FORT NELSON, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA

We only had 124 miles to drive on this day so travel was light.  I continued to take pictures of course but there weren’t any major milestones to stop for a time so we made it to camp around noon. 

But….the awesome thing that happened….Bill spotted a black bear on the side of the road.  He was able to pull over to the side (not something that is possible all the time as the roads are narrow and don’t always have room) and take a few pictures.  Our first bear on this trip!  He just stood there and let Bill do the picture shoot.  We were excited.   I was glad it was on Bill’s side as I’m not very good at zeroing in on things from the road. LOL

Our first Black Bear spotted!!

We arrived at camp, and hooked up and set up the rig.   A small group had decided to take an optional trip to the Northwest Territories, a roundtrip of 276 miles.  Another couple had invited us to ride along with them, so three vehicles set out after packing a quick lunch.  Most of the group had decided to pass this up and just chill at the camp.

Along the way we stopped at the Fort Nelson Bridge, spanning the Fort Nelson River, the longest Acrow bridge in the world.  This 1,410 foot one-way wooden bridge was really “nervousing” Jennifer.  It is 14 feet wide with a span of 230 feet form pier to pier.  The trucks that came upon it did not even slow down and you just prayed that no one was coming the other way.  We got out of the truck and walked up to the top and underneath.  As we watched the big semis going across I kid you not you could see the road moving up and down.  I do not know what holds it all together.  But we tried not to think of that as we had to cross it again on the way back. 

As we continued on to the Northwest Territories, the wagon master up ahead saw a black bear.  We all stopped but before Bill could get the camera on and ready it had run up into the trees.  He was a little larger than the one we had seen earlier.  Our second bear of the day!! WOW!

We finally made it to the Northwest Territory and we all got out to have our pictures taken with the signs! LOL.












The bugs, horse flies, mosquitoes and we are not sure what else were swarming so thick it was a challenge to stay out there long enough to take the pictures.  One of the guys caught one of them in a coffee cup and I took this picture – not sure what he is but he was big.  But we had entered into the Northwest Territory and that was pretty cool.

We all decided that since we had come that far we might as well go into Fort Laird and see what was there.  We went into the little store there (mainly to use the bathroom, LOL) but we all bought something.  Most of us went for ice cream.  For one Klondike bar and a small can of nuts (that was for Bill, I had the ice cream of course) it was $10.23!!  That may cure me of eating so much ice cream.  There was a little Native craft store.  They had a pair of beaver mittens…they were so soft it was almost as unbelievable as the price, $298.00.  Needless to say I did not leave the store with a pair of those!! LOL.  I actually didn’t buy anything --- everything was really out of sight but they were all hand-made by the natives of the area.  It was actually a very depressed and sad little town.  We went on another mile or so to see the Fort Liard River and took some shots.  It was beautiful.

We had an enjoyable visit and trip although it really ended up being a long one.  We left around 1PM and didn’t get back to the campsite until about 8PM.  

After getting back to camp Bill headed down to the office to check e-mail as we couldn’t connect at our site.  I stayed behind to grab a bite to eat and make a return  phone call to Brian. It was good to catch up with him.

We ended the day with a couple games of cribbage and an hour of “24” on DVD!!  It had started raining shortly after we got back and rained all through the night.  Guess they  needed the rain so that was good.  Made for a good night sleep.  The next morning we were headed 188 miles to Liard Hotsprings, BC, Canada, our next camping site for the night.