I’m writing this last post on our trip from home, being back now for just under a week. It was hard to try and post just in time while on our trip, but looking back I’m glad I went through this exercise.
We found a breader, Boston Boutique, through familly near Andrew Alberta. When we got their we were happy to see it was a real breading facillity. Lots of cute bostons. Happily, we highly recommend this breader. So with our new puppy we headed out north to start the trip back to Yellowknife. I have to say, Edmonton to Yellowknife is a horible drive. The scenery is dull, the roads are boring, and the towns are nothing special. When we got to the NWT/Alberta border, we were reminded on what we have to look forward to for the next month. Horrible bugs. We had a greasy meal in Fort Providence, and jetted home.
We set off fairly early for Edmonton with a little pitstop in Summerland. We had a quick lunch with family then headed over to a see a dog breeder. A few months before our trip we attempted to buy a boston terrier puppy from a breeder in Summerland. After paying out $1500 the deal went sour. We started seeing red flags when the excuses started pouring in for not being in touch with us. Once we had paid in full and closer to the date our puppy was supposed to be sent up, she stopped answering the phone. By then we knew we had been rooked. So we paid her a visit but she wasn’t home. Personally, we don’t recommend anyone deal with Legend Kennels in Summerland B.C. after what we went through.
After getting that out of the way, we headed to Kelowna and though to Golden where we grabbed a cheep hotel room for the night. In the morning we took off for Edmonton via Jasper doing it full tourist style stopping constantly for pictures and rests. We were amusing our self by blowing the air horn at the animals as we drove by all the tourists that were stopped looking at the wildlife.
We got into Edmonton late and spent the night at our friend Kristine’s house. She made us a nice breakfast and good coffee. We had a short visit before heading out into the farmlands to get our new boston terrier puppy from a different breeder.
We left sooke early in the morning hoping to get the landcruiser into the shop at a decent hour. Luckily ATEB in Burnaby were able to get started right away. We rented a car and burned around vancouver for the day,renting a car in Vancouver was so much cheaper than Whitehorse! Good thing too since we both knew that our big truck getting fixed was going to cost an arm and a leg. After our seafood dinner we met up with some friends for a few drinks in North Vancouver and stayed the night at Bianca’s friend Sarah’s house. Early the next day we picked up our landcruiser from the shop, had lunch at this crazy little sushi bar in Kitsilano with my friend Lindsey and took off for Lone Butte, BC.
We drove up from North Vancouver to Whistler, up through Lillooet and on to Lone Butte arriving late at my Grandpa’s house. The drive up there has changed so much since we were last there. Thanks to the new Sea to Sky highway it trip was hot with a beautiful ocean view. The visit with Grandpa was quick but well worth it. It was nice to slow down with Grandpa and took in all of the small town has to offer. We picked up fresh wild strawberries with Grandpa’s wild cats in the grass…wow were they ever well worth it! We relaxed ate good food and caught up with each other. Also, we got to see my Great Grandma who is ninety.
A few days later after dinner we booked it to Merritt where my parents live. I wasn’t able to see my dad though because he’s still in Watson Lake working. It was a great visit. The first night, we went out to Nicola Lake to visits some old family friends. The next night a bunch of family (including my Grandma who came up from Kelowna to visit us) and friends came over for dinner one night. My mom through us a engagement party with some friends and family. It was great to hang out with my brother Willy and Mom and Auntie and Uncle Bob. We had a great time just catching up with lots of laughs and some tears! It was a very peaceful visit as we were one with the sundeck!
Up at 5:00 AM, packed up and loaded on the ferry headed from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy by 7:00 AM. We made it. It rained all night, and we smelled horrible. Campfire and a couple days with no shower. The people in the lineup to check into our room were giving us a really dirty look (probably because we we’re stinky). So, a shower was wonderful. We had a quick nap, then headed outside to check check out the scenery. It’s truly incredible, and no, i didn’t take many pictures. I had other things on my mind.
I asked Bianca to come outside with me to do a time lapse. She must of thought I was crazy since it was misting, windy, and cold. While the camera was clicking away, I asked her to marry me. We’ve been together for seven years, I don’t know why it took me so long. Felt good. Oh yeah, thank you Kim for helping me pick out the perfect ring.
The rest of the ferry ride was great. We reserved seats at the front of the ship. Well worth the money. It was quiet, not too many people, and the seats reclined. So between going back and forth from the Aurora Lounge to our room, the 17 hour trip seemed to fly by. I couldn’t tell you what Port Hardy was like nice it was dark and we drove a bit down the road to Port McNeil for a room. It was cool to see the night sky in the summer.
