A wet sitting area
Back into Canada it was for me travelling some familiar roads with a friend. Border crossing are always unpredictable: would we have smooth sailing or unusual questions and delays? Join me heading north, where our stop would be at the oldest ghost town in the Eastern Kootenays.
We left camp reluctantly; the creek and meadow were nice and we had a rough road to get out. But my time down in the USA was done – it was time for me to return to Canada. Carolyn had been through with her RV once, her first crossing had not gone so well on the basic question of “where do you live?” “Full time nomad” is not one of the checkboxes customs has, as I’ve discussed before. You need to be prepared with a home, destination, length of stay, and reason (tourist!) for crossing the border. This goes both ways, although returning to your home country you can add ‘what did you purchase?’ to the list of basic questions you need to be ready for.
We stopped for gas in Eureka, although at the time the gas was not that much more expensive in Canada. It’s still worth it though. I went through the border first, expecting to get pulled in to fill out paper and pay for my thousand dollarish amount of goods I was returning with. I declared my estimated value along with the standard questions and get waved through. I guess they don’t always bother for the $10ish dollars I’d have had to pay. I’m just glad I didn’t have to deal with the extra new tarrifs. I probably would have owed the same still – my understanding is you can put your higher tax level items in your $800 exemption, hopefully just having 5% GST items remaining to pay on. At any rate, it was a good lesson – if you are only slightly over the limit, customs may be nice and not pull you over for paperwork/$ as it’s not worth their effort for a small number of bucks.
I pulled over on the other side of the border to wait for Carolyn. I barely had time to go use the bathroom, she was through so quickly. Customs only asked the minimum questions and waved her on through. It makes me wonder if they are being lenient on obvious tourists. Americans are paranoid enough as it is, so perhaps the word from on up high is to try and not scare off the tourist $$$. But I also know that border experiences are highly variable. My next crossing under the exact same circumstances could result in them searching my rig, you just can’t be sure – which is the point for anyone contemplating shenanigans.
We continued on to Cranbrook, traveling familiar territory to me, new to Carolyn. I’m sure it’s impressive seeing the Rockies rise up to your right as you drive up to Highway 3 from the border. I had extra stuff to buy so I parked by the Walmart. Carolyn wanted to try a Canadian grocery store, so she parked at the other end of the lot where a Superstore was located. It is actually a bit of a unique shopping experience with all the extra goods they sell. The only thing I’ve seen like it in the USA are some of the new big Fry’s stores with the household goods and such. I ended up running across the parking lot to catch Carolyn before she went to the shopping carts. I knew she wouldn’t know about another unique Canadian thing you get: shopping carts requiring a Looney ($1 coin) to unlock. It’s refundable when you return the cart, so it’s more of a hassle than anything if you don’t have the coin. It’s not everywhere either, so you tend to forget if you have not been to coin using shopping area in a while. I have to recalibrate my shopping habits now every year I return to Canada: Looney? check. Shopping bags? check.
Shopping done, the plan was to head out to one of my favorite camps not too far from Cranbrook, near the ghost town of Fisherville. I’ve been there before, it was worth a return trip for the scenery and history to explore in the area. While the ghost town does not have much left in terms of structures, the signage is very good, if you can find it! The site was originally signed up I would guess in the 1950s, with some upkeep and new signage up to recent times. The old typewriter written paper behind plastic is history in itself these days – it is interesting to read the original sign and the ‘new’ sign where they have left both up. Details have changed, hopefully for more historical accuracy.
Old signs with new signs
This is a significant historical site: it was the first town to be established in the East Kootenays, for a gold rush of course. People would have been coming from Walla Walla, WA, over 500 kilometers away, or possibly the Okanagan Valley, which was just starting to be a fruit growing area at the time, but also over 500 kilometers away! People would come a long ways for the lure of gold. But now everything is overgrown, with a lot of trails being consumed by the vegetation. As the ghost town is quite a ways off the main highway up a somewhat daunting mountain road it doesn’t really have any maintenance priority for tourists. Only the barest minimum work is done to keep the road in and a few main trails clear. Thus everything else rots into the ground, leaving only signs and the many piles of rocks created by miners looking for gold. But at least you won’t be bothered by a bunch of other tourists at this site. Even on the weekends, only a few people visit the site each day. There is a pit toilet out there at least, which is good as it is a ways back to civilization if nature calls.
The snow got worse beyond here
There is quite a bit to explore around the area too. You can hike the old logging roads up the hills for some pretty good views. The motorcycle allowed me to explore far and wide. There are so many roads that even on my second time there I found many new roads to explore, and some new boondocking spots further from the ghost town. Even in May, the road leading up to one of the mountain climbing trails was still snowed in, which surprised me. But the road takes you way up and in the shady valleys; the deep snow does take a long time to melt away. It didn’t help that we had some cool wet days. There may even have been snow added that high up those days.
I’ll leave you with a few more pictures of our explorations of the ghost town and surroundings. See you next time as we head north to the edge of Yoho National Park to explore some falls!
