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Lee
and Karen Duquette,
The Two RV Gypsies: Full-Time RVers
in McBride, British Columbia
August 23 - 24, 2009 and July 30, 2015 |
Note: (The smaller photos are from 2009 and the bigger photos are from 2015) |
 The site of McBride was surveyed and established
as a divisional point through the Yellowhead Pass for the Canadian Pacific
Railway in 1912. For awhile, its first station was the largest between Winnipeg
and Prince Rupert. The yards had 8 miles of track plus a roundhouse, turntable,
bunkhouse, 2 water towers, a dam and an ice house. The village of McBride
was designed in a standard Grand Trunk Pacific Railway design. It was first
known as Mile 90, being 90 miles from Summit at the boundary with Alberta.
In 1913 it was named McBride after Richard McBride, the Premier of British
Columbia. McBride was incorporated in 1932. |
| The town of McBride
does NOT have a car wash - bad news for RVers. But there
were lots of hiking trails, fishing, and mountain biking in the area. |
Below: Welcome sign in 2009 and 2015 |
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McBride campgrounds have separate links as shown below: Visit these
IF you are interested in campgrounds, and if you do, please return here
to continue the main journey. |
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Below: Bill Clark Memorial Park and the nearby Visitor Center |
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Below: Lee and Karen Duquette
enjoyed an art walk through the city of McBride which exhibited examples
of the fantastic artwork created by artisans from the Whistle Stop Gallery
via painted fire hydrants. |
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Below: Some of the same hydrants from 2009
were still there, but a bit deteriorated. |
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Below; The sidewalks were
blue with hockey players on them in 2009.
The designs were all washed off by 2015. |
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Below: A mural on a building |
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Below: Train murals on buildings in the city. |
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Below: Street signs had
trains on them too |
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| There are seven river systems flowing in the BC
portion of the Rocky Mountain Trench. The only river completely in BC is
the largest one, the Fraser River. It flows from its source high in the
mountains about 50 km from the Yellowhead Highway near Lucerne, then westerly
to the trench of Tete Juane, then northwesterly through the beautiful Robson
Valley to Prince George and its confluence with the Nechako River. Then
it travels in a southwesterly direction through the Fraser Canyon. At Hope,
it turns and flows west to Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean. The Fraser River
was a major transportation route when the Overlanders came in search of
the gold fields in 1862. |
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Below: Leaving
McBride in 2009 got a bit complicated for the two RV Gypsies, |
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| After driving about
30 miles in their RV, the two RV Gypsies heard a very loud bang,
so Lee Duquette drove slowly and carefully until he could find a rest area
big enough for the RV to fit in. Then Lee stopped to investigate the problem.
One of the inner tires blew. While Lee was pumping air
into the tire, Karen Duquette took a walk around the area and photographed
a beautiful river, called "Small River". |
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| Below: Lee Duquette determined that the tire
needed to be replaced, so he slowly drove the RV back to McBride. On the
way back to McBride, a deer crossed the road in front of their RV. |
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| Below; The Goodyear
Garage in McBride was closed, and the only other place that could fix the
tire could not schedule the repair until the next day, so the two RV Gypsies
returned to the campground. AWO had space to herself. |
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| In the morning, AWO was put in for repair,
and Lee and Karen Duquette decided to go to Beaver Falls. Click
here to see both the 2009 and 2015 photos, or return to the 2015 Canada
menu with the link below. |
