2005/07 Alaska Trip - North to Alaska - Moricetown |
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Monday July 11th
Now that we’d unhitched the trailer for a day, we felt like we were vacationing rather than just traveling. Sandie 
and I had spent a day in the Smithers area last year and had a great time, so we knew the best spots to visit.
Our first stop was at Twin Falls, where the meltwater pours off the glacier on Hudson Bay Mountain and drops hundreds of feet into the valley. We’d camped there last year with the motorhome, a noisy spot with all the water rushing. This time there was enough water to feed three waterfalls, great scenery for our drought-stricken Australians.
From there we drove to Moricetown and another waterfall. This one is on the Bulkley River and it’s very different. The big, wide river is constricted by the mountains and drops with a waterfall into a narrow gorge, and the Indians take full advantage of this to catch the incoming salmon. They have platforms all around the waterfall for them to stand and net or gaff the salmon. They told us that the salmon were late this year, so there wasn’t much fishing going on yet. There was some excitement though, as a black bear had fallen into the waterfall and been swept under one of the fishing platforms. The Indians were pulling the platform up with ropes and persuading the bear to come out.
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Yellowhead Highway (Moricetown) |
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We were all poised to take pictures of this event, expecting the bear to come out and run straight along the river, as there was a clear path. Bears don’t think like humans though, and this one decided that the best way out was up the steep bank that we were perched on. It was a close race between John and Edna and the bear for the front seat of the truck. My last picture before running had a lot of bear in the frame.
After all this excitement, we were ready for our picnic but found we had all the ingredients and equipment for our fry-up except for the frying pan! Luckily another bear watcher, a German who was camped nearby, offered us a loan of his, so we drove to his campsite and cooked our lunch there.