| The town of McBride does NOT have a car wash
- bad news for RVers. But there are lots of hiking trails, fishing, and
mountain biking in the area. |
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| Beaverview RV Park was a nice looking campground,
but did not have a lot of sites. It had a nicely landscaped office, pull-through
grassy sites, water and electric hook-ups, no sewers, no cable, tent sites
with fire pits, free Wi-Fi, clean washrooms, free hot showers, free sani-dump,
and laundromat, plus firewood and horseshoes. Limited TV stations - 8 actually
but not ABC. No washing of vehicles. |
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Below: The new yard of
the two RV Gypsies - August 23, 2009 |
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Below: The two RV Gypsies
enjoyed the 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; The sidewalks were
blue with hockey players on them. |
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Below: A painting on a building in
the city, |
Below: Street signs had trains on them
too |
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| Below; There are
7 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: Karen
Duquette took some photos as the two RV Gypsies left McBride the next
day. |
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| OH
NO !!!! - After driving about 30 miles, 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 their RV to fit in. Then they stopped to
investigate the problem. One of the inner back tires had blown out. While
Lee was pumping air into the tire, Karen took a walk around the area and
photographed a beautiful river. |
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| Then Lee Duquette determined that the tire
needed to be replaced, so the two RV Gypsies slowly drove back to McBride.
On the way back to McBride, a deer crossed the road in front of their RV. |
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| Oh no!!! The Goodyear
Garage in McBride was closed, and the only 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. (Note: AWO stands
for "All We Own" because it is the only home the two RV Gypsies
have - as explained in the About Us button at the top of the page) |
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| Below: In the morning, AWO was put in for repair,
and the two RV Gypsies drove their toad to Beaver Falls. |
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| Below: Karen Duquette was looking left and
photographing the above sign. Lee Duquette (the driver) was looking left
too, then suddenly hit his brakes. The road had ended and there was a drop
down to the river. Good thing Lee looked forward in time and had good reflexes.
It would not have been nice if they had driven into the river. All's well
that end's well. |
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Below: All is well, so
the two RV Gypsies headed down the path to Beaver Falls. |
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Below: Beaver Falls is
small, but still a strong, powerful, beautiful falls. |
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| Below: After a short
time, it was time to leave because Lee Duquette still was not feeling very
well, and the hike was a strain on him. |
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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.
Visit sites in the order they happened, 
