Rest and Refuel Day : Prince George - and S.D. Goes Native

Day 5 : June 4, Quesnel to Prince George 60 miles

Mr Prince George
the giant lumber guy?

It was the moment that he turned to me and said, "The mosquitoes are wicked bad, eh?" that I knew S.D. had gone native. Still retaining the important Boston idioms, S.D. had picked up the ubiquitous Canadian 'eh'.

We were in Prince George, BC for a day of stocking up, doing laundry, accessing the interwebs, and chatting with the locals. The eh's were everywhere and they were contagious.  I dare anyone to spend more than 3 days in Canada, or with a Canadian and not start sprinkling them randomly into sentences. Sometimes they turn a statement into a question, as in "20 degrees Celsius is 70 Fahrenheit, eh?".  Sometime it is attached at the end of a statement to provide emphasis. 'It's a gravel road, eh." meaning, you know it's a really bad, gravel road that you really might not want to haul your trailer down. And then it also shows up in the middle of long sentences or paragraphs, seemingly just to make the listener nod and acknowledge that they are still listening. For example:

60 ft. Fly Rod
(for Mr P.G.?)

Private, Provincial and Canadian stores all sell liquor. Private stores usually have a larger selection, eh, but the prices are higher. The Provincial stores only charge Canadian tax, eh but don't carry much beer. The Canadian stores are the best deal, but there aren't all that many, eh....

Regardless, we stocked up as tomorrow we're headed West along the Yellowhead Highway, into the Lake District. There aren't many towns, fewer liquor stores of any kind, lots of lakes and apparently, the mosquitoes will be wicked bad, eh?

Day 6 : June 5, Prince George to Telkwa 220 miles

An hour west of Prince George as we approached the first town of the day I asked S.D. if he wanted coffee?

Canada, eh.

"Timmies, eh." he replied. Sipping our Tim Horton's regular brew was another truely Canadian experience. It wasn't as bad as I'd remembered. Extremely mild, but smooth enough.

Later that night, our Canadian experience reached an even deeper level. Camped beside Lake Telkwa we listened to Loons, the very inspiration for the Canadian dollar, call and wail. Long into the night... long past sunset (at 10:15), they continued to call.

It had been a longer than usual driving day. The road was relatively straight, rolling and easy driving, the countryside rural, mostly farming. Where there were woods, they were primarily aspen and pine. The towns, the few that there were, were small rural towns. A grocery store, gas station, post office, lumber mill and Tim Hortons. It looked a lot like New Brunswick. Nice, but no reason for tourists to stop and hang around.

Red Winged Black Bird at Lake Telkwa

We finally stopped just outside Smithers and camped beside the large Lake Telkwa, and underneath Hudson Bay Mountain, the first big mountain we'd seen in a few days. The site was nice and close enough to the lake where we could see the water shimmering in the sunlight and the mosquitoes wouldn't have to travel far for their dinner.