Canoeing on Bowron Lake after the fog lifts

So this is my campsite on Barwon Lake as the evening sets. And he let me take he let me borrow the canoe overnight so before they open I can hit the lake and canoe across Barwon Lake and then up Barwon River. See how it is. Okay it's just before dawn It was a beautiful clear night. The fog rolled out of the lake. It's pretty typical. Well it's 6 30 and the fog certainly rolled in. You can't see a thing now. The dew is also quite significant. That's why they said to put the canoes all over so they don't fill with dew. Anyways we're not gonna head out just yet. We're gonna wait till the fog lifts before we hit the kayak on the lake. Okay this fog is completely swept in and it's pretty amazing. I guess this happens here all the time. But it was a beautiful clear night. 1 30 in the morning the light from the moon cast shadows. You didn't need a flashlight. And I guess 4 30 the sun began to rise and the fog started to come in. And I was waiting to get a picture of the sunrise and I look out and there's no picture of the fog. And this confirms here what I heard before. I did hear a couple of loons. You know we have a picture of a bird on a two dollar call and called the loony on. Those are loons I think. This fog's amazing. And while I'm here I will make a one quick comment about a little Barkerville. I didn't go in because I had a backpack and I had all my gear on the bike and I wasn't gonna ride 28 kilometers on a dirt road, set up camp and then ride back to go just to see it. But it looks really, it's not a tourist trap, but it really looks cute. It really looks interesting. It's like the Fort Langley thing with people dressed up and showing you blacksmith and you know how things worked back in the day. And they have except it's way bigger. It's a fenced off area and they have so many different booths like blacksmiths, gold panning. I mean I've done gold panning. I don't know how this loose box works. But it's it's for 20 bucks. It's worth it. There's a lot of staff working in there. There's restaurants you can go to. But 20 bucks it's worth it. I just I just didn't because I explained why. But I think the Barkerville, it's not a town, it's just like a fenced off little area where they have this antique show of what was it like back in the day. And I think it's well worth a visit. It's just right around the corner from here. But this place is mostly full of RVs. I don't know if people can afford the gas, but RVs are still quite popular. Well, I was talking to a couple from Victoria and they said the fog lifts around nine. They said they did what I did. They rented a canoe and they went up the other side of the lake up Barrow River. So there's a cabin there. But they went they didn't know the fog doesn't lift till nine. It's a seven, but there's no fog. So he also confirmed that the ultralight crash, he went to the site and I guess there's a runway right behind. And the ultralight it was like, not really an ultralight, it was like a small plane. And the plane actually crashed. It was a long runway, but he crashed after the runway. And he said didn't look like there's any survivors. It was the plane burned. I didn't see too much smoke. I didn't hear anything out of the shower. Anyways, looks like it was a fatal crash. Terrible. This is another little river exiting the lake. Here come the ravens. You can just smell food. Holy, I got a little tiny dry sack with bread in it. They just squirmed out and they're ready to go for it. So maybe a little bit. I'm gonna start packing up. Okay, fogs lifting, I'm going to hit it. I was going to pack everything up and then wait till nine but I don't know what time it is. It's around eight. That's that's lifting enough for me now. Now I can see the other side of the lake. I'm going to hit it. All right, let's rock this. All right, 12 minutes after eight and I'm going to hit it. It's just, I guess that bend is the halfway point. So you just go to the other end and then up, up the, up the river. I don't know. I'll see. But this is, this is the big freaking rock he said to put underneath the front for balance. There's another story about that. I'll explain. But anyways, here we go, living the dream. All right, I can't video and paddle at the same time. So we've launched and we're going to hit it. See the fog is, see this amazing how the fog came in and came out. This is nice. Okay, the fog is lifting. I'd say the sun is coming out but the sun was always there. The fog is lifting and now we can see the fog. Nice. And you can just see how the, like the steam is lifting off the lake. It was like, it was really like that around, I don't know, just before sunset when the fog was rolling in. You could just see the fog and coming off the lake. Anyways, it's clearing up now. We're going to hit it. Okay, I think those are the loons in the water. I made a mistake before. The one dollar coin in Canada is called the loony. The two dollar coin is called the toony. I have no idea what the picture is on the toony. The loony, there's a picture of a loon and that's what these things are. Nice. And that's a view of the camp where I just paddled from and this is where we're going. Okay, we're just about at the halfway point at that little corner. I just wanted to check in here. I guess there's a little bit of a sandy beach. You could beach and stop. You can still see the mist burning off the water in the morning. On the other side, there's not much places to dock in. There's some nice, really nice cabins. Whoops. There's some really nice cabins on that side. All along there's some nice cabins. Oh yeah, I guess I should do the rock story. Okay, well my kids were very young. I took them, I rented a canoe and we went to Alwet Lake at Golden Ears. Alwet Lake is a long, narrow lake that narrows and then it's kind of two lakes joined together kind of thing. Relatively long. When you talk about Okanagan, that's freaking long. But anyways, in the afternoon it gets quite windy on the way back. We didn't know that. So I had my kids were very, very, very young and I had them with me and then my daughter got a little bit nervous so she sat in the back with me and my son who was younger, a year younger, very small, sat in the front. We paddled there out to Gold Creek. It was very nice and then we paddled back and the wind started to pick up. And because we were so bottom