Author Archives: westcountrywandering

Tomorrow marks a whole year since we defied Covid and arrived in Canada after a six month delay. To celebrate, I’m returning to one of my early blogs to find out whether we have seen and done the nine things that I was excited about.

Here is he original post: 9 things I’m excited about seeing and doing in Canada and Prince George

1. Enjoy Prince George’s Outdoor Lifestyle

From the original blog: “This is definitely the number one draw to life in Prince George. The opportunities for outdoor adventures are endless. First on my list is to get a good hike in, but I’m also keen on some of the other summer sports (climbing, kayaking, camping, stand up paddle boarding to name a few) which the city, the surrounding lakes and nearby mountains have to offer“

One year on: There is no doubt that Prince George has fully lived up to its claim to be a great place for outdoorsy people to live. The restrictions on leaving the Northern Health region due to Covid did not bother us too much; because there are so many trails to explore in this area. Some of my favourite adventures near Prince George have included A teapot for a birthday: A spring hike in Bear Country and A hike in a land formed by ice, to a canyon conquered by paddle steamers.

This summer the many lakes near Prince George gave us the opportunity to go swimming, stand up paddle boarding, and kayaking. During the heat wave we met our friends at the Nechako River in the evenings to cool of by swimming in the river or being carried along by the current on a floatie!

2. Learn about First Nation Culture

From the original blog: “Prince George has a strong local band, the Lheidli T’enneh. I’m excited to learn more about the history and culture of the people who have called this area home since long, long before Europeans”

One year on: I have been immensely privileged to have had many opportunities to learn about First Nation culture in my role as a teacher. In fact, as the BC curriculum states that First Nation knowledge and perspectives must be weaved into all subjects, it has been part of my job to learn more and integrate this knowledge into the lessons I have planned.

I have shared some of the things I have learnt in these blogs: A guide to surviving as a British Secondary School Teacher in Canadian Elementary Schools, Part one: First Nation culture in the Canadian classroom and Part two: First Nation culture in the Canadian classroom.

In June I celebrated Indigenous People’s Day, one orange-clad person in a sea of orange, sat on our school field, watching a performance by a Male Traditional Dancer and some Jingle Dancers.

3. See some Canadian wildlife

From the original blog: “Prince George boasts a healthy population of Black bears as well as other large locals such as Moose. Journeying a little further afield, from the coast you can take a whale watching trip to see both Humpbacks and Orcas”

One year on: We had been here four months when I saw my first moose, or rather, as I described in this post, our car narrowly avoided hitting it! After much anticipation I saw my first Black Bear in May on the drive back from a camping trip. Since then I’ve lost count of the number of Black Bears we have seen including one particularly close encounter with a mother and her cub near our home and a nonchalant male strolling near the downtown.

The wildlife was particularly prolific when we through-hiked the Berg Lake Trail, the highlight of which was sharing a camping spot with two very noisy Porcupines; as well as sharing the trails with Mountain Goats, copious amounts of cheeky Chipmunks and a busy Pika.

We saw our first Grizzly Bears, a mother and a cub, a few weeks ago while picking wild blueberries about an hour outside Prince George. In Jasper National Park we’ve seen Marmots, Caribou, a herd of female Elks and two male Elks rutting in the road!

But perhaps my favourite was the Wolf we saw on the roadside, again about an hour from Prince George. He look exactly how you imagine, grey and black and sleek and wiley, but so much larger than you expect. Nothing could have prepared me for the size of him!

4. See Mr PG

From the original post: “The symbol of Prince George! An eight meter high roadside attraction and tribute to the local forestry industry, who has stood proudly in Prince George since 1960!“

One year on: I remember the first time I saw Mr PG, we were coming into Prince George on our way from the airport to our house. I got excited and the taxi driver got confused! I think he thought I was being ironic. Evidently a roadside attraction (made in-part from a septic tank!) doesn’t often induce such glee!

But there was no hipster irony in my delight at seeing him after so many months of waiting and uncertainty. Now each time I pass him in everyday life, I’m reminded of the relief and excitement we felt when we first arrived in Prince George.

