No Cell service July 14th 19th.

 The drive trough Hwy 37  is spectacular, not much for wildlife this year but still awesome. Our first stop was Boya Lk.PP, found a nice site and set up. Later we took a walk down to the lake, they rent kyaks and canoes. They supply life jackets, a good thing. Three young guys took the canoe for a ride and about 300m out, they flipped it over. They were laughing about it at first, then the cold water hit home. Rather than just coming to shore and getting someone with a boat to get the canoe, they decided to swim to shore with it, could have been a big mistake. By the time they got to shore, they were pretty much done. One guy was in a lot of distress, tired and cold. I am sure there was no alcohol involved, lol, we were glad to see a positive outcome.

This welcomed us to Boya.

The mosquitoes were bad, so we used the thermocells to keep them at bay. That works in the evening but I don't use them when hooking up. By the time they are effective, around 20 minutes, I would be done. So, I am running around, trying to get ready to go and not get carried away. I wind up the stablizers with my drill, hook up and we are gone. We get to Dease Lk. and I can't find my drill, damn. I guess fighting with the bugs, I set it down someplace and left it there. The weird part is Pat and I do a walk around and neither of us spotted it. Someone will have a nice rechargable drill, they will have to buy a charger though.

We stopped at Dease Lk. and as I usualy do, I check the temperature of the hubs on the trailer. The left rear was hot, not smoking but hot. We were going to camp at The Lions park on the Tanzilla River just south of Dease Lk. I would check it again there. We get there and it is cold, what the heck, OK time to jack it up and see what is going on. Sure enough, it was loose and the bearing did not look in very good shape. When we were going through Dease Lk. we noticed signs for Charlie's Garage. We get to Charlie's, which is three km. from town and he asks how can he help, I said wheel bearing and he says that's all we have been doing, let's take a look. I bring him the hub and he discovers that the hub is enlarged were the outer race sits and is junk. I can't believe it but he has all the parts I need. Twenty minutes latter and $280.00 lighter we are heading back to the trailer. All put back together and ready to go. 

This campground is one of our favorites so we decided to stay for a day - only $10 a night. The first night a truck and camper pulled in but the next night we were all on our own. Other than the roar of the river, nice and quiet. I tried fishing but I think the water is still too high and fast. Maybe if I could have found a pool someplace I would have had better luck. Still fun to try though. I even went into town and bought some lures from the store, three for $28.00. It didn't take me long to loose one in the rocky bottom. A couple of pictures, still dosn't show how nice it is there. The weather wasn't especially good but it was very relaxing.

Meziadin Lk. PP was our next stop. We ended up in the same camp site as last year, still lots of bugs. We both got a couple of nasty Black Fly bites, setting up before the Thermocells start working. Next day we drove to Stewart, sixty km. from Meziadin Junction. Low clouds but no rain so we decided to go up the the Salmon Glacier. To get there you have to go through Hyder, Alaska, no customs to go in just back to Canada. Like a couple of dummies, we did not research this, so it came as a surprise that we had to take a gravel road 40 km. to the glacier. They are building a dam about halfway up the mountain, so till there the road is fairly good, after that there are spots were you could bury a VW in the pot holes. The road goes from sea level to just under 1000m. Unfortunately, the weather was not the best, fog so thick it was hard to see the road. And believe me, you want to see the road, it drops off the side of the mountain to almost sea level at the bottom. Just before we got to the top it cleared off enough for me to get a photo or two.

I am assuming there was more to see in the clouds, it is the fifth largest Glacier in Canada.

Looking back down the valley.

Here is some info I got off the net on the dam.

The Long Lake Hydroelectric Project is located at Long Lake, approximately 17 km north of Stewart, BC on the Alaska border at the site of the old Big Missouri hydroelectric project originally constructed in the 1930’s. The new facility included construction of a new 300 m long, 20 m high sheet pile core rock filled dam stemming the flow of Cascade Creek. The concrete intake structure housing a 3 m diameter gated outlet was used for creek diversion during the  construction phase. The 1.2 m diameter penstock is over 7 km long falling 780 m down the mountainous pioneering mining road, making it one of the highest head hydroelectric projects in North America. A state of the art powerhouse located on the banks of Cascade Creek contains two Andritz Hydro 16 MW horizontal shaft twin jet Pelton turbines. Power is transmitted at 138 kV along a new 12 km transmission line to a new BC Hydro sub-station near Stewart, BC . I thought it was interesting.

This time of year, there are lots and lots of waterfalls, took this on the way back from the Glacier.

Looking up the channel towards Stewart from Hyder, then down the Portland Canal.

Just out of Stewart on the way to the Glacier, we passed Youtuber, Dustin Porter of Destination Adventure fame. He was parked off to the side of the road. I thought, if he is still there when we get back I will honk, sure enough he was there, getting ready to pullout. We get back to Stewart and Pat wants to go to the museum. I go around the block and park in front. Pat was looking for a specific item, don't ask, and ran into Dustin. Pat asked the clerk for directions to the Mexican restaurant and he helped to explain were it was and said it was very good. He said he spent the winter in Mexico and Pat said, I know, we watched you, he said cool. And that was the end of that, unfortunately the restaurant was closed that day. We had lunch at the hotel, good hamburger. 

Headed back to Meziadin we stopped at the Bear Glacier.

From there we headed to Smithers, stopped to check the hubs various times and all was good. Smithers has a very nice municipal campground, we will stay here for a day, then move on.

Next stop I think, Fraser Lake.