Blue skies and sunshine yesterday afternoon and a clear night made for a frosty start at 28 degrees (below freezing). Even the Canadian geese were kicking off at the cold around the lakeside. We were concerned we might be kept awake by the intermittent rumble of freight trains passing through Burns Lake but they either stopped overnight or we were too zonked to notice.  

Whilst ideally we like to get a few miles in before breakfast, we generally don’t make it too far before discussion in the cab turns to food. Today, we made it all of 25 miles before our breakfast stop. Breakfast and yoga that is.

One of the unfortunate side effects of traveling out of season is the dreaded closed sign. Especially where toilets are concerned. If you gotta go, you gotta go. And we all know the campervan rules on number twos.

Driving along minding our own business, on the lookout for wildlife as always. Spotted something on the grass verge at the side of the road charging in our direction, accompanied by a guy on a quad bike. A cow. Just the one. So the quad bike guy was taking his pet cow for a walk I guess. Or maybe teaching the cow to run, they probably have cow races round here. You may scoff but they have chicken races. Not even kidding. Not just chicken races but World Class chicken races at a British Columbia town called Fort St James. Shame it was out of our way to visit, we were sorely tempted.

Speaking of signs, one of the more random ones was a sign to be on the lookout for 3 missing girls. Their faces were plastered across the billboard together with the words of warning: “Girls – don’t hike on the Highway of Tears.” Good advice it would seem. We kept our eyes peeled but didn’t spot any missing girls or hitchhikers.

Jasper National Park to Burns Lake, BC (375 miles)With a snowy start to the morning in Jasper we thought we should get going to make sure we got over the Yellowhead Pass out of Jasper. Once we got over and into Mt Robson Provincial park we had some great scenery on Highway 16 westbound AKA the Yellowhead Highway. We lingered a bit for a short hike but wanted to get some miles in so we pushed on westbound to Burns Lake. The town had a nice little free campsite down at the lake which we made use of.

Burns Lake, BC to Hyder, Alaska (300 miles)

From Burns Lake we carried on westbound until we hit Highway 37 AKA the Cassiar Highway. We decided on the Cassiar Highway rather than the Alaska Highway all the way. We will still be joining the Alaska Highway but not till we get further north into the Yukon. The Cassiar Highway is described as the wild route and stuffed with bears – Heather didn’t take much persuading. I did warn her that at this time of the year the bears might still be asleep!

Whilst our final destination is of course Alaska we did dip a toe into Alaska today. A detour from the Cassiar Highway took us to an Alaskan ghost town called Hyder. Originally a mining town of 10,000 people it is now population 100 (+2 for tonight) and famous for its picturesque glaciers. The pub is closed until tomorrow so we headed up out of ‘town’ to a glacier viewpoint to camp for the night (or as close as we could get as they got bored with the snow plough!).

Hyder, AK to French Creek Wilderness Campground Cassiar Highway, BC (370 miles)

Today was the real backcountry drive. No lane markings or hard shoulder, paved all the way but that’s about as fancy as it gets. If you have hundreds of miles to do with nothing but a few petrol stations then you might as well do it surrounded by amazing scenery. The Cassiar Highway didn’t disappoint as a northbound route and we spent the full day driving until the sun started to get low (and I started to get thirsty), and we pulled in at one of the many wilderness campgrounds – basically just a spur road to an overnight camping spot on the river. French Creek flows into the Dease River which was frozen over, a beautiful spot to spend the night. We watched the sun dip down with some beers until the cold sent us back to the heated up campervan.

I remember when we did Jasper National Park a few years ago in the summer, it was one of those picture postcard, must see must do National Parks in a jaw-dropping scenery kind of way. But seeing it in Spring is even more impressive. In particular as we were so lucky with the weather. I had thought much of this trip, including mountain views, might be obscured by clouds and/or rain. At least for the first few days (and we’ll see for the rest), I was wrong diddly wrong wrong.

Not only that but apparently Canada is celebrating a 150 year anniversary of National Parks. Which means that ALL Canada National Parks are free for the whole year. That’s right people, 2017 is the year to check out Canada.   

We did feel a bit ripped off though. Lake Louise is one of the most famous landmarks in the Park, its reflective turquoise waters making it one of the most photographed lakes in the world. Our previous summer experience involved elbowing our way through the masses of tourists to see the view and get the picture.  

Should be a bit quieter at this time of year, we reasoned. Indeed it was (although it’s never gonna be quite the type of place you get to yourselves). No argy bargy this time…. but hang on a minute, where’s the lake? And how are there still people in the way of my photo. Oh right. That frozen white thing that people are walking on… That’s Lake Louise. No sparkling jade waters at this time of year. White and frozen. Diddled.

Arriving at the campsite near Jasper, Darren’s face lit up when he spotted that each site had its own fire ring. Not only that but a huge pile of firewood, with an offer to help yourself to as much as you can handle. Awesomeness. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, we loaded up. And took a bit more for extra measure. Might have been a good time to remember there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Persistent. I’ll give him that. Managed to light the damn thing with no firelighters. But with damp wood and a teeny weeny fire ring, it was always gonna be more smoke than fire. As we glanced around at other fire rings in the vacant sites, the forlorn leftover piles of wood were a tell tale sign. Other campers must have had similar experiences, hoarding their free wood booty and then abandoning it for the cosy inside of their campervans.

