Saturday, December 5, 2015

My Awesome Experience In And Around Quesnel British Columbia (Pictures)


Above Photo: A gigantic gold pan and gold nugget in Quesnel, British Columbia.

Quesnel has always been a special place for me as friends and family had soured the back roads prospecting, fishing and hiking through the woods. Mostly it turned out to be a great get away.

Quesnel also has a wonderful museum that I have toured many a times, and each and every time I walk through it, I find something new from the past that I missed from a prior visit. Below is a link to Quesnel's Museum. The museum is closed for the winter and will reopen for the 
summers rush of tourists.

Quesnel & District Museum and Archives.

Also they have a Facebook page with all kinds of information and updates.

Ten Mile Lake Provincial Park is ten miles north of the city of Quesnel, it is an awesome place for camping. Ten Mile Lake has a large picnic area, boat launch, flush toilets and showers, three sandy beaches and campsites surrounded by trees. Best of all, the fishing can be great for rainbow trout, as I have caught them.


Above Photo: The Visitor’s Centre in Quesnel, British Columbia.

You can walk along a 2-km trail to a beaver pond and in winter there are roughly 10km of cross country ski trails.

Here are a few lakes to go fishing on that are around Quesnel, the list is provided by Family Fishing Weekend - Father's Day:

There website is also for other locations as well: http://www.bcfamilyfishing.com/gofish/where_to_fish.htm

Bellos Lake, 20 km NW of Quesnel, rainbow trout.
Tzenzaicut Lake, 40 km SW of Quesnel, rainbow trout.
Jacobie Lake, 15 km west of Quesnel Lake, rainbow trout.
Milburn Lake, 20 km west of Quesnel, rainbow and brook trout.

Quesnel has numerous hiking trails. One good place I found for locating and planning your hike around Quesnel, B.C. is:

For all other areas around the world: 

Also there is the Bowron Lake Provincial Park Canoe circuit, this is a wilderness area and best let you read about all the safety information and all that the park offers.

Bowron Lake Provincial Park website:

For all the information on Quesnel, visit Tourism Quesnel.

The below story I wrote after a trip down to Barkerville, which is outside of Quesnel. It was one of the best adventures I have ever been on, so thank you Quesnel.

I love traveling around British Columbia and what I like more than anything, is traveling B.C. with great friends. On one of our adventures we headed for Quesnel, then the Barkerville area. In the below text you can read what our journey was like. It was a load of laughs.


Above Photo: Billy Barker Casino Hotel in downtown Quesnel, British Columbia. The Casino Hotel’s website is: http://www.billybarkercasino.com/

Times With Family And Friends, Our Great Adventure by Brian Vike.

It was time to try different things in my life so I moved to the northwestern part of British Columbia and landed in a beautiful small town called Houston. My brother-in-law and his brother lived here and we always had a really good time together. If it was doing nothing but yakking, fishing or out looking for some minerals, the times we shared were filled with fun and many laughs. 

We thought we would take a trip to the Barkerville area where there is a place that still holds good color and great fishing, so we got things ready and headed off. There was my son Jamie, Billy and his son Billy Jr., Boon and myself. We hooked the tent trailer to the truck, said our goodbyes and headed for the gold country. 


Above Photo: A really nice mural painting on the school.

What we were to find most, was mosquitoes and every kind of blood sucking bug that drained you darn near dry. Ice on the puddles when you woke up in the morning after freezing all night long. Underbrush that was so thick you would need a chain saw and six months to go one hundred feet, but still the country was really wonderful to see. 

We pulled into the Provincial campground at Barkerville the first night. Lots of good sites to stay in, we set up the tent trailer and the boys pup tent. We got things sorted out and were ready for an early start the next day. That evening we sat around the camp fire having a few drinks telling stories and talking about what George and I had done. 

As the time was getting late, the two boys already had hit the hay and Billy and I climbed into the tent trailer. Boon was still outside finishing his drink and we were making ourselves comfortable inside the trailer, but alas..... we had forgotten to secure the metal back legs to the ground. Suddenly amid much chaotic squeals and moans, down we went, falling to one end. 


Above Photo: A mural painting showing a bear fishing for salmon found in 
Quesnel, British Columbia.

Bedding, drinks, food, and us. We looked amusingly like a see-saw gone wrong. All the weight at one end of the trailer, a few drinks under our belts and our smiles and laughter all made it a difficult task to "upright" ourselves. The more we tried the worse it got. Boon in the meantime couldn't control himself. He was in fits of laughter. Our stupidity and "helplessness" made it all the more funny. 