The road into East Sooke is a narrow winding road with the lush forest and the smell of the sea. So a nice drive in. We pulled up to Bianca’s Parrents house just in time for dinner. Both Colton and Talia and Darrell were there with Dad and Jane.We said our hello’s to everyone and started right into dinner. King crab, halibut, seafood linguni and french bread… how amazing! It was a nice break to sit around, relax and catch up. We did the beach thing, a bit of shopping, and listened to Dark Side of the Moon on half mastered vinyl.
We packed up Thursday night, and headed to an early ferry ride back to the lower mainland on friday to get the Landcruiser to ATEB (Landcruiser mechanics).
We left Fort Nelson with the intentions to try and make it to Prince Rupert even though the Landcruiser was still not running properly. When we stopped for coffee at Toad River (about two hours into the drive) I knoticed that the injection pump was leaking fuel. I didn’t think we could make it all the way to Prince Rupert, so we decided to seek out a mechanic in Whitehorse.This is also where our truck was imported from, so we figured that they would have a mechanic in mind.
We arived in Watson Lake around midnight and setup our tent at a compground in town. The next morning, first thing, we meet up with my dad for breakfast. He’s working near Watson Lake for the summer, so it was cool that we got to see him. After breakfast we checked out the signposts in Watson Lake while seeking out a mechanic to look at our Landcruiser in Whitehorse. Through Outback Imports, we found Bob, a heavy duty disel mechanic that works for Glaicer Drilling. We rented a car and spent the night at the hot springs just outside of Whitehorse. Nothing as nice as the Liard River Hotsprings, but no bugs, and at least we could shower and relax in the pool/hotspring.
The next morning, we drove into town to check on the Landcruiser. Some kind of cold idle plunger that is attached to the side of the injection pump had sheerd off inside and a peice of metal was floating around inside. Apparently this whole mechanim isn’t needed since there is a manual idle control. So, we had a kit flown up to cover the piece with a metal plate.
In the mean time we spent the next two days checking out Whitehorse. It’s a great town. Streets are nice, lots of good restaurants, and of course, nice scenery. One place in particular that stands out was Klondike Rib and Salmon. It’s comparable to Bullocks in Yellowknife, except the fish & chips are better, the servers are way nicer and it was the half the price.
On Friday after breakfast, we headed down to see Bob. He had installed the kit, but there was still damage to the pump. Since it was running much better and not leaking fuel, we decided that we would get the pump taken out in Yellowknife to have it rebuild in Langley and push onto Prince Rupert. We got a ferry to catch!
We left Whitehorse around 3:30 and met up with my Dad again for dinner at Watson Lake around 8:00. We made it to Boya Lake Provincal Park that night, setup our tent and crashed. The next morning we woke up early and headed down to Dease Lake for fuel. Instead to going straight to Kinaskan, we decided to take a detour and check out a place called Telegraph Creek.
About a two hour drive in each way, it was well worth it. We’ve never seen such beautiful scenery and crazy roads. For a while the road follows the Taltan River. In some spots it seems like it’s straight down hundreds of feet. We had lunch at this small restaurant called River Song Cafe, in Telegraph Creek, then head back to Dease Lake again. We fueled up and drove to Kinaskan Lake Provincal Park, where we just stopped for dinner. Salmon and pasta. Delious! We thought we would be able to make it to medizian junkion park to camp for the night, but I was getting too tired to keep driving, so we slept in the Landcuiser at Bell II Lodge (in the parking lot).
The next morning at 5:00 AM, we brushed our teeth and drove to Stewart for a second small detour. Also very well worth it. The drive is amazing. Lush forests and tall mountains on either side of the highway. Along the way is the Bear Glaicer. Quite something to see in person. We fueled up in Stewart, had breakfast at a small diner in town before heading back to the Cassiar Highway. We kept on driving to Terrace for a quick fuel stop then to finally to Prince Rupert.
What a cool town. Very small and full of character. Our orignal plan was to spend two days here and explore, but because of our truck troubles, we had to cut that short. We headed to Prudhomme Lake Provincal Park to camp for the night. It’s a small campground, but very beautiful. We had dinner and re-organized our gear. We slept the night in and out of sleep afaid for sleeping in and missing our ferry departure.
