Amelia had her usual early morning snuggles with me and then we all rolled out of our "beds" around 9:30am and had cereal for breakie. Daddy had already pumped up the boat last night, so we figured a paddle around Bonus Lake was in order before we left our little boondock. Ollie dragged his makeshift net through the water looking for fish and Amelia mostly snuggled her soo-see blanket and wiggled around.
When we pulled up the shore to deflate the dingy I spied a couple of hitch-hikers... two very strong leeches were suctioned to the bottom of the boat. Oliver was quite intrigued by them. We managed to get them off the boat and into a tub of water. Man, leeches are weird. Ugh. Both kids were fascinated by them and by the time daddy had packed up the dingy, we were still watching them. It was very challenging to get the leeches out of the container and into the lake again! Those suckers are tricky!
At 11:30am we were on the road again and headed for Kitwanga. About 45min into our trip we saw a mama bear with three tiny cubs about the cross the highway. She crossed over and two of the cubs scurried with her, but the third hesitated and kind of panicked a bit. Mama and the other two were already down the other bank when the last little one finally braved the crossing and scampered across the road to meet them. Very cute.
We pulled over in Kitwanga to check out the site where Gitwangak tribe had built cedar lodgings atop a steep hill some 200+ years ago and fiercely protected their fishing access and land from other tribes. It was a neat historical stop, and was interesting enough for the kids to enjoy the climb down and up again to the "battlement". Amelia Wren climbed every step herself "meemee do IT!!", save the last set of steps up back to the vehicle. Quite a work out.
We stopped at the 37 Grille - a kind of biker bar/restaurant - in Kitwanga. Ollie and Amelia liked the motorcycle and car paraphernalia. We had a yummy meal and left there just after 2pm to change course and join up with Highway 16, The Yellowhead (or Highway of Tears). It was a little un-settling driving along it at first, thinking of the girls that have disappeared along this stretch of highway. Very sad. The landscape changed rapidly. We were seeing farms, fields, many rolls of hay bundled up, which Amelia pointed out as "marshmallows!" (giggle giggle). Very different views than we have had over the past few weeks... much more signs of human population!
We reached Smithers at 3:30pm and parked the RV on the main street near Oscar's fishing store. Jonathan wanted to pick up some lures and ask about fishing in the local lakes. Oliver was set on buying himself a real dip net to catch minnows (or butterflies, or any bug) and they didn't have anything suitable there. He was also set on spending some of his money in general. It was my suggestion of a dip net that got him focused on something affordable. We had counted out his money ("I have hundreds of monies, Mama! The ones with boats on them are a dollar" - um, yeah, sorry kid) and he had $4.25. On of the sales people at Oscar's suggested that we might find one across the road at the Toy Store and so I headed over there with Ollie and Amelia while daddy got the digs on fishing lures and lakes. It was a gorgeous little toystore full of fabulous finds... and DIP NETS! They were $1.99 each and Ollie very sweetly wanted to buy one for his little sister, too. He also wanted to buy a little parachute man. He ended up buying his dip net and two parachuters - one for him and one for Meemer. I bought Amelia her dip net, and that way he could still afford his gifts, and have a little bit of change left over. The experience at the toy store was lovely and made up for the very ugly toy section experience we had at Dease Lake! (although Amelia did walk out of the store with a "wild nature call" machine that she was infatuated with and was not pleased when we had to remove it from her little fists and return it to the shop! She was MUCH more easily appeased though).
Daddy had come to meet us at the toy store when he was done at the fishing shop. He had news of a couple of lakes to try, and suggestions of lures to use. Apparently we were "guaranteed fish" at these lakes. Hmmmmm. We shall see.
I spied a very lovely kitchen store close by and remarked how nice it would be to just go into a shop like that, on my own, and have a gander... not having the kidlets with you shopping is sooooo much more relaxing! Jonathan had the genius idea to leave me on the main street and take the RV and the kids up the road to the grocery store and get the food items we needed while I wandered the shops at my leisure. It was heaven! I especially loved the clothing store, SALT. Gorgeous stuff and beautifully displayed. (no, I didn't buy anything). I had my fill of shop moseying and walked to the grocery store to meet up with Jonathan. The Extra Foods was closing and selling everything off... which meant great deals on some things and lots of things we did want were not available. We managed to scrounge enough off our list to manage.
It was when we drove a little ways farther down to get gas that was saw the big new Safeway! Doh! Got our milk (and two mocha frappachinos) while Jonathan filled the RV.
Not too far out of Smithers, we were looking for Summit Lake Road... Jonathan thought he saw it, but missed it and we ended up driving back to where he thought it was... and he was right. This was a road that would lead to Helen Lake where, apparently, the fishing was fabulous. Around 7:15pm we drove over the cattle guards through farm land (past cows) along a road that led to a lovely lake and recreation site (no camping). The main area had been cleared of trees and lots of very shallow stumps were left behind. We found a place to park the beast and the kids were instantly out of the RV and running to the water to try out their new dip nets! No little minnows here. Ollie found a fair sized dead trout in the water and pretended he caught it in his net and showed daddy. Jonathan was busy getting his fishing lures set up on his lines, and the kids played with rocks and sticks for awhile. They were busy making rock "birthday cakes"... they were pretty sweet with one they made for daddy... Ollie asked me to stand beside him and Amelia to block the view of the "cake" they made and called daddy over. When Jonathan walked over, Ollie shouted "happy birthday" and we all moved aside so he could see his surprise rock creation. Daddy gave the appropriate oohs and aws and the kids were very pleased. Cute. We just love seeing the two of them playing cooperatively, and especially with nothing but stuff they find around them on the ground. Pretty awesome games they come up with.
We pumped up the dingy and loaded up the fishing rods and headed out onto the water. It was getting a bit late and the evening was lovely. Ollie had two hits on his little "cars" fishing rod! very exciting!!! At one point I had both kids wiggling on my lap trying to get comfy ,and a fishing rod in each hand while Jonathan was steering us with the motor to a different part of the lake. I was still overseeing Jonathan's fly rod when we got a hit on the line. I expertly (ha ha) reeled it in and Jonathan madly tried to catch a very flighty and feisty little cut-throat trout in our net (Jonathan bought a real net at Oscars). Jonathan bonked it and hooked it to our fish chain so we could cook it up for dinner. Before we came back to shore we had seen a couple of loons and a beaver!
The kids were curious about the fish, and Amelia was even more curious about eating it. Man, she loves fish. Jonathan panfried it on our campstove griddle and we had a lovely little fish feast (again, Amelia ate most of it - you had to be quick to get a bite!).
We boondocked that night on site (cheekily)... just us. Jonathan went out to the lake's edge a little farther down and tried out some fishing from the shore after the kids were in bed. Had a very serene time listening to the loons calling. No fish to be hooked, but still a lovely, relaxing time by the water.
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