Vancouver, BC

Heading through Lilloet to Whistler and eventually Vancouver, the landscape changes drastically – it's surprising that we made it through some of those steep grades in our slow moving bus – however, it was very worth the scenic peaks. When we later mentioned to some friends that we had taken Hwy 99 to Vancouver via Lilloet, they were shocked that we would attempt such a steep drive during the winter months, let alone in a school bus.

Thinking we might stop in Whistler to check out Canada's Olympic territory once we arrived and realized how over-run it was with tourists, we decided to move on towards Vancouver. Reaching North Vancouver by sundown we decided to stay on the north shore so that we could visit Lynn Canyon the following day. This was a definite must where I was able to challenge my fear of heights and cross a suspension bridge 150ft off the ground, not an easy feat at this popular destination.

Crossing the Lyon Gate's Bridge through Stanley Park into downtown, we took a quick jaunt through Vancouver's seedier parts of town in search of Chinatown. We spent another night in Vancouver's downtown in a place that was a little suspicious.  Needless to say it wasn't long before the police appeared - and after agreeing to let us stay for one night, they left, but not before having a lesson on how our bus is fueled!

After leaving Vancouver, we headed south towards the Tsawassen fairy terminal to Delta, BC. We ended up spendng the night on a beautiful scenic day beach where we watched the sun set while blue herons flew across the water. During our evening stroll, Scott came across a message in a bottle set afloat the previous summer by a young boy from Vancouver's mainland.  We have yet to respond!    

Before crossing on the ferry to Vancouver Island we visited a Bird Sanctuary - where we were hoping that we would see more than just ducks.  Not really avid birders - we really didn't come across anything too spectacular.  Some of the other visitors commented that they had seen a family of owls - for us, all we saw were ducks... lots and lots of ducks.  

Spending time in larger cities can be somewhat stressful when driving a bus – navigatng through crowded streets and trying to find spaces to park for the night as well to explore can be exhausting. Thus our time in larger cities tends to be limited, before we move on in search of smaller towns that are generally easier to navigate.

there's more to Lytton, BC

Lytton, BC was much more than we had bargained for... thinking that it would be a quick overnight pit-stop, both Scott and I fell in love with this little BC town... Our “rough guide” that gives us a little background for each of the towns that we are passing through described, Lytton as an abandoned town of the gold rush era where the two major rivers, the Thompson and Fraser converge – – this town has so much more to offer...

Similar to Osooyos, Lytton is quite dry and doesn't receive a lot of precipitation – forest fires consume the area in the warmer months as you can see the blackened bark and the heavy bed of pine needles on the forest floor. A small town, comparable in size to Scott's home town of Clinton, 90% of the people living in Lytton are First Nations.  It is said that the best months to visit BC's Hot Spot are during the summer months, when there is much to do and see in and around the area.  Apparently these are optimal conditions for mushrooms to grow - we are plan on returning here to meet up with our friend George to learn about mushroom picking mid-late spring.

                  

Scott and I were fortunate enough to meet John Aleck Sr., native to the area, John is emerging as a strong, visionary leader for his community. A survivor of the residential school system, who, more recently overcame his addiction to alcohol, is determined to create a future of promise for his grandchildren. Proud of his community, John is genuinely interested in sharing the cultural history of this area with people who come to visit. 

 As visitors we were given a cultural tour where we were able to visit a “pit house” which was the traditional style of housing for the First Nations people of this area. Although, the pit house is only currently used for workshops, our new friend envisions opportunities whereby the pit house could become more of a central focus for this small, yet special community.  Quite simplistic in structure, this style of house is quite spacious inside - where sleeping spaces lined the outer edges,  the centre was reserved for the central fire.  Somewhat similar in design to a tipi, the smoke would escape through the opening in the roof above the fire pit.

Another interesting attraction of the Lytton area, is the Stein Valley – is one of the few areas left that is managed by the Lytton Band. Regarded as a sacred and spiritual place, a number of ancient hieroglyphs are prominent in this valley. Although we didn't make the trek across the river, we were able to attend cultural fair where we were able to meet and speak with an anthropologist – who has done much research around the hieroglyphics in and around the Stein Valley. We also learned that each mountain has a name, one of the majestic beauties that lies just beyond Lytton, is appropriately called Sleeping Beauty as she appears as a young woman from one direction and when you enter the town from the other direction she appears as a mature woman. As the clouds were passing over the mountain tops, John would say that Sleeping Beauty was dreaming.

The small, yet rich culture of Lytton had such an impressionable impact on us, that we are planning on returning late spring early summer. Thanks again John Aleck Sr for making our time in your community, special and gently reminding us that its the people that you meet that really make a place exceptional. We look forward to returning and hopefully seeing the transpiration of your eco-tourism and cutlural inititatives that you have been envisioning! 

PS.  We very much enjoyed the dried fish! 

Lytton, BC

The drive along highway #5 is spectacular – curvy and twisty, it was well worth the detour. Driving on mountain roads as the sun sets, is somewhat stressful – it is not too long until we pull over in the closest small town that we come across. Lytton was where we landed. Now, had we listened to the “rough guide” that we are carrying with us, Lytton would not be destination that we would have sought out... however, you just have to stop when you have to refuel.

In a search for veggie fuel we found out 

that the Lytton Hotel is quite the establishment, owner Danny was more than willing to give us more than enough used cooking oil that we could use to fuel our bus. Spending the afternoon out back of the hotel, we were befriended by gregarious George, one of the hotel's exceptionally friendly bartender, who later invited us in for a coffee after we 

finished filtering, how could we say no... 

