HaveKidsWillTravel

Next morning we were still shrouded in thick mist, and were poking about outside when a couple of women appeared out of the fog – out for their morning hike with two big dogs and a large handgun in a shoulder holster – “for protection” (apparently the bears can be “bothersome” at times). But it turned out there was a good forestry campground about a mile back down the road, so we headed back down the mountain and scoped it out on our way back to town. Point Nemo it’s called, and in between the layers of rising fog, it looked spectacular – perched high on the mountain looking across the channel to snowcapped mountains on the far side, with a bald eagle nesting high in a tree right in front of us.

We headed back into town to find it deserted for memorial day public holiday – but were able to get a real American breakfast in a great little old-style diner – the ‘Diamond C’ – and take in the main tourist sites of town (petroglyph beach, chief Shakes island) before heading back up to our eyrie.

It’s a small campground on a precipitous mountainside in swampy muskeg – made habitable by dumping 15 feet of sawdust, compacting and levelling it across the site. Spongy but satisfying.

As we pulled up, an 8 year old girl leapt out of the bushes with a homemade bow and arrow around her shoulders and brandishing a wooden sword. 3 jaws dropped. It turns out we were sharing the campground with the Andersons – a local family with 7 kids, with the youngest 5 engaged in campground combat. Our 3 could not believe their luck, and with the sunshine, the eagles, the view across the channel and the kids now happily entertained, neither could we.

After whittling their own cedar bows and arrows, the children spent the rest of the afternoon and long into the evening locked in a historical recreation of the war of independence – the minutemen (under 10s) vs the redcoats (their two older brothers) – 5 whole hours without any tears, recriminations, or anyone losing an eye – culminating in them building a slide down the side of our sawdust mountain and getting unbelievably filthy – covered in decomposing red cedar from head to toe…

But we’re booked on the early morning ferry to Petersburg tomorrow – just a shame to have to leave when the children are all fighting so nicely…

Today we had to hang around the big town of Prince George – time to pick up groceries, get an oil change for Winnie, and find a way of hooking up the iPod so we don’t have to listen to any more Country & Western on the radio. Guy at the Dodge dealership tried to charge $250 for an oil change, which I politely declined and booked into Canadian Tire instead. Guy at Canadian Tire goes ‘uh, actually, I don’t think we have any oil in stock for this vehicle – I’ll try the Dodge Dealership’ – sure enough, they have just the thing – 10 litres of it – at $27/litre… (fortunately, we managed in the end to find a reasonable substitute)

Rather than drag the kids around the shops and auto mechanics, we took it in turns with them running around the park. The sun was shining, the trees are in bloom, and in a true taste of spring in central BC, even their water park was open. The kids just took off in a trail of discarded clothing towards it, frolicked and carried on with all the other kids playing into the fountains and eventually dragged me from my comfortable snooze in the sunshine on the bench into the midst of it all, where I proceeded to scream like a 6 year old girl – they must run glacial meltwater in the damn thing! Digby had by this time just about turned blue, so I wrapped my fleece around him to thaw out in the sunshine, but Gus and Evie seem impervious to the cold – which might just come in handywhere we’re headed…