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After our stay at the beautiful Ellison Provincial Park during which we had several visiting times with Bob and Alice Padgham, dear friends from my teaching days in Nanaimo, we headed north on Tuesday, May 27. After a quick shopping stop in Kamloops, we headed up the South Yellowhead Highway (Hwy 5). This is a great highway with traffic quite sparse. The weather was beautiful and a few hours later we reached the North Thompson River Provincial Park.

Our site, beside the swiftly flowing North Thompson River, was quite awkward to back into. After a number of forward, backward efforts, I managed to safely park the fifth wheel onto the site. (Truck wheels coming quite close to the embankment edge had Sandy a tad on her own edge!!)

Other than periodic long trains passing on the other side of the river, the site was mostly peaceful, and there were lots of vacant sites. We hiked a few trails and then relaxed with our books. In the evening, a rather strong cell signal allowed us to watch a semi-final NBA game on my iPad – paired with my iPhone. (Aside: We have been able to watch most of the OKC-Minnesota games and the Indiana-NY Knicks games. Since I am cheering for Indiana, and for Oklahoma City, if OKC and Indiana meet in the final, I will have a difficult choice to make.)

On Wednesday, we headed a short distance further along Hwy 5 to Blue River RV Campground. The day was forecast to be very hot. (We have been wondering why we chose 2 camp grounds so close together when we did our bookings, but decided it was probably because we wanted to ensure that we had a place for dump-out and refreshing water supplies before reaching a 2 day layover in Jasper.)

Blue River turned out to be a lovely little burg, and our host suggested that we try a walk around Eleanor Lake across the highway. We eventually found the trail around Eleanor Lake and enjoyed the shady walk around a beautiful little lake in the heat of the afternoon (about 29º). The area is central for heli-skiing, and the resort there (Mike Wiegele Heli-Skiing Lodge) is spectacular with large log accommodations and halls.

On Thursday, in pouring rain and much cooler temperatures we headed further northeast to Jasper National Park. The Whistler Campground is just out of Jasper townsite (3 km) and the vast majority of campers are in RVs. The whole area was burned out by a major forest fire last year and dead snags are visible as far as can be seen. Work is being done daily to clear these snags, but there are very few standing live trees in Whistler Campground. Tents seem to be a rarity, and we later found several possible reasons.

The weather had cleared by the time we got set-up. After finding our site 29C, another Escape 5.0 pulled in nearby. We met Paul and Nancy Rogan from Pennsylvania, and over the next two days traded stories and notes on alterations that we have done to our units. They are on their way towards Alaska and the Dempster Highway.

On Friday, since we needed propane, we planned a drive into Jasper. On our loop out, we saw a grizzly searching out food stuffs not far from our site. Park Rangers were nearby and by the time we returned several hours later, the bear was gone from the premises. (Reason #1 for scarcity of tents?)

In town, we fueled up, and walked around on a warm, but windy day, stopping for lunch at a pizza place on Connaught Drive. Upon returning to the campsite, we encountered extremely gusty winds out of the southeast. (Would that be a possible reason for the name “Whistler” or was the campground named after a ground squirrel?) The high winds had almost torn a neighbour’s tent out of its moorings on our loop. With no one around, and the tent acting like a parachute upside down, we wrestled it back upright and use some strong bindings from our truck to secure it to the ground. (Reason #2 for scarcity of tents?)

Later when the winds had abated a bit, we were having dinner at our picnic table as a troupe of 4 elk wandered by us. These are very large animals, and campers are warned to stay clear of them! (Reason #3 for scarcity of tents?)

Our plans to keep heading to Ft. McMurray are in serious doubt. Wild fires around northern Alberta have been a concern, and yesterday, our granddaughter, Rebecca, sent us pictures of the smoke smothering Ft. McMurray – possibly from 3 fires in the area. We have been checking warnings, and alerts, and highway cams, and are beginning to realize that visiting that area may not be the wisest plan at this point. One of the “alerts” is from a small town of Conklin just south of the Fort, and awkwardly close to our highway route south after leaving Grégoire Lake. We may opt to avoid the area. We will decide by Monday.

As we drove to Edmonton today on Hwy 16, we had 2 very loud and startling cell phone Fire alerts – both were evacuation orders, and both just as we neared the Hwy 16 intersection that linked to those towns – Robb, (to the south) and Peers (to the north). We smelled (and saw) a bit of smoke, but air is clear in Acheson where are are now, at a place ironically called “Glowing Embers R.V. Park”.

After a 3 1/2 h drive we arrived at our site – about 10 minutes west of Edmonton. The young lady at the Registration bore a startling resemblance to our niece, Montana! (A doppelgänger!) She even laughed and talked like her. I hope I didn’t stare too much! As we left the Registration I asked Sandy, “Who does she remind you of?” Instantly response: ”Montana!”

Anyway…today is laundry and decision day!

Best wishes to you all!

Tony and Sandy