Do you have trouble sleeping in a strange place? Well, I do. Any time we stay in a new motel or hotel or even when visiting friends or relatives. It takes me 2 or 3 nights to get comfortable. New pillow, new bed, new room, new sounds. Then by the 3rd night, I’m so eshausted that I can sleep and I’m all right then. But, usually by the 3rd night, we’ve moved on and the cycle starts again. Now, I can almost understand that. But, I’m living in my home, no matter where we go. Same pillow, same bed, same room, same sounds. So, why do I have trouble sleeping when we travel? One of the great mysteries of my life.
Yesterday, we left Houston, BC and headed west on down the road. I’ve got a place picked out where we can stay the night but we just want to get some more miles under our belts before we stop. We got to the junction of what is called the Yellowhead Highway which goes to Prince Rupert on the Pacific and, if you have ferry tickets to Alaska, you’d keep on driving west. We turned north onto the Cassiar Highway. During WWII, when America was increasing and fortifying their bases in Alaska, supplying them with weapons, men and supplies. we needed a road which connected the lower 48 states to Alaska. The first thought was to put a road through where the Cassiar Highway is but then decided that it was too close to the Pacific Ocean where the Japanese could bomb it and changed the plans to where the the Alaska Highway is now.
Oh, oh, looks like we’re going to get hammered.
The Cassiar is an interesting drive: lined by tall pines for most of its 450 miles. Through these trees we kept glimpsing deep blue lakes that continued forever. Above the trees, we could see looming ranges of snow-capped mountains. But, because of the trees, we never really saw these mountains nor these lakes. There are few towns along the 450 miles and fewer other signs of civilization. So, if you like driving 450 miles through a tunnel of trees, this is your highway. I got a picture of a young person waiting for the bus.
We drove over some narrow wooden bridges.
The mountains here are extremely steep which makes them prone to avalanches. We saw a kiosk at one ofthe rest areas that pictured the mountains on the opposite side of the highway and also memorialized the two avalanche engineers who died here in an avalanche.
We looked out and saw a forest of trees between us and the base of the mountain and were surprised to see how quickly an avalanche could make matchsticks out of a forest of trees and cover the road.
Then, because of this steepness the rivers that run through them are extremely fast. They are rocky, shallow and very wide and fast. Kayaking on them would be a challenge. You’d feel like you were in a bumper car arcade.
Very nice views from this area.
Keeping to the old adage that when traveling Alaska, you need to keep your fuel tank 1/2 full, we stopped in Dease Lake, a small town with a gas station and a grocery store. Gary gassed up while I went into pay and grab some fruit for breakfast for tomorrow. I was surprised at how complete this grocery store was: fruits, vegetables (even asparagus) dairy (even Soy milk) a meat counter with beef, pork and chicken, etc. The prices were pretty high but, then, they need to pay transportation up to this store for all these groceries. There is even a small deli in the market. I suppose I was expecting more of a convenience store with 3 bananas, 2 apples, lots of snacks and candy. But, no, this was a real grocery store, albeit, very small.
But, our ‘campsite’ for the night was further along at what is called Jade City but which is really a large mining operation and retail store called the Cassiar Mt. Jade Company which supplies jade throughout the world. Surprisingly, the Cassiar Mt. Range supplies 82% of the world’s jade. The miners produce 1 million pounds of jade each year and ship it thoughout the world. This store ships its jade to shops which have carvers that make all of the products that the store sells. They started out with the iconic jade bear but have expanded their merchandise to jewelry, large, small and medium statues, knives and all manner of products. A cool store and cool story of the family who owns the mine and the store.
These huge rocks beside our rig are jade rocks that just haven’t been broken up and carved yet.
In the summer you can see the jade carvers plying their trade right in front of the store. And, you can also see huge saws slice these huge boulders down to size. Buy a boulder, get it cut to the size you want.
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