the game of Bananagrams – a crossword puzzle sort of game – and we played for about an hour. Michael won 6 games to 4. A pleasant way to end a long day.