heavy, like I was heavier than obviously Liam plus Shannon was in the back, and so we were back heavy. The top was so light. Paddling into the wind, the wind kept blowing it and I was struggling and I was struggling. It took us forever. And now I realize that in a canoe you need even weight distribution. That's why we have the rock in the front because I'm going solo. So we need the weight in the front to balance it out. Thankfully there's no headwind so I'm not paddling into any headwind. But it would have been smarter for me to put Shannon up front with Liam or at least me maybe sit in the middle. I saw a guy who brought his own canoe yesterday and he sat in the middle but these ones you can't really do that. But anyways that's the purpose of the rock and that's what happened when my kids were young when I went canoeing with them. And I get that my mother was an avid canoer. When she came out west, her father, she was born in Amherst Nova Scotia, her father died of scarlet fever when she was very young and she had to come west to be raised by her aunt and uncle. And her uncle was a hunter. He had leghold traps and he hunted and I guess she learned like canoeing from him. But I remember when my parents were first married they went canoeing and I think my mother introduced my father to it and I can't remember how the story went. I think somebody fell. I think it was him. You're not supposed to stand up in a but I remember him. He made an anniversary card for my mother and one of the pictures in it was a canoe when he was first, they were first married and I think there was some story about him standing up in the canoe and falling out. It might have been the other way around. It might have been her but I think because she was with the hunter, raised by the hunter and trapper, she was a little bit more involved with the canoeing going up. But also they did, my parents both did archery if you believe it. They were into that. So that's cool. So in my family we have a little bit of canoeing and even in B.C. like the Fraser River and the McKenzie River, they're named after explorers who came down them in canoes. I think they did it solo I think. That Hell's Gate, I mean Hell's Gate is worse now because when they dug a tunnel they put more fill in the river which made it which makes it faster and more rapids. But anyways, even back then, you know going down Hell's Gate solo in a canoe, that was hardcore. That was hardcore. So that's our heritage. That's where we came from. That's the camp. And this is where we're going. Right around the bandwagon. Okay, so I just turned around and when you finish that long haul Auburn Lake canoe circuit, this is where you finish. This is the finish point. Getting a little bit closer, you can see Becker's Lodge up to the left. And a toonie has a polar bear on it. That's of course it does. It's just, it's just been so long. So I use debit. I do not carry cash. I certainly don't carry change. So I forgot. You know, we never, the loonie is on the dollar, the polar bear is on the two dollar which we call a toonie because I don't know it's a Canadian goofy thing. Rhymes with loonie. And yeah, a lot of people are freaked out about digital currency. And, you know, I understand they have concerns. They're all concerns are all valid. The government overreach is insane. And that's the new world that order that we are confronting and facing. But this is the real world here. A little closer. Okay, up on the top left on that little bluff, that's Becker's Lodge. And that's their site. So that's Becker's Lodge up there. And that's their site. They got cabins and stuff you can rent. Like I said, that's where the tent pads are. They only got a couple of tent pads that you can open up the lake. Straight ahead, there's a little hut there. That's Becker's Lodge. To the right of that is the is the boat launch. I think they're claiming they own that land. I don't know. There has to be a public boat launch. And if you take this course, there has to be a public place where you take the boat off your canoe off. So but that but to the left of that, to the right of that road, all those cabins and RVs are part of that other private beach, which is is the Byron Lake Lodge. I think I'm not sure. That's where I'm at. That's the family one that's been run for generations. And then if you go to the to the right, there's something else. I'm not sure what all that was. There was a general store there. But then just a little bit past here, you can see in the trees is the provincial campsite. And that's where the trail goes to the first portage to the first lake in the Byron Lake chain. So this is where you this is the finishing point. And that ends our short but awesome canoe trip. That's where everybody else finishes. The cabins on the beach, pretty old, but they're cute. All right, I'm just gonna pack up really quick and try to get to Pemberton. Talk to the guy evidently, okay, this is a private beach part of the Byron Lake Resort. So you need to have pay for and reserve a campsite here to launch here. The boat launch is a public boat launch. The other side of that is the Lodge, but the boat launch is a public boat launch. But that's not where you pull out from the canoe trip. From the canoe trip, you pull out down here somewhere, there's a dock somewhere at the provincial campsite. And then you have to freaking pull it up the trail on the dolly, which is kind of awkward. But the problem, if you pull it at the boat launch, there's no place to park. There's no parking, there's only parking beside the boat launch over here. So anyways, there was all geo those are all landmarks. You know where to come in, you come in at the other end of the RV campsite at the provincial site. That's where you pull out at the end of the Byron Lake canoe trip. And this resort's nice. Becker Lodge is nice. This whole place is nice. Once again, the saddlebags have to be above muffler started to sag and touch the muffler. So instead of taking the seat off and pulling it in, I just, I just lifted it up, put a roll of socks in there. First it was this way. Now it's this way and I'm lifting it up. So it's the socks are holding it above. So it's not touching the muffler because if the saddlebag touches the muffler, it's going to catch on fire. It's going to be useless after that. But anyways, it's all good. All right, 1107 check of time. Let's hit the road.