5. See an Ice Hockey Game

From the original blog: “Is there anything more cliche Canadian than Ice Hockey?! So once the season begins, we are definitely going to see the Prince George Cougars“

One year on: This one remains stubbornly on the Prince George Bucket list. Thanks Covid. Fingers crossed we get to see the Prince George Cougars this season. Although we have had a taster from some of the local kids.

As you may remember from this post about Prince George’s impressive ice skating scene, we were often forced to wait and watch while the ‘rink rats’ – the teenagers who hog the ice to play Hockey (don’t call it Ice Hockey, Canadians laugh at you) – played for hours!

6. See the Northern Lights

From the original post: “As a reward for living through freezing winters, inhabitants of Prince George are sometimes treated to the greatest light show on earth. This one I can’t control and may never tick off, but this photograph was taken just outside Prince George, so there is reason to hope“

One year on: I’m still in utter disbelief about this one. Eight months after arriving in Prince George we were standing on a road, in the dark, watching the elusive, swirling green mist light up the northern sky. You can read all about that magical evening and check out some photos of what we saw here.

7. Enjoy some winter sports

From the original post: “‘Enjoying’ being out in the cold will be the real challenge here. There are so many winter sports to get involved with in Prince George: ice skating, skiing, snow shoeing, ice climbing, snow boarding“

One year on: As I mentioned in the original blog, learning to enjoy winter was the first challenge. This happened, unexpectedly, during my very first time hiking in the snow with a group of adventurous women.

After that day we bought snow shoes and began exploring local trails with them. We discovered that the basketball court near our house is flooded in winter to make a free ice skating rink, the perfect place for a novice in dodgy second hand skates to practice! But, undoubtedly, Jacob’s favourite winter sport was Cross Country Skiing at the Caledonia Nordic Ski Centre just a short drive from our house.

It’s true what they say, a winter sport does help you feel more positive about the cold. But we barely scratched the surface of what BC has to offer last winter. I never thought I’d say this, but, bring on the snow!

8. Hike in the Rocky Mountains

From the original post: “Jasper is three and a half hours away. Banff is seven hours away. These places are the stuff of Canadian legend. These places are on many peoples ultimate bucket list. And now these places are – at least in Canadian terms – near us“

One year on: Our first experience of the Rocky Mountains was through-hiking with our friends James and Courtney on the unbelievably stunning Berg lake Trail. For four days we hiked through forest, past gigantic waterfalls jewel-coloured lakes and glaciers in the shadow of Mount Robson.

We hiked the Skyline Trail, in Jasper National Park, for our wedding anniversary in July; which involved dodging an unseen Grizzly, being bitten to death by bugs and surviving a horrendous storm with lighting cracking above our heads.

All worth it when we got above the tree line onto the alpine meadow with it’s wild flowers and endless mountain peaks in all directions. Finished off with a wash afterwards in the stunning Maligne Lake.

Back in the Rockies we recently drove the famous Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Banff National Parks, stopping for short hikes to see glaciers and waterfalls then spending a day hiking the trail to Lake Helen and summitting Cirque Peak.

The later was a fantastic day hike in a temperate forest, through an alpine meadow to a pristine lake; before a challenging climb which included some scrambling over rock and scree. From the top, where it was snowing, we were rewarded with a 360′ view of the rockies: snowy mountains, glaciers and turquoise lakes all around us.

9. Have friends and family to stay

From the original post: “I’ve saved the one that is most important to me until last. It’s the one that currently, September 2020, seems most distant. I love the idea of doing the things on this list with our friends and family when they come to visit. If nothing else we have amassed a huge amount of favors to pay back over the last few months! Plus my niece and I have been singing the ‘Great Big Moose’ song together since before we were planning to move here, so I owe here a moose sighting. Fingers crossed the border opens up and makes this possible“

One year on: Just as I cannot believe I have witnessed the Northern Lights since writing the original post, I cannot believe I have not seen my Mum since then. We made the decision to take a work opportunity in Canada back in a different time, in a different world, called 2019; when travel was relatively cheap, very easy and we were all confident that that was not going to change any time soon.

Would we have signed up for coming if we knew it meant going this long without seeing friends and family in the U.K? Probably not. But with the Canadian boarder set to open next month (currently 7th September 2021) to international visitors there is reason to be hopeful that we will have friends and family to stay in the near future.