This is the first of seven or so blog posts we’re (Bianca and I) going to do while on our summer holidays. For a about three months we’ve been planning out our road trip to southern British Columbia and back.
Our first leg of the trip didn’t go quite as planned. Orginaly we were to drive from Yellowknife to Blackstone Territorial Park and camp for the night, then make our way to the Liard River Hot Springs to camp the night.
Pulling into Fort Providence for gas, our truck died on us. I tried to trouble shoot it, but had no luck. It would run only if I kept the idle above 1400 RPM. I called our reguar mechanic in Yellowknife and explained the situation. In his newfy accent he said, “Ah man, you don’t wana be fucking stuck in Fort Providence with a broke down fucking Toyota Landcruser.” Turns out he was on holidays, and said to drive it to the next town. So we decided to try and get to Fort Nelson and seek out a mechanic there.
The drive there was great, the scenery is awesome – getting more lush the farther away from Yellowknife we drove. Lots of a pot holes and soft spots in the dirt road though. As we drove, I kept thinking that maybe it was the fuel filter clogged so I decided to pull into Blackstone and change the filter – which didn’t end up being the case.
When we pulled into the Blackstone park the camp ranger sad that he knew a few things about trucks and we thought “why not” so he tried to help us but nothing was working. So I decided to change the fuel filter, and the camper ranger offered to fill up our new filter with fuel thinking we might of got water in the line… he came back and I asked him” you didn’t fill that with gas did you?!? This is a disel truck”, he replied ” uhhh no but i will go fill it back up again with disel to make sure”. I was pretty sure he put gas in the filter, so I ran off to the garbage can where I had tossed our old one and grabbed it and decided to tell the guy ” I think that we will use this one since it works good”. I didn’t want to be mean since we did appreciate his help, it was just the wrong type of help.
We kept on to Fort Nelson where we stayed for a couple days at Les and Melissa with their two kids Chase and Ally’s house while we had a mechanic look at our truck. We didn’t have much luck here. It’s a small town and the mechanic didn’t seem to have knowledge with disel’s or Toyota Landcuisers for that matter. So note to everyone do not breakdown in Fort Nelson unless you have a dodge or a ford, most of the people in this town are Americans so it is what the mechanics specialize in (or so it seemed). We found that Fort Nelson was a lot like Yellowknife as there is not much to do in the town and prices are very similar except gas which is about $.10/litre more. Seems like Fort Nelson is just a gas stop for the Alaskan travelers with the motor homes.
A while back, my friend and co-worker at Up Here magazine asked me to assist him in shooting a wedding here in Yellowknife. Pat Kane has been in the North now a quite some time, traveling to just about every corner of Canada’s North (learn all about Pat here). He’s a photojournalist at heart, and a good one at that. I knew that if he agreed to shoot a wedding, the couple would be cool to work with. Deb and Bob were married June 26th and yes, they were a blast to spend the day with. Here’s a few of my shots from the day.
Last weekend I headed up to Blatchford Lake Lodge on assignment for Up Here Business magazine (I’ll post that soon). During dinner, I setup my camera for a time lapse. It’s a very beautiful place, but I’ve never seen such horible mosquitos. Still, I’m quite happy how this one turned out.
I ♥ my Mamiya. Every time I shoot with my Mamiya RB67 I love photography even more. It’s the thrill of shooting film and the anticipation of getting it back from the lab. I can’t really explain it – I have no formula or scientific data, but when I shoot flim, my work is better. Perhaps it’s just me, taking extra care in composition, or having more buy in from the subject. These shots were for a feature story in the July 2010 issue of Up Here Business. Shot with my Mamiya RB67, 50mm. Kodak Portra 400 and Kodak Ektar 100. Oh yeah. Note to self. Buy large greenhouse for photo studio. One day.
The Canadian Cancer Society Relay For Life is a 12-hour overnight event bringing the community together to celebrate cancer survivors, remember loved ones lost to cancer, and fight back in the hope of finding a cure. Before taking part in relay back in 2008, I didn’t realized how deep cancer impacts our communities. This gives me the drive to want to help out the best way I know.
2010 relay is the third year that I’ve volunteered to photograph the event and each year I learn a bit more about the relay and find it translates in my photographs. This year I put more energy into captuing peoples emotions and the overall vibe then in the past. It’s a long haul, from 7PM to 7AM, making it grueling, but also ideal. It leaves plenty of time to experiment plus you get two golden hours.
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