Well who’d have thought it. We just happened to be passing through Calgary on the same day as they’re having a 10K running event. Maybe there’s more goes into planning these trips than I thought!
The night before the run involved a brewery visit to The ToolShed – great beer and a friendly barman. Luckily the thought of braving the elements the next day kept us in check.  

I’m sure you probably know I’m a bit of a fair weather runner. Having only started running after we moved to southern California, my trails of choice are run under clear blue skies and dry, desert-like conditions. So Canada in April was going to be right up my street.

Whilst the local events we’re used to generally start around 7am before things heat up too much, up here in the frozen north we were treated to a leisurely 10am start. We realized why when we opened the camper door first thing to be greeted by drizzle and freezing fog. We could barely even see the Walmart sign across the car park!  

Anyone would think they’ve held events like this before and know that’s about how long it takes for the fog to lift and rain to stop. And they were right. By the time of the race start at 10am, the fog had dissipated, the drizzle dried up and it was merely overcast. We also had a secret weapon up our sleeves – if you get parked up at the start/finish line in your campervan, you can have your porridge and coffee beforehand and stay toasty warm right up until ‘warming up’ for the race just before the start.

Even so, 40 degrees (or for the Brits, you can count on one hand the degrees above freezing), it was way chillier than we’re used to running in – layers required. A friendly and fun local event though, and Darren managed to pull a third place in his age group out of the bag. A great time but not great timing here, as he won a free brewery tour and tasting – for a brewery in Calgary.  

Could there ever be a more perfect prize for my beer-loving husband? However, the campervan was calling us and it was time to say goodbye to Calgary and get some more miles under our belt. Destination: Banff & Jasper National Parks.

Picked up from Missoula airport and we were off. The intention being to just get a few miles behind us and feel like we’d made some progress. Made it to the small town of Polson, Montana (well it seemed small at the time, we’ve been through a few smaller ones since) and set in for the night at Walmart, albeit a Walmart with a nice view.
Time to get acquainted with our pocket sized home from home. When you’re living in a space smaller than our walk in closet, what you have to be is organized. At least that’s what Darren told me on Day One. Which was just one of The Rules. Other Rules followed:

 – No solids in the toilet or you have to clean it out yourself

 – No passing a brewery within spitting distance without going in

 – No whinging about the cold

 – Darren can make up Any New Rules as he goes along at any time with no advance notice required.

The full day’s drive from Polson to Calgary was my first opportunity to get into the campervan routine. First of all, what do we even call this thing? A campervan? Mini RV? Truck camper? Adventuremobile? Let’s stick with campervan for now. The daily routine basically involves driving, stopping for coffee/treats/lunch/toilet, more driving, gawping at scenery, looking for wildlife, and the occasional hike/stroll/run.

First stop was of the coffee/treats variety. Huckleberry Patch in the town of Hungry Horse: purveyors of all things huckleberry. Huckleberry jam, huckleberry jelly, huckleberry syrup, you get the picture. Spoilt for choice, we loaded up with some huckleberry pie and preserves. For anyone not well acquainted with the huckleberry, it tastes kind of like a cross between blackberry and raspberry, without the seeds. Nom nom.

As we ascended the mountain passes skirting Glacier National Park in Montana, we came upon a herd of wild horses eyeing us warily, skittishly. Somewhat reminiscent of ponies trotting around the New Forest and yet their community is so remote, the terrain wild and frozen. These horses are hardcore. As for the coyotes – they breed them a bit bigger up here compared to ours. Or fluffier. I guess they just look bigger because of their woolly coats compared to their SoCal cousins.  

The official at the Canadian border seemed overly interested in where we were going and what we were doing. Bordering on nosy I thought. It’s a pretty quiet border crossing, as border crossings go, so I guess he’s got to earn his money somehow. Even asked if we had any alcohol (like of course we’ve got alcohol, we’re in a campervan on a road trip, what do you think!), to which Darren shiftily replied “Yeah, just a couple of beers”. Luckily the border guard left it at that.  

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to a Walmart in the six years since we’ve lived in the US. Yet when you’re in a campervan, a Walmart car park becomes a thing of respite. A safe haven where you can park your camper when all else fails. Obviously it also helps if it’s close to a brewery.  

So the first two nights were spent amidst the glamour that is the Walmart car park. What IS handy about staying at Walmart is picking up a few random items that you forgot to pack/didn’t realize you needed/broke already. Top of that list was a hot water bottle to replace the one I brought to the US with me from the UK and have used intermittently over the last few years, only for it to choose the Alaska road trip as the time to start leaking and end its life. That’s timing for you! After randomly trawling the bedroom aisles in the home-store, I resorted to asking a girl in a Walmart uniform who I thought it was reasonable to assume worked there – only to be greeted with a blank stare. Little did she know that with my body heat at stake, I don’t give up that easily. My search continued.  Imagine my joy when I was thrown a hot water bottle lifeline in the pharmacy aisles. Don’t think we’ll be needing the enema tubes it came with though.

You’d think a Walmart superstore would be easy to find – but I have to disagree there. Distinctive blue sign, large letters, huge building, check. But seeing it and getting to it are two different things. Maybe three different things if you count the TomTom satnav calmly telling you to “Turn around when possible”, competing with Googlemaps on my phone which thought it knew better, not to mention me tossing in the odd helpful comment like “You should have turned off back there”. At least I’ll have plenty of time to work on my navigational skills on this trip.