Prince George, located at the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako rivers, is called BC’s Northern Capital. It is a beacon of civilization in a vast and empty land of black spruce and open blue sky set against snow-capped mountains. Prince George’s primary industry is lumber, followed closely by tourism.
Yesterday had me move from the Bee Lazy Park to my friend’s place of work (10km north of the RV park) where I parked Miranda for the day while I went exploring for a few hours.
There wasn’t much ‘touristy’ stuff that interested me. The town is renown for its railroad museum, but I was feeling very ‘meh’ about that, so the only museum I did yesterday was The Exploration Place. This small museum is a hodgepodge of mostly hands on exhibits. It didn’t take long to tour, but is still worth a visit. I paid for the ‘deluxe’ entrance that included a simulator ride. Having ridden one in Las Vegas that had me racing down the Strip in an Enterprise shuttle with Klingons firing full phasers at us and another that had me assimilated by the Borg (I’m Geek!Girl and proud of it! 😀 ), I didn’t have very high expectations for a small town, small museum sim ride, so I was very pleasantly surprised by the fun, ten minute ‘under water’ ride.
stained glass windows at The Exploration Place (blurry because of no flash)
I turned from the stained glass to find these guys! Yes, I jumped!
I then stopped to watch a movie that was straight out of my childhood. I’m fairly confident that it was my first viewing of it that gave me the bug for the north:
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Nechako River
I spent most of the afternoon at home (in a parking lot; love this life!) watching a movie before following him out to his spread, about 25km from town. It was a rather dizzying drive here (so much so that I asked for help back to civilization this morning!), but it was so worth it! I was especially grateful for the offer of cold beer once I was squared away. 🙂
Today, I decided that some hiking was in order, so I set off along the desolate Yellowhead highway, heading east back towards Edmonton, to visit the only inland rainforest in the world.
The views were, well:
Yellowhead Highway heading east towards McBride
Unfortunately, the trip was for naught; I should have brought my snowshoes!
The trip wasn’t a waste, though. The drive really gave me a taste of what I’m going to encounter soon enough; endless stretches of monotonous solitude broken by fantastic scenery.
One final thing to say: it’s only May and I’m only in Prince George, so I know that I need to make some serious window covering preparations for the 21 hours of daylight that the Yukon gets in June. It felt like high noon at 6PM tonight and things are only going to get worse! Or better, I suppose, if you can sleep when it’s bright daylight out… 🙂