Man, do we have a beautiful province! Since there is no traveling outside of BC this summer, I hit the road and drove up north this past week, staying in places like Smithers, Terrace, Kitimat and Prince Rupert. It's a long drive to get up there, but once you reach the mountains again in Smithers, the scenery gets rugged and amazing.
I did find
Smithers a very pleasant village with snowcapped Hudson Bay Mountain as the majestic backdrop. From there onwards the drive is spectacular and
Terrace is surrounded by mountains and the Skeena River. It isn't the most beautiful town but the area is beautiful.
Ended up staying at
Lakelse Lake Provincial Park for three nights and it was first class camping experience. It is incredible how quiet campgrounds up in the north are, compared to Metro Vancouver area, and finding a spot even on short notice is not a problem.
One of our day trips was a drive to
Kitimat which I really enjoyed. There is a lot going on in this small town and it is incredible to see brand new hotels and houses, that the construction boom is enabling. The Alcan smelter is massive and they are making good progress in building the LNG terminal. There were also places along the highway there were you couldn't quite see the pipeline under construction, but the truck traffic and signs made it clear that progress is being made.
Our drive to
Prince Rupert was spectacular and the road there is one of the most spectacular drives in BC. Very close to
Icefields Parkway in Alberta. The town itself is very picturesque around the passenger terminal but very quiet this year with no Alaska cruises. I hope all the local business can survive this rut.
One cannot really see it so well, but Prince Rupert has a massive sea terminal that will ultimately match the size of Port of Vancouver in terms of annual cargo capacity. It is somewhat unusual to find this huge terminal in middle of nowhere but it must be providing well for the town with well-paid jobs. It is also delightful that most of the cargo is transported on rails and there is no crazy truck traffic along Highway 16.
If there is one word of advise I would give to someone traveling in the area, that is to avoid driving
Nisga'a Highway beyond
Nisga's Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park. The road does connect the village of New Aiyansh with
Stewart-Cassiar Highway but it is 50 kilometres of narrow and pothole-filled gravel road with almost no traffic and plenty of bears. You don't want to lose a tire on that road and we had to drive super carefully to make it.
We chose not to visit Stewart at this point, as weather was turning for the worse and there is no visiting Hyder on the Alaskan side of the border due to the border closure. I am sure they look awesome and the views only get better the further north you go. Next time!
It was a pretty intense 3500-kilometer road trip but I have to give it to Ministry of Transportation for how amazing quality roads up north are. It cannot be cheap to maintain thousands of kilometers of road to those standards but paving was excellent and passing lanes are plenty.
Should anyone be thinking what to do this summer, I can at least warmly recommend this drive! Last summer we also did a round trip to Bella Coola, which is also an amazing drive combined with a ferry from Port Hardy. The same ferry can also take you directly to Prince Rupert which will easily save you 1000 kilometers of driving and is highly recommended for the views!
Any other road trips people are planning to do this summer?
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