Glacier National Park

Further east than Mount Revelstoke National Park was Glacier National Park established in 1886. Tall hemlock and cedars lined the path of Hemlock Grove Boardwalk, a setting made perfect because no one else was there on that early morning.

Mount Revelstoke National Park

My destination was Canyon Hot Springs, forty kilometres east of Revelstoke, but I wanted to visit Mount Revelstoke National Park first. Situated in the Selkirk Mountains, the park covered two hundred and sixty square kilometres and was established in 1914.

Painted Chasm Provincial Park

Clinton was almost four hundred kilometres north-east of Vancouver and four kilometres from the town was Painted Chasm Provincial Park. It had been designated as protected land in 1940. Like other neighbouring regions, lava flows had formed coloured layers millions of years ago. Then ten thousand years back a waterfall formed the chasm and the layers were exposed.

Barkerville—a historic gold rush town

The road east from Quesnel to Barkerville was deserted except for a few deer and grazing cattle. The town had been named after a miner who discovered the richest deposit of gold back in 1861, nevertheless, he died penniless. At the peak of Barkerville’s gold mining days the population swelled to 5 000—the majority of the people being Chinese. 

Pinnacle Provincial Park

Although Quesnel, situated at the junction of the Fraser and Quesnel Rivers had walkways along the rivers, I was keen to head six kilometres out of town to Pinnacles Provincial Park. Along the two-kilometre circuit were hoodoos which were not a patch on Drumheller’s, but still strange land formations.

Lillooet

Lillooet was two hundred and fifty kilometres north of Vancouver. I drove by the beautiful Lillooet River and Lillooet Lake but still had another hour’s drive on to Duffey Lake before I reached the actual town. The Coastal Mountains near Lillooet were parched that summer. The town sat on the western bank of the Fraser River where the area had originally been inhabited by the St’at’imc Lil’wat Nation. But an influx of miners hungry for gold in the mid 1800s brought changes to the region. Still today, the town can boast a population that is fifty percent St’at’imac—a rare statistic for the province.

Nairn Falls Provincial Park

This small provincial park stretched parallel to the Sea-to Sky Highway. Located just north of Whistler and one hundred and fifty kilometres north of Vancouver, the trail by the Green River was an easy three-kilometre hike. 

The Sunshine Coast

In a region that receives about one hundred centimetres (not millimetres) of rain annually, I cannot fathom how British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast got its name. However, during the summer I first visited, I was lucky to experience some of its namesake.

Joffre Lakes Provincial Park

Joffre Lakes Provincial Park was situated under two hundred kilometres north of Vancouver and east from Pemberton. It had only been designated a provincial park about twenty-five years ago, though much earlier the lakes had been named after a French general from World War 1.

Fairmont Hot Springs

Not far from British Columbia’s border with Alberta was Fairmont. I knew nothing about the small town before my visit. In fact, I hadn’t heard of it. Nearby, Radium Springs was well known to me for its hot springs, but Fairmont had remained elusive until this year.