So there we have it…

…one year in, we have camped with porcupines, been dazled by the Northern Lights and taken a bath in Maligne Lake. We have climbed mountains, water-skied, and learned Dakelh words.

Covid did it’s best to stop us getting here and I won’t pretend it hasn’t made life here harder at times.

I miss my Mum, I’d like a cuddle with my best friend’s baby that I’ve never met and I cannot believe I’m not going to be there to toast my little sister turning thirty next month.

But our landlords, now friends, Georgia and Quinn, who I mention in the later Wednesday’s Weekly Updates, turned out to be every bit as kind and thoughtful and fun as you may have expected from the people prepared the house and food ready for our two week quarantine.

Plus our little Canadian family of friends – you can meet them here – are adventurous and generous and dang good at dressing up (see evidence of this is the gallery below).

And we love PG and BC and Canada. Thanks for having us.

Here’s to more adventures.

Photo gallery: A year in Canada

Read more about where we live…

Prince George: The armpit of British Columbia or British Columbia’s best kept secret?!

First Nation, Fur Trade and a Train Station: How Prince George became a city.

Snowshoes, Bald Eagles and a Disused Ski Hill: five adventures in Northern British Columbia

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During our first camping trip in Canada, in Spring 2021, we swam, we hiked, we learned the beauty of a ‘rec site’ and the cautionary tale from Moonshine; on a trip only possible because of the kindness of our new friends. But did we encounter a bear?

Ready to burst with glee

When we arrived – in our friend Lindsay’s car, which she had generously lent us as ours was not up to the journey – at the ‘rec site’ camp ground I was feeling levels of excitement that you rarely experience as an adult.

The idea of three nights in the wilderness, camping and hiking with friends, beside a mountain lined lake and, miraculously, in some glorious spring sunshine, was a fantastic prospect.

I was not alone in being ready to burst with glee. Nova, the Aussie-Shepherd in the car in front, was so overwhelmed that she showed the total abandonment that I was close to displaying, jumping clean out of our friend Marcus’ car window when we pulled up at the ‘rec site’ that was to be our home for the weekend.

Having introduced Nova, our excitable canine friend, I’ll take a moment to introduce the other characters who are a part of this tale, as they will feature in many more of the adventures that I will share.

The other characters

Courtney, is a true adventurer who is equal parts terrifying – her idea of bear protection is to carry a stick for shoving somewhere unpleasant – and kindness – her previous adventures have taken her to a Greek Island where she spent time helping refugees.

Lindsay, like the flowers tattooed on her upper arm, is sweet – we often lose her on the trail because she’s off, like a Woodland Imp, chasing the hint of Morel mushrooms – but wild – she’s been known to instigate vodka shots during an otherwise civilised dinner party.

James is unique in being the only person I know who is as comfortable with machines as he is in the wilderness. He actually understands how the internet works but he also befriends crows, has hiked some of the world’s great trails and travelled to more countries than anyone I know.

Marcus, is the master of calm and the understated architect of fun. Always unperturbed by a challenge whether it’s stamping bears, back-country-born locals checking he knows a figure of eight knot (during a car-stuck-in-mud rescue mission) or drinking Jäger from a toy sword.

These are the friends Jacob and I have been lucky enough to stumble upon and make our Canadian family and I was excited about our first camping trip together.

I was a little nervous

As is so often the case with excitement though, I was a little nervous too. Somehow, despite hiking most weekends, I had yet to encounter a bear, even from a car window.

Everyone else had, Jacob had seen a few while out running, Marcus was endlessly meeting them in his job as an Arborist and Courtney, BC born and bred, had grown up around them.

We were now in Grizzly Bear country and tonight I’d be laying down my head with nothing more than two sheets of nylon between us and them.

No room for lazy camping

Tents up and fingers warmed by the fire pit, we reheated the PB Sausage Stew which I had made the day before; our contribution to the plan that each couple would provide an evening meal during the weekend.

Outside of Canada, it may have been tempting to leave the hideous pot with caked on stew to be washed tomorrow. But there is no room for lazy camping in bear country! Everything had to be washed and dried, removing all traces and smells of food from the area we were sleeping, so as not to attract bears to our site during the night!

