{"id":343,"date":"2015-07-22T22:56:08","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T22:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/?p=343"},"modified":"2015-08-12T02:56:58","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T02:56:58","slug":"somewhere-down-that-lazy-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/?p=343","title":{"rendered":"Somewhere Down that Lazy River"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We took our time packing up camp, in between rounds of badminton. Our road continued west, and we rolled into Dawson Creek by lunchtime. This was Dawson Creek, British Columbia, not Dawson City, Yukon. Even though I know they’re different, I still expected to find more gold rush references. The names are just too similar. Dawson Creek’s claim to fame is as the start of\u00a0the scenic Alaska Highway, heading north. We browsed the info centre and then the adjoining art gallery, but weren’t impressed and found nothing further to see in town. Nothing much is going on in DC, you know?<\/p>\n

There was a pioneer village in Dawson Creek, but I cannot be dragged into those places, of which there is an example in every colonial settlement that once considered itself the last outpost of civilized people. I’ll say it once, simply: the only pioneers in the Americas were the indigenous people who populated the place 20000 years ago. Everyone else is just a self-deluded colonist. You can’t be a pioneer where people already live.<\/p>\n

I took this exact concern to the kids’ school principal, because Baby Girl was learning about ‘pioneers’ in social studies. When I asked BG if she knew what the word ‘pioneer’ meant, she said no. I explained that a pioneer was the first person to do something or go somewhere. Then I asked her who were the first people to live here. “We were!”, she said emphatically. “So the Europeans weren’t really pioneers then, were they?” “No! We were!” And thus a new generation of activists is created.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Some bit of tourist literature led us north out of Dawson Creek along the Alaska Highway, to a turn-off which led to the old Alaska Highway route, and a very cool bridge. The Kiskatinaw bridge in Kiskatinaw Provincial Park<\/a> is entirely made of wood, and also curved along its length. Owing to the curve, the bridge is banked as well, which gives a curious sensation that you’re drifting towards the side and the low guard rail.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mama is not so good with heights and stayed away from the railing, but I had a look. In the river valley below we could see a couple of groups of picnickers swimming in the murky water. That was enough of an endorsement for us. We grabbed our swim suits and found a precipitous trail beside the bridge down into the valley.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The water was brown with sand, and the temperature wasn’t bad after a minute or two immersed. Someone had hung a rope swing from one of the great girders of the bridge, for swinging and jumping into the water. We wasted no time trying it out. Those Johnston Kids are pretty strong swimmers, so I was confident in lifting them up to ride the swing out and drop into the centre of the river. The current was pretty lazy. After a while, other little kids joined us and I was ‘everyone’s father’ as Mama put it, lifting the small ones up to the rope (with parental permission, of course).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We spent a happy few hours playing with the swing and combing the shores and shoals of the river for interesting rocks. We always come home from trips with kilos of stones. The kids swam until they ran out of energy and body heat, and then we all climbed back up to the car. It was a really great afternoon, and all the better for being a serendipitous find.<\/p>\n

Google couldn’t find a route to our intended camp ground, Pine le Moray Provincial Park<\/a>, so we sort of guessed where we thought it would be, and headed that way. In the end, we missed Pine le Moray entirely. After we realised our mistake we just pulled into the next little campground we came across, Tudyah Provincial Park<\/a>. It was okay, but the only amenities were outhouses and water from a pump that required actual pumping. The kids thought the pump was fun until I chased them away. There was a real risk that they would have drained the aquifer. Mama says most parks in BC are pretty much the same: super cheap, but no services. We’ll have to find some other strategy to charge our electronic umbilicals, perhaps even the occasional stay in a dreaded RV park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We took our time packing up camp, in between rounds of badminton. Our road continued west, and we rolled into Dawson Creek by lunchtime. This was Dawson Creek, British Columbia, not Dawson City, Yukon. Even though I know they’re different, I still expected to find more gold rush references. The names are just too similar. … Continue reading Somewhere Down that Lazy River<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555,"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thosejohnstonkids.ca\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}