Aggie & John's Roadtrip 2008: Day Four - Anhluut'ukwsim Laxmihl Angwinga'asanskwhl Nisga'a Provincial Park

We left Prince Rupert on a lovely sunny morning - quite a change from the miserable rain we arrived in. I loved our time in P.R. and was rather sad to leave as there were many other wildlife adventure tours we could go on!

Our end goal for day four was the Nisga's Lava Memorial Park - something that I had only learned about early in the spring when Nicole Vaugeois and some of our students visited it. The park encompasses a massive (over 30 minutes of driving does not lead from beginning to end) lava flow that claimed the lives of an estimated 2000 Nisga People. I was excited to finally see this amazing site but am saddened that I had never previously learned about it. Why is it that this amazingly unique geological and cultural feature is not taught in our school systems? I'm cynical enough to think that if it were an early British or European village wiped out by two volcanoes simultaneously erupting that we would have had to learn about it!

Anyway - back the trip! We started out in the morning after a quick stop at Tim Horton's where dad had the last of the "easy" coffee to date (more on that later)! We ended up stopping just outside town as I caught a glimpse of the Butze Rapids - a smaller version of the Sk00kumchuck narrows. The hiking trail was really well maintained and we walked past some of the largest skunk cabbage I've ever seen! The rapids were beautiful and more importantly I managed to get dad out for some exercise in the morning...he even had to leave his coffee behind! After this walk it was back into the truck and off again!

The Nisga Highway (Highway #113) is accessed from the Yellowhead Highway (16) just west of Terrace. The drive from Prince Rupert to Terrace is beautiful as you follow along the Skeana River and are surrounded by towering snow covered peaks. The drive is also not all that long - only about 240 kilometers. Of course we stopped a number of times to take pictures and stretch our legs! Dad is getting used to me ordering him to stand beside signs to have his photo taken!! He has also learned not to move before I've said he can!!!

We did a quick trip through Terrace but the tourism info centre was closed - it was Sunday but I was still surprised to see them closed on the long weekend. Anyway - we picked up some fuel and headed out to the Nisga Park.

We arrived in the park in early afternoon and stopped at the Lava Lake rest area to check in with tourism info. The gentlemen working there were somewhat helpful but a little abrupt - we were able to buy a guide for the self-drive tour though so it turned out to be an important stop! It was not long after that, that we really started driving through the lava flow - I'm not sure what I had expected to see but it definitely wasn't what was there! For as far as the eye could see there were mountains and lava - it must have been so unimaginably freightening for the people who lived in that valley.

Once in the park we headed to the provincial park campground, signed in, and set up camp. Once we discovered that there was no fishing (other than for Salmon) we decided to head out after only one night - Dad took great delight in instructing me on an important camping rule...only pay for camping one night at a time then you don't HAVE TO stay longer if you don't want to. In this case we decided to forfeit the extra $15 that I'd paid for the second night. As we had decided to move on after only one night, we finished up the driving tour of the park. Again I was struck by the vastness of the lava flows and by the terror that must have been felt by the people who lived in the valley. For frame of reference - the Nass River (an important Salmon river) was moved by the lava and there are sections within the park where the river bank is really a wall of solidified lava. The pictures below are some of the shots that we took on our tour.