Where the forest meets the lake

A ‘Rec Site’ is a little different to your typical privately run campsite site and can probably be best described as Wild Camping in a place you are encouraged to be.

This particular ‘rec site’ was maintained by BC Parks. While there is no water or electricity in these remote locations, there is a pit toilet in a small wooden hut. Most importantly, there are a few ‘pitches’: small, flat clearings in the forest, each one boasting its own picnic bench and a fire pit.

To get to this hidden ‘rec site’ we drove east from Prince George into the Rocky Mountains, before making our way down a long forestry road. At the end of which, hidden away, where the forest meets the lake, was our rec site paradise.

Happiness of camp life

Protecting ourselves from unwanted visits from a bear did not end with washing the stew pot immediately after eating.

We also removed all items with an enticing smell, such as lip salve, tooth paste or sun cream, from our pockets and the tent; before carefully placing the bear spray within reach and zipping up the door.

I had expected to feel anxious, to lie there wide-eyed unable to sleep. But once inside I felt the familiar coziness and happiness of camp life and was asleep within a few minutes.

‘Yes! No Bear Attacks!’

Of course my first thought when I woke up was, ‘Yes! No Bear Attacks!’ Shortly followed by a marvel at how warm I had been in the sleeping bags and sleeping pads we had borrowed from Courtney and James.

I unzipped the tent to be greeted with the appealing sight of a fire pit already ablaze with a porridge pot bubbling on it. Jacob had been busy!

Beyond the fire, a jagged grey mountain, which still had a good dusting of snow over it, was bursting above the bright green trees.

Green cross code of toilet exiting

Waking to the smell of a campfire wafting into your tent, unzipping and looking up to a snowy mountain surrounded by new spring leaves; is all very majestic, but let’s face it the first thing on your mind while scrambling out of a tent is always the toilet.

By this point I had developed a new way to leave a campsite toilet, as opening the door and strolling out un-alert might mean walking right into the path of a bear. Instead I stepped out, paused, and looked both ways.

I think of it as the green cross code of toilet exiting: open the door, stop, look and listen for bear traffic, then proceed!

When people say that being ‘bear aware’ makes you more attuned to what is happening in nature they normally mean knowing which way the wind is blowing encase you need to use your bear spray; not lingering extra long by a stinky bog to take in your surroundings! But it all amounts to the same thing.

The cool water was an easy choice

Teeth brushed and toothpaste not spat into a nearby bush for obvious reasons, we set off for a hike along Kinbasket Lake. Which is not actually a lake, but a reservoir which was created by the building of the Mica Dam. There was once a lake, called Kinbasket, at this site named after a chief of the Shuswap people.

Lake or reservoir, either way, it was beginning to look very inviting as the spring day got hotter and hotter. After walking along the edge of the reservoir for about an hour, we had to choose between scrambling over rocks to continue our hike or taking a dip in the water.

In the heat, with the ever present, always hidden, threat of an animal that would be far more nimble over rocks than us, the cool water was an easy choice.

For most of us anyway, two of us (the sane ones who dislike cold water), mostly just watched the others swimming in their private, reservoir spa which came complete with a dense, dark green forest and a row of marbled mountains for a backdrop.

A gentle paddle on the reservoir

Later that afternoon we returned to the lake, this time taking James and Courtney’s Alpacka Boats. Alpackas or Packrafts, are small inflatable boats which are immensely durable and lightweight. This allows people to carry them long distances, with other gear when hiking, meaning they can through-hike with a combination of travelling over water and land.

This is known as Portaging, but on this occasion they would only be used for a gentle paddle on the reservoir in the afternoon sunshine. When Lindsay and I took a turn in the Alpackas, we paddled out towards the middle of the channel and immediately our perspective of the magnificent scenery shifted.

Being on the water, we were able to see far more of the long line of mountains which stretched along the opposite shore, each with their own unique jagged peak dazzlingly white in the cloud-less sky.

We all reached for our bears sprays

The spring heat ramped up further still for our final day. But, full of energy from the delicious Mexican feast Marcus and Lindsay had fed us the previous evening, we decided to tackle the accending track to the start of a mountain trail.

