Wells, British Columbia, Canada
July 15, 2019
Less that an hours drive South down Highway 97 from where we stayed last night brought us to the small but busy town of Quesnel. As we pulled into town we struggled to find a parking space, the place was bustling and bursting at the seams. After eventually finding a spot to park Buddy up at we moseyed into the centre to find out that something called “Billy Barker days” was happening. Billy Barker days is a family festival celebrating the towns Gold Rush heritage and it spans 4 days. As it’s the summer holidays at this time in Canada this makes for a very busy event on the Quesnel calendar. The main streets in the centre were closed off from traffic and a variety of craft and food stalls were crammed in to the streets instead. A big field near the tourist centre had turned into a fair ground and the whole town had a great and colourful lively feel about it. We hung around for a while, sampling some food and checking out the stalls before checking out the tourist centre to see what we could do nearby.
We found out about a place called Barkerville which sounded really interesting. Tying in with the Billy Barker days, Barkerville was where Billy Barker first struck gold at Williams creek. This triggered a multi billion dollar gold rush in the area which was the catalyst for the birth of the British Columbia province as a whole. Barkerville was named in honour of Billy and the small town now consists of 125 heritage buildings and several museums and shops. It looked really interesting so we decided to take a drive up to see what it was all about. It lies 85km to the East of Quesnel and an hour and a half’s drive later we arrived at the entrance to the town. What we didn’t read in any of the literature at the tourist centre is that you have to pay a pretty steep entry fee to gain access to the town. It’s fenced off and you have to go through an entrance building and pay your fee before you can go through to the town itself. Being travel paupers we felt the fee was too much for us and unfortunately we didn’t head in. Instead we headed a short drive back down the road to the small and interesting looking town of Wells that we had passed on the way in.
I think we made the right choice though. Despite Bakerville looking interesting from the small amount we could see over the fence it looked very much like a restored tourist attraction with more than enough shops trying to lighten your wallet in return for a cheesy souvenir. Wells however looked colourful, artistic and like no other town we have stumbled across in Canada so far. It has a population of less than 300 and what was originally a small mining town has now become a tourist attraction in it’s own right with many people staying here overnight when they are visiting Bakerville. It’s become a local centre for arts over recent years with a strong community of artists now living in the town with their amazing works on display on pretty much every building in town. Brilliant murals adorn most buildings and those buildings that don’t are artworks in their own right given the variety of colours on display. It was a very cool place to explore for a couple of hours and it certainly made the drive out to Bakerville feel worth while.
After enjoying the delights of Wells we headed a small way back up the road towards Bakerville and to an interesting house we had spotted on the way past that had old cars and all sorts of trinkets on display outside. We pulled up and as I was taking a few photos the owner of the house popped out to see us. The guy was an interesting character to say the least. A little scary given some of his stories about previous experiences with other visitors that he has put up for the night or weeks at a time. He gave us the impression that he could easily be some kind of strange killer from a Stephen King novel. He asked where we were headed next and stupidly I told him that we were headed off on a remote forest road from here in search of a camping spot we had read about at a place called Likely. He knew the road well and after saying our goodbyes and driving off I spent the next hour constantly checking my rear view mirror to see if he was following us in his battered red chevy truck. Thankfully he wasn’t so we settled in for a long 100km drive into the wilderness.
Now unless your local and familiar with the network of rough back roads it is hard at times to navigate these forest tracks. We came across a small junction where the signs weren’t very clear about which way we should be headed. It also mentioned that it was against the law to drive along certain roads in this area and from looking at the map underneath the sign it was impossible to work out exactly where we were and which way we should go let alone which way we couldn’t go. So, we made the decision to stick to the slightly wider looking main trail and headed off in search of Likely. About an hour later we passed a truck at the side of the road which had broken down with a family of locals around it trying to get going again. Being decent folks we pulled up and asked if they needed help. The guys completely ignored us and one of the women gave us a strange cackle without looking up, and that was all. Hmm time to keep going we thought, so off we headed again.
