Our first stop en route to our destination was Hell’s Gate in the Fraser Canyon. In 1808 Simon Fraser, the explorer who discovered the Fraser River, described this narrow passage as ‘an awesome gorge – the mouth of hell’ and indeed that’s what it looks like. The rock walls of the Fraser River on either side plunging down towards each other forcing the waters through a passage way only 110 feet wide. Apparently, at certain times of the year, a greater volume of water goes through the narrow gorge that is Hell’s Gate, than goes over the Niagara Falls! After looking down at the seething, boiling water, I can believe that fact to be so. Leaving Hell’s gate we continued to travel north and finally reached Williams Lake at about 7:30 p.m. and decided to find a bed there for the night. The distances and scenery of this province are mind boggling. We had already travelled 338 miles from Vancouver to Williams Lake through lush valleys, wild mountainous scenery and through rocky, barren and desert-like vistas. It just seemed to go on and on. As the crow flies, Chilko is only 150 miles from our home, but we had travel all this way just to get to the Chilko Lake area!
From Williams Lake, the road was good, much better than I expected - a hardtop highway with gravel shoulders. With a short coffee break and lunch thrown in, it took about three hours to reach the final turn off for Chilko River Lodge. It was then I discovered to my horror that we were going to travel the remaining 50 kilometers on an gravel road. Thank goodness for the jeep. The journey was devoid of any signs of habitation or people which created for us the sense of being the only people on the planet! When we did eventually arrive at Chilko River Lodge, a warm greeting by the owners of the lodge immediately nullified our sense of desolation
As it was early June and a tad on the cool side, our hosts soon had the Yukon stove in our cabin rocking on its feet, and a barbecue on the go outside for our meal of steak which we proposed to cook. When we read the lodge brochure and noted that there was a barbecue outside each cabin, my mind ran to a sort of modified Canadian Tire barbecue, metal black with drop down working space on either side. Not a bit of it, this barbecue was much simpler!
A ring of stones marked the spot out of which arose a teepee-like creation of metal rods, held in place by a triangular metal bracket at the top. Attached to this bracket was what looked like a painted, old fashioned lavatory chain (it was, of course, your everyday chain you buy at the hardware store). The other end of this chain was secured to a metal ring surrounding one of the metal rods, thus allowing for height adjustment of the grill suspended by three wires above the stone ring. Never having seen one of these barbecues before, I was somewhat dubious as to its capabilities. I needn’t have worried; the steak was ‘par excellence’ and tasted absolutely delicious.
After dark, we retired to a cabin bathed in gaslight and we could almost believe we were back in Victorian times. There were books, cards and crosswords provided to amuse us if we so wished and it was a blessing to be without deadlines to meet and especially no telephone! We settled down to read in front of the Yukon stove with two gaslights providing illumination. Here, it was bliss.
To be continued………….