The higher we rose the more mountains we could see and we were able to appreciate their angular peaks much better as we gained height. Worryingly, along with the mountains, bear scat was increasingly visible as we hiked further from the noisy logging road into the quiet forest.

We each had bear spray, but six people chatting goes a long way in eliminating the possibility that a bear won’t hear you coming, leading to the dangerous situation where you startle it. With warning, from humans chatting, bear bells or just calling out to let them know you are there, Black Bears, in particular, commonly make themselves scarce.

Nova, running ahead up the path and crashing through the bushes, was also useful for alerting bears to our presence and, potentially, for giving us early warning if she saw one.

Only once did Nova put us on our guard: she was gone for a while and we heard her barking at something. At which point we all reached for our bear sprays, waiting for the moment that she came running out, aware that bears are sometimes lead back to people by dogs.

But all was well, we did not see whatever it was that Nova had scared away, she proudly rejoined the pack she had been defending and we walked on, admittedly taking a few extra backward glances.

Try the ‘Sex in the Woods’

For our final evening we heaved beers, root vegetables and a bottle of homemade Moonshine down to the reservoir for a special fire-cooked, lake-side dinner under the mountains.

I set up a bar (which is a generous term for a few bottles and beers lined up in the sand) and some of the others braved the water for a dip before returning to dry themselves by the fire and try the ‘Sex in the Woods’. A backcounrty twist on the traditional ‘Sex on the Beach’ cocktail, with Moonshine replacing the Vodka!

Arguably, the perfect aperitif for a tinfoil parcel of fire baked vegetables – James and Courtney’s dinner contribution – which we all had fun chopping, seasoning, cooking and eating together as the effects of the beer and the moonshine began to be felt.

We sat round the fire long after my rudimentary bar had run dry, long after night had fallen and the mountains had disappeared into the dark. We would not see them again until we were all packed up the next morning and we had to force ourselves to raise sore heads to take a last look up at their marvellous peaks before heading home.

Away from the mountains

Long drives at the end of a trip are never expected to be fun and in this case to get home we had to turned our backs on the Rocky’s and drive away from the best views. But we kept our eyes peeled for wildlife, not saying it, but hoping for my first bear sighting from the safety of a car.

Then, finally, not far from Prince George, on a raised bank by the side of the road, we saw a bear. He had the distinctive tan nose, black fur and large body of a male Black Bear. Slowly chomping, completely unfaized by the cars speeding by.

Finally, a bear! As we sailed passed it, with Marcus and Lindsay following in the car behind, I could see Marcus’ fist raised out of his car window, punching the air, celebrating my first bear.

We had stumbled upon something

‘Rec Sites’ are an absolute gift, the Rocky Mountains are immense and, happily, just because you are in grizzly country does not mean you will be eaten by one; are some of the things are learned from this trip!

I also realised how lucky we have been to meet these four people. Marcus knew about this secret paradise where we stayed, Lindsay lent us her car to get there and we would have had no sleeping equipment but for James and Courtney. A side from that, being in a group where you are often doing loud, belly laughs, keeps bears at bay!

When moving abroad you can do certain things to help you settle in: fly your dog over, hunt down Marmite, bring paintings of your hometown. But after this trip I realised we had stumbled upon something we could not control, friends to enjoy everything British Columbia has to offer with.

. . .

Some more tales from the wilderness…

A hike in a land formed by ice, to a canyon conquered by paddle steamers

Snowshoes, Bald Eagles and a Disused Ski Hill: five adventures in Northern British Columbia

A snowy day hiking in the footsteps of First Nation traders and conquering my fear of the cold

. . .

Never miss a blog…

This is the second part of a blog about the things I have been privileged to learn and experience, as a teacher in Prince George, about a culture that is alive, vibrant and being celebrated in school.

Part one of this blog can be found here.

Land Acknowledgement

We respectfully acknowledge the unceded ancestral lands of the Lheidli T’enneh, on whose land we live, work and play.

Lheidli T’enneh hubeh keyoh whuts’odelhti. Nts’ezla hubeh yun ts’uwhut’i, ts’uzt’en ink’ez ts’unuwhulyeh.