After a while we didn’t seem to be making any progress at all. These roads don’t show on any of Googles maps so what we normally do is save an offline map, pin the place we are trying to get to and then follow our little blue dot which hopefully takes us to our destination. The more we kept driving up this road the further away our blue dot was moving from our destination flag. It wasn’t looking good to be fair so we made the tough decision to turn round and head all the way back to the small junction we had passed a while ago. Back past the cackling family of potential lunatics and eventually back to the junction.
Not far past the junction up the other trail we spotted a small free rec site to park up at and with time getting on we decided to take a look and see what it was like. It looked lovely, next to a small lake and appeared empty until we turned past some trees to find another guy already parked up and sat out on his chair. The guy was donned in a stetson and sunglasses with a big grey beard and as is usual when you turn up at these spots we gave a cheery wave and a hello. Everyone does this, to be friendly and also to check that your neigbours are decent folk as well. Mr Stetson and shades must have thought he was too cool for this though as he didn’t flinch one bit when gave our greeting. Nothing, he just sat there motionless, staring back at us through his dark glasses. What the hell is going on with people round here. It’s all very well and good being a cool dude but you could at least say hello or acknowledge us. We slowly reversed our way back out with the stetson serial killer giving what we imagined was a pretty steely stare from behind his shades. We didn’t fancy a night spent next to this crazy fool so yet again we headed off up this other trail hopefully towards Likely and our wild camping spot.
Not much further up the trail we passed a couple of motor homes where some gold prospectors were living and mining. This type of activity still goes on round these parts and as we bounced our way past the motor homes there was a window full of open mouthed guys staring at us in disbelief. The road was already a bit rough and we started to wonder just how challenging it was going to get given the look the miners had given us as we rumbled past in our little GMC Safari van.
An hour or so later we found out just how tough it was going to be. We passed various industrial looking diggers and trucks strewn about and as the trail narrowed and the incline increased it became a fun game of trying to get buddy to keep moving forward. This trail must be hardly used. It had been raining as well which didn’t help us and it quickly turned into some kind of off-road mud challenge. Puddles of water in the rutted trails were hard to judge. The water may be only a few inches deep or it may be a two foot deep pot hole. You couldn’t tell until you drove through it. It really reminded me of riding the bike through Vietnam. A similar tale of trying to carefully pick your puddle only to disappear head first into a watery abyss.
Eventually the trail split at a fork and we stopped to decide what to do. The trail to the left was at least a 45 degree narrow incline of mud and Buddy with his 2 wheel drive would never make it. Standard 4×4’s wouldn’t have even managed it, hence why I think we passed some caterpillar tractors back where the prospectors where. The trail to the right……well it wasn’t a trail for long. It went for about 20 yards then was blocked by a huge tree trunk sat sideways across the path. This was it, the end of the trail. Around 4 hours of off-road driving only to head back down with my pride slightly wounded. It had still been a fun drive out all the same and on the way back down I asked Dani to take a video to show just what this trail was like. As she started the camera we approached a puddle in the ruts. As I mentioned before you can never tell how deep these things are and as we hit the puddle the front end of Buddy dropped down about a foot and a half and we stopped instantly with a bone shuddering jolt. Phone flying everywhere, our heads lashing about. Nothing gentle about it, just an instant crunching stop. Not good for Buddy or us but hey all we could do was laugh at this point.
Another hour back down this trail and we rolled past Wells again before eventually finding somewhere to park up for the night back towards Qesnal. It was dark and raining by then and we were happy just to park up, sort some food and then crash out for the night. It had been an interesting day to say the least and certainly one we wont forget in a hurry. We are loving these adventures in the van. At times you wonder if everything is going to be alright. You could break down or have an accident in the middle of nowhere and maybe not see another soul for days but to us that’s part of what makes it fun and why we do these things.
