Boya Lake Provincial Park, British Columbia

Day 64 Wednesday August 17, 2016                     British Columbia, Boya Lake Provincial Park, site 16

81 miles towing              12.2 mpg

Had a nice morning fire before leaving Big Creek campground at 08:48 AM.  Stopped at a real sleazy dumpy gas station at Cassiar junction. All but one pump was out of service.  We’ve run into this before in real rural locations.  I’m not sure if it means the pump doesn’t work or they are out of gas.  These pumps are 1971 vintage.  But I needed gas and there is no gas station for miles (or kilometers).  You never let your tank get below ½ full because you don’t know if the next place will have gas or not.

Starting down the Cassiar Highway (BC-37), we started out in Yukon Territory and soon crossed into British Columbia.

Their slogan is "The Best Place on Earth" 

We went through huge tracts of burnt spruce forest. I was told by the guy at the gas station that there is a fire that’s been burning since July 27^th and they are just now dealing with it.  We went through a section of heavy smoke, but did not see the fire.  We occasionally saw mountains.  We finally came into green spruce forest.  Here’s some pictures of some of the burnt out forest we drove through for about an hour.

A little smoke up ahead.

Caribou next 25 km.  I don't think so.

By 11:00 we arrived at Boya Lake Provincial Park.  We got a nice pull through right on the lake.  A premier site.  Was $20 CAD for one night.  It helps to arrive early.  These sites are all first come, first serve.

The little path to the lake was where we launched the canoe from the campsite.

Here's the view from my chair.

Made hamburgers for lunch after we set up.  Then we unloaded the canoe off the truck and launched it at our campsite.  We paddled around for about two hours on this gorgeous, clear, turquoise, deep blue lake.  We took our pocket cameras with us in the canoe and both of our cameras had dead batteries.  This lake has lots of nooks and crannies and islands to explore.  It is quite a large lake.  The water is so clear you can easily see the bottom in 20 ft. of water.  This lake reminds me of Torch Lake in Antrim County, MI. The whole lake is surrounded by mountain wilderness.  There are no homes, roads, lodges, camps, or anything around it. 

We came back to campsite and left canoe on shore and grilled some chicken legs for supper.

After supper, we took another canoe ride for about an hour.  Brought cameras again but with charged batteries.  Took some nice pictures out on the water.

Our pull through was right next to the camp road so a lot of people walk by going for walks, in both directions.  We got a lot of questions and positive comments about our trailer.  Gave a couple of tours.  We always get lookers and questions, but this was almost continuous.  A couple walked by and we chatted about our Denali experiences.  The guy was originally from MI and his wife was from BC.  They both now live in Smithers.  The guy is now a Canadian citizen.  Another couple from Placerville, CA stopped and chatted and it turned out she’s a big time quilter.  They had toured Alaska like us (and most everyone we run into).  She took Marsha (another quilter) to her camper and showed Marsha a type of quilting called “row by row”.  You have to be a quilter to understand this. 

In the mean time I was a quilter widower, enjoying the fire alone.  I had just started the fire when the quilter walked by.  The sun was setting and I took advantage of the event to get some fantastic pictures.  These are some of the best photographs I have ever taken.

Then the full moon came up.

What a way to end the day.