A few facts

• Prince George is on the unceded ancestral home of the Lheidli T’enneh, a sub-group of the Dakelh who are the indigenous people of a large area of British Columbia.
• Around 30% of the students in School District 57 – 3,651 pupils – are First Nation.
• British Columbia’s curriculum was recently redesigned to integrate Indigenous knowledge and perspectives into all subjects, at all grades levels (year groups).

The Dakelh language in school

As a substitute teacher I have visited lots of different schools in Prince George and in the majority of them students were regularly being exposed to Dakelh words.

In some schools ‘Hadih’ (hello) was the greeting of choice during the morning announcement, in others there were posters showing which words the school was focusing on learning at that time and in one recently built school every sign was written in both languages.

As I mentioned in part one, throughout May 2021 I was working at a school where the principle would tell us the date in English and Dakelh each morning during the announcement. For days the Dakelh words ‘Dugoos Nandel Nun’, which means ‘the time of Sucker Fish Run’ or ‘May’ were struck in my head, like a track on repeat.

The beauty of hearing these words every single day in May, or should I say during the Dugoos Nandel Nun (the time of the Sucker Fish Run), meant that they were brought to life as real words which I’m confident I, and my class, will never forget how to say.

Reading ‘Stolen Words’, a children’s book about a girl who helps her grandfather overcome the fact that he lost his words when he was punished for speaking his own language while at Residential School, really brought home to me the importance of hearing some words in Dakelh each day for everyone, irrespective of our ancestry.

Hearing Dakelh is an important reminder of what the land acknowledgement says: that we ‘live, work and play on the ancestral lands of the Lheidli T’enneh‘. It also instils pride and reinforces a sense of identity for our First Nation pupils.

The Dakelh language and two teenage boys

On one occasion though this sense of pride was mixed with the impression that they were getting away with doing something that they should not be doing, when I overheard two sixteen year old boys talking in what they called ‘their language’.

I had been teaching the boys for a while and knew them quite well, so it seemed like a nice opportunity for me to learn about their culture from them.

They were quite happy to put down their maths work to tell me about how they actually couldn’t say very many words, but that one of their grandmothers only spoke in ‘their language’, having never been forced to learn English.

Next, to my surprise, they voluntarily started teaching me how to say ‘stop doing that’. Which, I admitted, was a pretty useful phrase in my line of work.

So why the furtive glances, giggling and the impression that they were breaking rules before? Surely, these Gen-Z teens know they would never be told off for expressing pride in their identity?

Turns out that before I interrupted them, they had been sat there swearing at each other and sharing some pretty choice phrases in ‘their language’. No wonder the non-rude phrase they remembered from their Elders, and shared with me, was ‘stop doing that’.

An afternoon making Deer Skin Rattles

“One more question” I said like an over-excited child, “what would they have put inside the rattle instead of the plastic beads we are using?” The Elder, a Métis and Cree woman who had come in to lead the class in a traditional Deer Skin Rattle making activity, seemed a bit taken aback that the ‘sub’ was more eager than the kids, but she smiled and patiently began explaining.

Interestingly, the term ‘Elder’ denotes wisdom not age. ‘Elder’ refers to someone who has acquired great understanding of First Nation, Métis or Inuit culture.

“Usually seeds, but sometimes flint to make the rattles spark when they are used”, was the answer to my question and as she helped the kids sew the deer skin pieces together ready for painting, she taught me all about the importance of rattles and drums in First Nation culture.

I learned that sweetgrass, which she explained is one of the gifts from the creator, is used to bring the rattles and drums to life. By placing them on the instrument before use, they jump and ‘come to life’ when used.

During that afternoon I felt immensely privileged to be able to ask questions and learn from her as the kids happily painted. Particularly as, after she left, the next activity for the kids was some work about the history of rattles which I’d be teaching alone, but thanks to my crash course with the Elder, with confidence.

. . .

Check out Part one…

Part one: First Nation culture in the Canadian classroom

. . .

More about schools and teaching…

A guide to surviving as a British Secondary School Teacher in Canadian Elementary Schools

. . .

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