Day 86 Telkwa, British Columbia

In Hyder, we were between salmon runs for bear watching.  There were still salmon in the river and we did see some black bears trying their luck but it was a pretty quiet evening based on the record for the previous week.  We broke camp on Friday morning and made our way to New Aiyansh (like ain't with an sh on the end.)  We drove down the Cassiar Highway until we reached FS 113 which went over to the town in 30 miles instead of following the Cassiar and then route 16 to Terrace and back up to New Aiyansh.  Not much traffic on the forest service road.  We saw one car behind us for about a mile and only had one truck pass us going the other way.  Pretty quiet trip that saved us about 200 miles.
When we got to New Aiyansh, we looked up the campground and found it in a wooded area in the middle of the lava field that had buried a native village of about 2000 people in the early 1700's.  It is amazing to me that it still looks the way it does today, some 300 years later. The area covered by this lava has to be at least 7miles wide by 7-12 miles long.  There is some growth of a few trees and plants in some areas, but for the most part, still barren except for some moss.

Lava Field

Our campground was unattended and nobody to collect fees or even self registration envelopes.  We broke camp and headed out to a small village that had an excellent museum of the First Nation tribes and customs.  We spent nearly an hour looking through the museum and concluded that this was the best museum for First Nation people that we have visited.  The name of the village is Nisga'a.  Very worthwhile time spent.  From there, we drove down Rt 113 to Terrace and went west on 16 to Prince Rupert.  Only about 150 miles for the day.  We camped in a municipal campground for two nights there. It began raining Friday night and continued until about mid-day Saturday.  We had some things to do, laundry, email, etc., so we were busy for the morning.  Internet was pretty slow and spotty so couldn't do a lot on the internet.  The afternoon was spent walking around downtown Prince Rupert.  There are several very interesting buildings and sites that were within a 5 square block area so an easy walk.  The most interesting building we visited was an Anglican church built in 1910-1912.

Anglican Church

 We got to talk to a lady that was delivering some food for a dinner on Sunday so were able to find out a lot more about the building and how the church is doing.  Unfortunately, she told us that they only have around 15 people for worship on a Sunday.  The architecture of the building was impressive and, according to someone that had just visited there, it was modeled after the Canterbury Church in England.

Prince Rupert Anglican Church Interior

Another interesting area was the sunken garden.  

An unique addition to a garden

We left Prince Rupert this morning and stopped at Port Edward about 10 miles out of town.  There is a fish cannery museum there.  At one time there were more than 800 canneries along the west coast from California to Alaska.  Most are out of business now.  This cannery operated from the late 1800's til 1968.  We found it most informative to see the progression from almost all hand labor to pretty well mechanized by the time it closed in 1968,  The local historical society is in the process of restoring as much as possible of the old buildings and putting in place the equipment that was left behind as well as displaying as many photos as possible. They depend on grants for funding.

Cannery buldings

We drove all day today in the rain to Telkwa.  People here are welcoming the rain as it is the first they have had of significance all summer.  

Tomorrow we will travel to Fort St. James.  Weather is supposed to improve.  We will visit a restored Hudson Bay Trading Post there.

Oh, by the way, the trip on FS 113 from the Cassiar to New Aiyansh, 30 miles, only took 3 hours.  Average speed was greatly reduced by the potholes.  At least we saved miles.