Now that I was done fixing my furnace, my plan was to head into the Big Bend area of the Columbia Valley, an area the Trans-Canada Highway used to go through many moons ago. But first I had a little side adventure all the way to Surrey, BC, with a bit of toursity stopping along the way home. Join me for some random stops along the way back to Alberta.
My friend Colette had to go pick up a dog in Surrey, BC. I was tagging along to share in the driving and provide company. We were not in a huge hurry so we stopped along the way back to see a few sights. We overnighted at Harrison Hot Springs, a vacation village not that far from where we picked up “Elvis”, our dog in transport. We arrived after dark, having done all the driving to Surrey with dog pickup in one go. Our trip back was planned for two days, allowing us a bit of time to tourist around a bit.
We stayed at the Harrison Lake Hotel. I’d say two star hotel is a fair rating. It’s one block off of the lake and cheap. It is worn and dull. We got a great rate for shoulder season in part because the power was scheduled to be off for the night. So no elevators, use your phone light to navigate the hallways. The place was empty so no noise to speak of. I slept great. I was looking at the googles reviews: they make the hotel sound much worse than it is. You’re going to get stains and corner mold in an old hotel. The service was fine, but we didn’t even check out the continental breakfast – we wanted full breaky.
I’d never been to Harrison Lake. It’s not the kind of place I’d normally go, being close to the Vancouver metro area. Morning dawned with power and new vistas. It was quieter than I expected, even allowing for it being mid-week. There were only a few people around while we were taking Elvis for a morning walk. I expect it’s overrun with people in the summer. But we were there in mid September. There was just bit of early fall chill in the air, but overall it was pleasant. We had breakfast at the Lakeview Restaurant. It was a locals place with a lot of them coming in for a meal too. The food was fine with fair pricing. I’d check it out for the advertised gelato if I was there later in the day. We did not visit the hot springs, I don’t think they were even open.
As we were not in a hurry, we opted to drive a more back road route at least through to Kamloops. We took Highway 7 to Hope, then the Trans-Canada Highway through the Fraser Canyon. If you’re not from these parts you might think this doesn’t sound like a back road route, but it is. Many years ago now, the BC government built a freeway bypassing the Fraser Canyon, heading to Merritt, then onto Kamloops. It’s a more direct route and way less curvy than the canyon I can confirm. Why they called the new route “Highway 5” is beyond me, it just creates confusion among the tourists who rightly assume the Trans-Canada Highway #1 is the direct route to Vancouver.
I expected the Fraser Canyon to be a bit more scenic, but the views are limited – often in places where you can’t pull over to get a good picture. We’d see a spot to stop and get a picture just a little too late, or just too unsafe to pull off the highway. It’s definitely a windy road in places, with quite variable quality of road. I guess it had been upgraded over the years when it was still the main highway. Now that it was more of a local road, there were still a few upgrades happening, we drove through one actually. But there are stretches that still are pretty narrow with sharp corners – you need to be paying attention to the road.
Altar at the entrance to the museum
We stopped in Lytton to visit the Chinese History Museum. Lytton is the village that was mostly destroyed by fire in 2021. There still is a lot of open space that once had buildings there. Sad to say, I doubt most of that space will get buildings again. The museum is small but cool. A lot of artifacts have been donated by families of rail workers who have had items passed down to them by their railroad working ancestors. It is now a fading bit of culture in Western Canada, but once upon a time every town had its chinese restaurant, with cities having many such options. They were one of the businesses that were setup by the Chinese rail workers who remained in Canada after the construction work wrapped up.
La John
Onward we drove, stopping in Spences Bridge for lunch at the Log Cabin Pub. The experience there was nothing to write home about, only the bathrooms were notable for the sanctioned graffiti covering every surface. Our overnight was in Salmon Arm, where getting a room for the night was more difficult than I expected. Evidently even in mid-September shoulder season for tourists, the hotels along the highway fill up at night, at least in that area. Salmon Arm isn’t tiny at least – we ended up taking the last dog friendly room at the next place down the way.
Chinese Lunch Box for your local fruit
The following day, we stopped at DeMille’s Farm Market for a bit of late season fruit and other goodies that they sell. It’s not cheap, but it is good, for the most part. Don’t go buying any out of season fruit here or at any other large business stands – the non-local stuff is essentially the same fruit the supermarkets have at a higher price. I’m always looking for local stuff you can’t get in the supermarkets, but they take advantage of you being there to sell you the same fruit and preserved goods you can get everywhere else. We also hit Fruit World in Sicamous, which we’d never been to before. It turned out to be pretty good too – I ended up buying some dried fruit I’d not find in big box stores.
Snow plow car at the museum
Revelstoke was our next stop. We decided to visit the Railway Museum, which is a pretty extensive set of displays, both indoor and outdoor. They have a lot of vintage railcars, in fact more than they can afford to restore at this point. Every museum’s problem ever is not enough money for all the displays they’d like to do. You can tour through a bunch of the passenger cars and get a sense of what it was like to travel by rail up to the 1950s. There is a lot of information about the history of the area, from the challenges of building over the mountain ranges here to the decline of passenger service as automobile travel took over. The museum is an expansion of the original passenger station, apart from that they don’t have any historic buildings on the site. 
For comparison, the Ely Railway Museum is much smaller inside, but has a whole working railyard with historic buildings. Revelstoke Railway Museum is worth a stop, although they were reminding me of my age with some of the “newer” cars on the tracks being some of what I remember seeing as a kid out there. I keep having to remind myself that early diesel locomotive power is history now.
Ski fence Golden
We decided to head to Golden for lunch, as there was some sort of festival going on in the center of Revelstoke so parking and even getting into a place to eat looked to be too much of a challenge. Golden isn’t too touristy yet, but it is starting to get a bit of a Banff vibe in the center area. We ate at The Bar and Grill, nothing memorable in my books but nothing bad either. I expect Golden is only going to get more touristy now that the highway from Calgary is much improved. It’s a little far from Calgary, but you have mountains, ski hills, scenery and not the crazy crowds of Banff. Some people are going to drive the extra hour and a bit to avoid those crowds.
We booted it back home from here, with the day getting on. I was going to be coming back through here shortly on my way to explore the remains of the Big Bend Highway. Join me next time for adventures out there.
