THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE Day 102 August 26, 2009 Prince Rupert to Terrace, BC

Upon waking and venturing outside we felt this new sensation on our faces. The SUN. It was back and mightily appreciated. So with this new found freedom we quickly packed up and headed out. Our first stop was downtown Prince Rupert where we did a few chores, grocery shopping, mailed a package and starbucks. It is pretty bad when starbucks makes it onto your must do list.

Once the chores were done we headed over to the Northern BC Museum to have a look. We are starting to see a commonality with a lot of these small towns throughout BC and Alaska. The native population arrived around 8000 – 10,000 years ago, probably shortly after the glaciers receded. The white man arrived and in his quest for furs, gold, logging and fishing the towns grew and survived. However the museum did have a lot of nice artifacts and it was interesting to go through.

Once we left the museum we walked over to the Mariners Memorial War. This park is dedicated to the men and women of Prince Rupert who lost their lives at sea. There is a plaque on the wall with each persons name and date of disappearance.

The next stop was Cow Bay and the information center. Cow Bay is a shopping district that is on an actual bay. The original name of the bay was Calvin’s Cove but the name was changed when someone brought in the first herd of cows. The cows were transported on a barge but there wasn’t a dock big enough to unload them so they were pushed into the water. They swam ashore in the shallow part of Calvin’s Cove and from that day on it became Cow Bay.

We then had a quick lunch and headed down the road to Terrace. It is not that far but the drive was quite nice. Upon leaving Prince Rupert we discovered one aspect about the town that we did not know. Prince Rupert is on an island. We reached Terrace without any pictures as Kathy’s camera was low on batteries and the pictures she took on the way did not turn out. However I wouldn’t lie to you, it was a nice drive.

We drove along Hwy 16 until we hit terrace and then we headed south on Hwy 37 towards Kitimat and our campsite. On the way I almost Davy Crockett’ed a bear as a large male ran down an embankment and right in front of us. I had to hit the breaks fairly hard or he would have been toast. I am sure the truck would not have faired all that well either. However, we did miss him and carried on.

We stopped for the night at Furlong Lake Campground on Lakelse Lake, a very nice spot. We lit a fire and had a light supper outside for before calling it a night. Of course marshmallows were involved as they are every time we have a fire.

It was nice to be dry.