Telkwa and Smithers, British Columbia

On June 3d, we headed to Telkwa, north on the Alaska Highway (BC Highway 97) and then west on Yellowhead Highway 16. As we mentioned, the logging industry is huge in British Columbia. A couple trucks at the junction of the two highways and part of a complex turning sawdust into heating pellets:




A cemetery just before the Stellat'en First Nation's store and fuel station on the Yellowhead Highway:




Welcome and air quality signs, trembling aspens, a map board, Barkley, Bill, and wildflowers at a rest area:












Meadow Chickweed:




We couldn't identify this Phacellia-looking flower with ferny leaves until we got to Tok, Alaska and bought the fantastic book Wildflowers Along the Alaska Highway, by Verna E. Pratt. It's perfectly named - Beautiful Jacob's Ladder.




Unidentified:








It rained most of the day:


We stayed at Ft. Telkwa RV Park along the Bulkley River, where we couldn't quite capture a picture of a beaver working near the bank of a little island. These pretty trees with the curling trunks were growing along the bank below the road (the Yellowhead Highway is directly behind the fence).


Our site, the river (down a steep bank from our site), and the distant view from our side window:






We visited the village of Telkwa on rainy June 4th. Telkwa has a lovely little park with several benches at its municipal building on the Bulkley River.


The Telkwa River flows into the Bulkley at the park.


Norma's Ark Playday Centre is housed in an old church building.






The current Mount Zion Lutheran Church building was built in 1911 as St. Stephen's Anglican Church.


Also on June 4th, we took a rainy drive to Smithers, which looks very much like an Alpine town and even has a statue of an alpenhorn player in the center of one of its short shopping avenues.








The town's ice hockey rink, formerly rarely used tennis courts:


Twin Falls is just a short drive from the Smithers downtown area. The rain relented long enough that we could hike to the falls and take some photographs before returning to the truck in a downpour (with the camera safely tucked inside a rainjacket).


Bill on an observation deck between the two falls:










The water plows beneath several feet of snow (covered with rocks) before re-emerging.


Our expert use of the camera's timing mechanism: