Day Five Manning Park to Williams Lake and Prince George

Day five was to be a travel day for us as we woke up early and very frozen in our tent at Coldspring in Manning Park British Columbia. We made a good hot breakfast of hash-browns, eggs and bacon. Catherine really seems to be taking a liking to simple camp cooking at breakfast time. We will need to buy her some more cold-weather clothing to help with the coming fall and winter cold that Canada always offers.

We departed our campsite still a little cold and headed out via the Trans-Canada Highway – otherwise known as hwy #1. We stopped for a short time in the town of Merritt which is the site of the Merritt Mountain Music Festival, though sadly there might not be a 2010 version of the country music festival. We left Merritt and continued on our northerly route which took us through a whole lot pine forests suffering from an infestation by the mountain pine beetle. It was sad to see so much of the forest destroyed by this pest.

On this route we encountered many lakes, streams and rivers, so there is ample opportunity for the budding photographers amongst our fellow travelers to take some great shots of mother nature. We turned onto highway 97 and proceeded on till the growing town of Williams Lake. We stopped for dinner at the local Denny’s restaurant before once again piling back into our car for more road travel to the large northern town of Prince George.

We arrived in Prince George at 8pm and booked ourselves into the Best Western hotel. The staff was very friendly and made sure our needs were taken care of. The room was clean and fairly quiet – something we needed after driving for so long and so far.

We had an interesting incident at one of the small towns we traveled through when stopping to replenish our fuel supply. Tyler noticed a sign above the till that contained an obvious spelling mistake. Tyler pointed it out to the clerk who then exclaimed, “What are you some kind of educated person? That sign has been there five years and nobody has ever said a thing!” But we guess when you want your hunting license you don’t care how it is spelled!

Tyler says of day five – This travel day was a bit exhausting. We covered a lot of territory, but we saw many interesting things along the way. You sure are quickly reminded how big Canada really is on days like this.

Catherine says of day five – I was surprised to see so many dead trees when we traveled from Manning Park to Prince George. I wasn’t aware of this ecological problem until I saw it first hand. I hope they find a way of controlling the mountain pine beetle that affects both Canada and the United States.