It's hard to hide in a small town when you are driving a big, turquoise school bus however, sometimes this can turn out to be a good thing. Spotted by a local artisan, Kenny Glasgow – we were invited to Kenny's house to check out his art. A metal worker and poet, Kenny's property is a playground of over-sized metal pieces of art. Each piece of art is coupled with a poem – it's quite brilliant and something to check out if you in the area.  


In fact, we enjoyed his company so much that we spent the night on his property which included an evening sauna and dunk in his “dipping tank”.   This old-style dipping tank was a refreshing dip after spending some time in his "sweaty" sauna, not to mention being on the road for a weeks with showers far and few between.   Kenny and Scott definitely share a creative side that is inventive - especially when it comes to creating space within space.  For instance when Kenny ran out of space on his book shelves he built more retractable bookshelves on a hinge - see the picture above.  Kenny did something similar with his "photo-board" where he has photos upon photos of all the people that have come by his outdoor gallery to view his over-sized art.


These are just a few of the colourful installations that demonstrate Kenny's eccentricity, which was warmly welcomed and appreciated by Scott and I alike. 

  

Hope, BC

After a brief stay in Princeton, (which has a glorious dump by the way – it's really crazy what people actually throw away and I should also note that it is a great place to collect scrap wood to burn for free. We continued on to Hope, BC.  Although Hope, was not a place that we had planned on stopping however, it seemed a good plan after a long day of driving. We approached a local pastor of a church and asked if he minded if wAfter a brief stay in Princeton, (which has a glorious dump by the way – it's really crazy what people actually throw away and I should also note that it is a great place to collect scrap wood to burn for free. We continued on to Hope, BC.  Although Hope was not a place that we had planned on stopping however, it seemed a good plan after a long day of driving. We approached a local pastor of a church and asked if he minded if we spent a couple of days in his parking lot. This proved to be a good spot, although there is not much happening in the small town of Hope, especially on a rainy Monday. The downtown was a little bleak – however we did manage to scope out a very cool non-profit book store Pages, that has been established as an effort to raise awareness for mental health. Tucked away on a side-street, we came across Pages during a night stroll –the store's manager Naydeen was more than welcoming, preparing us some herbal tea and offering us chocolate in celebration of Valentine's day. If you are ever in Hope, this funky little bookshop is definitely worths supporting.

One of the distinct differences between this town and the last (Osooyos) was the amount of moss covering everything, from dry to wet within a day's drive.  After day or so of exploring, we chose to take advantage of the drizzly wet weather and did some laundry and repairs to the bus (things seem to come apart after driving along bumpy roads). Our second day in Hope, we decided that it was worth the climb of the Coquihala Canyon to see the Othello tunnels – that were originally a part of the CPR and chiseled by hand some hundred years ago by Chinese immigrants. During our day hike we met our friends Dave and Shelley, along with Simba their dog – we had a nice chat and learned that the first Rambo movie was also filmed at this site. Although the tunnels were supposedly closed to the public, we chose to go anyhow – it was definitely worth the squeeze through the gated fence.  Apparently a scene from the Rambo movie First Blood was filmed here as well...

One of the distinct differences between this town and the last (Osooyos) was the amount of moss covering everything, from dry to wet within a day's drive.  After a day or so of exploring, we chose to take advantage of the drizzly wet weather and did some laundry and repairs to the bus (things seem to come apart after driving along bumpy roads). Our second day in Hope, we decided that it was worth the climb of the Coquihala Canyon to see the Othello tunnels – that were originally a part of the CPR and chiseled by hand some hundred years ago by Chinese immigrants. During our day hike we met our friends Dave and Shelley, along with Simba their dog – we had a nice chat and learned that the first Rambo movie was also filmed at this site. Although the tunnels were supposedly closed to the public, we chose to go anyhow – it was definitely worth the squeeze through the gated fence.

After Hope, we intended on continuing west toward the island, however a chance encounter with a woman led us north on highway #5 through Yale, Hell's Gate and eventually Lytton. After a brief stop in Yale to explore the Spirit Cave trail, a trail that was recommended in our guide, but clearly not maintained had us climbing up the side of a mountain for a spectacular view of the Fraser River. A slippery climb, nearing sunset, turned us around to continue heading north but not before checking out Yale's cemetary. Reputably, Yale was at one time, the largest city north of San Francisco and west of Chicago, hard to believe since now there are likely fewer than 100 permanent residents living in this small town. What caught our attention was not only the early dates of the tombstones, but the tombstones created out of wood.

Osooyos, BC

'Osooyos' meaning the narrowing of two lakes is known as Canada's desert and home of summer fruit-picking, vineyards lined the hillsides – separated by 'craggy' trees and lowland grasses.lsides. 

We spent two nights here, one near the beachfront, behind a hotel closed for the winter months. This was where we filtered our first batch of veggie fuel and where we also experienced a “veggie explosion” - not paying attention to what we were doing – we over-filled the veggie tank in the back of the bus!  What a mess!  While there, we also had the opportunity to view the documentary “DIRT” with commentary by a local farmer for FREE. 

People were quick to come out of the wood-work here in a small town, we made connections with the locals quite quickly, which is great for finding out where you should be and where you shouldn't. The second night we were asked to leave our 'claimed' parking space – our first official by-law warning that if we didn't move our bus we would owe a fine of $100. We moved to the Husky for the evening and showered at a friend's motel room nearby.

Figuring we had spent enough time exploring Osooyos, we decided to try out our veggie oil system, while we continued to head west through Princeton, BC. Just outside of Osooyos, Scott does a victory dance in celebration of the “veggie system” working! All of our hard work filtering oil the day before paid off - thankfully!