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Lakelse Lake

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Previous: Beaumont Provincial Park

Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park

Roadtrips generally require a lot of planning - trying to find roadside attractions that you would be sad if you missed them.  There are lots of tools to help - TripAdvisor, blogs and so forth, but it's easy to misunderstand the relative value of one destination over another.  The stretch between Beaumont (West of Prince George) and Terrace was particularly tricky - there are a lot of attractions, but it's really hard to tell what is "stop worthy" on your drive through.

We picked Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park because it has a nice walk to a fossil bed.  The fossil bed is scientifically meaningful - new species have been described from samples in the rock here so it's a no collecting location, but I figured it was worth a stop.  The trail is flat and smooth and the forest was worth the walk.

Walk In The RainTree Lungwort Growing On CottonwoodFossil Bed Signage

Witset Canyon (once called Moricetown Canyon)


Moricetown Canyon

BC's history with the first nations is basically somewhere between bad and terrible.  Much of the population was wiped out in successive waves of European diseases that the first nations had no defenses for.  Then the missionaries arrived.  The Morice - the missionary here decided to name everything after himself and only now are the real names for places starting to be recognized by the wider world.  This particular canyon has probably been fished continuously for 8000 years.


There are some modern improvements - aluminum bridges and roads, but probably more importantly,  anchors and safety harnesses.

Traditional Fishing At Canyon

The first nations are fishing for their family, but also for science.  Their harvests are timed and recorded so they can help fill in population data.  The gentlemen who is fishing shows up in photos in tourist brochures and web pages so I assume he has been doing this many years.

Dip Netting Into Rapids
While we were there, he was able to catch a few fish.  This isn't an easy way to fish and he came up empty handed more than once. 

Fish In Net


Being next to water fall, the rocks are continuously covered in mist and some are covered in moss and stonecrop.  I really enjoyed the tiny scenes made by the plants.

Spearleaf StonecropStonecrop Over Moss

Farmers Market in Terrace

Farmers Market In Terrace

We happened to be in Terrace in on Saturday and it was farmers market day.  The choice of farmers market days tells a bit of a story.  The biggest local destination usually get Saturday morning and then the next largest surrounding town get Sunday and then the rest get mid week.  Terrace is the largest town around here so it got Saturday morning.  That said, there aren't a lot of farms close to here (we are starting to get North and cold) so much of the farmers market was artists and baking. 


At this point in the summer there still hadn't been a single COVID case in the North, but the market was taking precautions - limited admission, one way walk through the vendors and hand sanitizer for everyone. 

End Of Season MorelsGreens And FlowersIndian Takeout For Lunch

We decided to get lunch here and enjoyed a really generous Indian food lunch. 

Nature Walk at Lakelse

Lakelse Visitor Centre

Lakelse is a huge park about 20 minutes south of Terrace - nearly 200 camping pads and a really nice visitor center.  The park has hot showers and some camp sites have electrical services.  We reserved in advance for two nights. 

Forest Walk
Lakelse has a grove of old growth forest with a BC parks nearly flat trail running through it.  Amazingly, the park was still running interpretive events - two environmental consultants came by to show people the forest.  There was a limit of 4 families so we arrived early.

There is a surprisingly large amount of demand for environment consultants - logging and development both require assessments to be done and some of the assessments such as impacts on stream quality require quite a bit of sampling in not very easy to get to locations. 


We had a walk through the forest on the trail where the guide pointed out the big three species here - Cedar, Spruce and Douglas Fir. 

Western Red Cedar Sitka Spruce Western Hemlock,Devils Club Fruit RipeningWet Forest Plants

Spotted Coralroot Light Yellow
I was happy to see two "mature forest" species -
Spotted Coralroot (here is the yellow variant) and Ghost pipes.  Both of these plants are treats you see in old forests - not often seen growing at the side of the road.

Ghost Pipes Pushing Through Needles

We got to the end of the trail and guides had a small aquarium set up.  They had trapped these fingerlings the previous nights (a trap baited with salmon eggs) and they talked about the Dolly Varden life cycle here.  Dolly Varden require cold water - if streams get too warm (because the forest cover has been cut), the fish don't do well and the lake populations of harvest-able sized fish decline. 

Observation TankDolly Varden Fingerlings

This is the only time I've ever seen fish shown on a nature walk.  I was really impressed.


Next: Prince Rupert
 
 
 


Traditional Fishing At Canyon
Altitude: 371m (1217 feet)
Location: Go To...
Indian Takeout For Lunch
Altitude: 73m (239 feet)
Location: Go To...
Tags: food porn
Farmers Market In Terrace
Altitude: 77m (252 feet)
Location: Go To...
Tags: market
Ghost Pipes Pushing Through Needles
Species: Monotropa uniflora (ghost pipe)
Altitude: 79m (259 feet)
Location: Go To...
Western Red Cedar Sitka Spruce Western Hemlock,
Altitude: 83m (272 feet)
Location: Go To...
Lakelse Visitor Centre
Altitude: 88m (288 feet)
Location: Go To...
Moricetown Canyon
Altitude: 388m (1272 feet)
Location: Go To...
Spearleaf Stonecrop
Altitude: 371m (1217 feet)
Location: Go To...
Observation Tank
Altitude: 208m (682 feet)
Location: Go To...
Tags: aquarium
End Of Season Morels
Altitude: 77m (252 feet)
Location: Go To...
Tree Lungwort Growing On Cottonwood
Species: Lobaria pulmonaria (Tree Lungwort)
Altitude: 725m (2378 feet)
Location: Go To...
Tags: tree
Devils Club Fruit Ripening
Species: Oplopanax horridus (devilsclub)
Altitude: 94m (308 feet)
Location: Go To...
Stonecrop Over Moss
Altitude: 371m (1217 feet)
Location: Go To...
Fish In Net
Altitude: 371m (1217 feet)
Location: Go To...
Tags: salmon
Fossil Bed Signage
Altitude: 727m (2385 feet)
Location: Go To...
Dip Netting Into Rapids
Altitude: 371m (1217 feet)
Location: Go To...
Dolly Varden Fingerlings
Species: Salvelinus malma (Dolly Varden)
Altitude: 208m (682 feet)
Location: Go To...
Tags: fish, salmon
Spotted Coralroot Light Yellow
Altitude: 80m (262 feet)
Location: Go To...
Greens And Flowers
Altitude: 74m (242 feet)
Location: Go To...
Tags: flowers, market, produce
Wet Forest Plants
Altitude: 90m (295 feet)
Location: Go To...
Forest Walk
Altitude: 87m (285 feet)
Location: Go To...
Walk In The Rain
Person: Claira, Nara
Altitude: 723m (2372 feet)
Location: Go To...
Tags: hiking, rain
Tags: salmon(2), market(2), fish(1), flowers(1), produce(1), food porn(1)
People: Claira(1), Nara(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > John's Overnight Page > Prince Rupert Road Trip > Lakelse Lake
From: John Harvey Photo > John's Overnight Page > Lakelse Lake

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