“It should be fine, it’s only a few hundred metres.” As our two small children hurriedly put on their little shoes and we haphazardly packed a small daypack with some water and a few odds and ends, that’s what we thought as we began our first foray into what would be nearly a month traveling through Western Canada. We were in Waterton Lakes National Park, our first time in the Rockies in years, and excited to get started on what our daughter excitedly announced as her first real hike.
But it wasn’t only a few hundred metres.
Our mistake. In our haste to get to the trailhead — and to change a dirty diaper, and make sure the kids had snacks, and intervene in a bout of hair pulling, and find the bear spray, and make sure everybody had sunscreen on, and pack at least one extra layer for everyone just in case, and so much more — we had only taken a quick glance at the map we got at the trail office. As we discovered a few hundred metres into our little hike, it was more like 3 kilometres round trip to Crandell Lake and back to the car.
In the end, it wasn’t a big deal. Even though we weren’t fully prepared with snacks and a few extras, and even though our youngest child could hardly handle walking on level terrain at that point, let alone over the rocks and roots of your typical Rockies trail, it was a great little hike. We quickly realized just how nice it was going to be to experience the Canadian wilderness with our kids that summer. And just how different things were going to be from our past trips as a young couple exploring the wild without kids.
From Berlin to the mountains
The journey began, of course, with a more traditional type of travel. Bus, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, four airports, three flights, one long layover, and a short drive with grandma and grandpa for a grand total of about twenty-seven hours without any proper sleep. If we survived that, we could survive anything!
From there, it was eight hours of the most boring driving on the planet, heading west with children’s music and audio books and naps and snacks until finally, finally we started to see the mountains.
After our wonderful little hike in Waterton, we set off with a three-car convoy to strike into British Columbia and find some of the best recreation site camping the province has to offer. With grandma, grandpa, auntie, and uncle along for the ride, it was sure to be a fun time for everyone.
Camping
When we weren’t driving, most of our time was spent camping. At face value, that meant finding a (free) camp spot, setting up the tent and our beds, collecting firewood, cooking breakfast and dinner, packing back up, driving our little car down roads a Corolla should not go, and repeating it all over again the next day. But in practice, it meant so much more than that: watching our kids discover new things and spend time with their extended family, watching the wildlife that wasn’t scared away by two noisy kids, picking so many Saskatoon berries, throwing rocks into rivers for hours at a time, waking up to warm sunshine and fresh breezes, scanning the horizon with binoculars, and savouring the unique and authentic taste of food cooked over a fire. Our children were filthy, cut, and bruised the entire time, but they had a blast, and isn’t that kind of the point?
With not much connectivity, it meant putting our phones away and focusing on ourselves and our family. And after the kids willingly went to bed after a long and busy day of digging, jumping, climbing, swimming, and who knows what else, it meant actually having the time to enjoy a couple of books beside the fire.
Swimming
It’s no coincidence that we were beside some sort of natural water source every night. Without providing much for services, every rec site is near some sort of natural water body to be used for drinking (after treatment), cooking, and washing. For weeks on end, there wasn’t a day that went by when we weren’t swimming in a lake or playing in a river somewhere. And when we went out for a day trip, it was often spent at a public beach somewhere. As a particular highlight, we visited Elliott’s favourite place in British Columbia, a wonderful natural hot spring left to be mostly natural, with only a few minor upgrades for the public to access it. And in just a few weeks, our daughter went from being relatively skeptical of the water to swimming almost all on her own! Meanwhile, our son never tired of filling up a bucket or other receptacle just to dump it again. Over and over. Forever.
Food
While food cooked over the fire is one thing, food enjoyed in the outdoors is another thing entirely. There is something so special about fire-cooked coffee, bacon, eggs, and warm bread eaten with a mountain or a lake as a backdrop that it just never gets old. We were delighted when our son discovered his joy for the classic campfire staple Red River Cereal (insider tip: it’s almost impossible to accidentally burn over a fire!). And aside from that, we enjoyed some of the finer bits of Canadian cuisine, with a special focus on BC beer and fruit… plus a bit of junk food along the way.
History
British Columbia might seem like a land filled with wonderful natural beauty (and it is!), but there’s also a fair amount of interesting human history across the province. From abandoned mining towns and railways to landscapes by Indigenous peoples to world-famous gold rushes to the difficult experiences of Chinese labourers, there’s a bit of everything. And while nature has reclaimed many of the traces, there is still much to see and learn.
Our route happened to follow a significant portion of the famous Cariboo wagon road, which originally wound its way up through BC from the coast, with many perils, heroes, road houses, and engineering feats, cementing it as a pivotal and influential moment in the history of the province. Much of the current highway #97 follows its original route, and there are a few attractions still left that hint at how it used to look over a century ago.
The wagon road terminated at the Barkerville goldfields, which is still a fairly intact and must-see place whether you’re interested in gold rush history or not. From a beer in the old restaurant to a stagecoach ride with heritage presenters in period dress (an instant recipe for extremely shy kids) and trying to take it all in, we had a blast!
Beautiful British Columbia
And through it all, every minute of every day, we were immersed in the sheer beauty of British Columbia. From unbelievable (and free!!) campsites in the most beautiful places to simply watching and listening and feeling the rhythm of nature, it felt so good to be surrounded by unrelenting natural beauty. Below are a few of our favourite shots.
An unexpected visitor
On the final few days of our trip, just as we were starting to rue the fact that we would soon need to retire from our time in the woods, we had an unexpected visitor from our neighbours to the South. Lisa’s father, eager to see his grandkids and never one to shy away from a road trip, took the long drive up from Idaho and met us not too far from the US border. In fact, the rec site we ended up at was hardly more than a stone’s throw from the border. Though we arrived in the chilly weather following the aftermath of a two-day downpour, the clouds soon cleared up and we enjoyed our final days soaking up everything that British Columbia has to offer.
The long journey home
After that, just before another odyssey of airplanes, trains, and buses back home to Berlin, we managed to survive the ever-monotonous drive across the prairies and went for a few little canoe outings in the tame waters of Southern Saskatchewan… just to give our kids a little taste of the adventures that will be to come once they’re old enough to properly hold a canoe paddle.