We asked Boon to help us, but that was like trying to get a cow to jump over the moon. He wanted to help, but couldn't. His brain and his body had malfunctioned at the sight of us all. Knowing that we were not going to get any assistance from old Boonie, we tried to sort ourselves out. We climbed, we laughed, we slid backwards. It seemed like for every step we went forward, we then went five steps in the other direction. 

After what seemed like hours, Billy made his way to the door to freedom and was able to help me escape the chaos inside. We finished the night with lots of laughter and said our prayers that we had not been captured on the "funniest home video show".


Above Photo: A really nice mural painting advertising the Billy Barker Days 
 in Quesnel, British Columbia.

After a hearty breakfast when the sun came up we all headed out on our adventure. The boys hadn't been aware of our late night predicament, but asked what all the laugher was about. Billy, Boon and I all looked at each other with smiles on our faces and timidly told our "sons" how brave we were in the face of complete disaster. 

Later we were out searching for that bed of gold when Billy spotted a small, but inviting lake. He wanted to wet his line. We made our way to the water's edge to surprisingly find a floating island of thick mossy grasses in the middle. We tossed our lines in and hoped of catching our lunch, and sure enough lunch appeared on the end. The fishing was excellent. They were so plentiful we decided to catch and release apart from the ones we had kept for our supper. While fishing to our hearts' content we all had an overwhelming urge to find out what was really on the little piece of floating land which so prominently took our attention. 


Above Photo: A sign in Quesnel points out the direction to the Barkerville historic town.

We had to have a look. Out came the boat, we carried it to the waters edge, launched her and our invasion commenced. Some invasion, as we retreated pretty quick smart. The first foot to land disappeared about six inches beneath the moss. The following foot followed the first foot. Up and down we all went with fishing rods in hand, looking like a bunch of ants on a bowl of jelly. Finding that the fishing was no better on "our" island we retreated to the safety of solid ground. 

We fished for the remaining few hours of that afternoon and decided to camp where we were. It would be a fresh start in the morning heading to a pre-arranged site which had been selected from one of George's and my sessions which was all marked down on the map. 

We had a regular map, we had aerial photographs and we had pinpointed exactly where we had to go. What we didn't realize at the time was that our trek was going to take us on a long hike through the toughest, and most dense territory we had ever been into. All the signs were right for gold, but the landscape was too tough for what time we had available to spend on this short trip. 

We decided it would be best to forget about this spot at this time and return at a later date. On our way home we stopped off at some rivers and small streams and tried our hand at panning. We came up with some really good color. This spot is still there and will be investigated further as I believe that what is there will be more than we all may realize. We had a fun trip, filled with laughs, good times and lots of fond memories. We will return to that friendly and wonderful 
Quesnel in British Columbia.


Above Photo: Sign displays historic Wells, Bowron Lakes and Barkerville.

Below Text: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Quesnel is a small city that is part of the Cariboo District of British Columbia, Canada. Located nearly evenly between the cities of Prince George and Williams Lake, it is on the main route to northern British Columbia and Yukon. It is claimed to be home to the world's largest gold pan, although this is disputed by Nome, Alaska. The Rocky Mountaineer train also travels through and stops overnight in Quesnel.

Quesnel is sister city to Shiraoi, Japan and Val-d'Or, Quebec. Quesnel hosted the 2000 British Columbia Winter Games, an annual provincial amateur sports competition. To the east of Quesnel lie Wells, Barkerville, and Bowron Lake Provincial Park, a popular canoeing 
destination in the Cariboo Mountains.

History:

The name is derived from Jules Maurice Quesnel, who accompanied Simon Fraser on his journey to the Pacific Ocean. Quesnel came to be called 'Quesnellemouth' to distinguish it from 'Quesnel Forks', 97 kilometres (60 mi) up river. In 1870 it had been shortened to Quesnelle and by 1900 it was spelled the way it is now. Quesnel is located along the gold mining trail known as the Cariboo Wagon Road and was the commercial centre of the Cariboo Gold Rush. 

It also marks one end of the Alexander MacKenzie Heritage Trail. Because of its location on the Fraser River it was also an important landing for sternwheelers during 1862 until 1886 and then from 1909 until 1921. The last sternwheeler on the upper Fraser was Quesnel's own namesake craft, and home town product, the Quesnel. Quesnel was incorporated in 1928.

For all things about Quesnel: Tourism Quesnel.

Travel British Columbia with Brian Vike blog, please contact me at b_vike@telus.net

Travel British Columbia with Brian Vike.

Travel Houston, British Columbia with Brian Vike.

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