(Posted 260628) Our next planned stop was in Chetwynd to see some of the chainsaw carvings there. Chetwynd hosts an International Chainsaw Championship annually, and many of the winners from past years are on display around the town. The problem was that this year's Championship happened to be this weekend - and we figured that meant crowds, traffic, and probably a lack of availability in the usual boondocking spots in the area since they'd be used by Championship visitors. Today, Sunday, was the final day of the Championship (with the awards ceremony at 3 p.m.) so we figured we'd play it safe and stay in a boondocking spot 37 km outside of town tonight and then head into Chetwynd tomorrow. But things didn't go exactly as planned . . .
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Despite the serene and peaceful appearance of the RV Park the previous day, Tom was awoken around 6 a.m. by some sort of domestic disturbance a few sites down (loud pounding on someone's door/hull, then some sort of argument, and finally a car tearing out of the RV park) and he couldn't fall back asleep afterwards and instead started researching repair/replace options for the Zero-G hose we use for flushing our black tank, that had started leaking from the handle grip area (on the coach end) back in Scatter Creek and has gotten progressively worse with every use since then. Luckily, so far the water has been flowing out the end of the grip and running down the hose outside the van, instead of flooding the area directly beneath the hose connector which would have been a far worse issue.
We were up at 8:30, and in addition to our regular morning routine we took advantage of being at an RV Park to take care of some other housekeeping tasks like cleaning the toilet and running some hydrogen peroxide down the sinks to get them to flow better (the latter was a procedure we had used on the EotRT with great success; it didn't work quite as well this time, and we had to do some manual drain cleaning as well), and finally refilling our freshwater one last time and dumping/flushing our tanks. Today, in addition to the water running out of the grip the hose had also sprung a pinhole leak slightly below the grip that was causing a nice little arc/fountain of water to spray out too; something is going to have to be done about that hose "soon".
After taking one last set of free-running-water showers in the bath house, we were back on the road just before noon.
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Our first stop of the day was 175 km north at Bijoux Falls Provincial Park. Bijoux Falls may have the distinction of having the shortest "from van to falls hiking distance" ever - about 30 steps. We had lunch while watching the falls through the windshield, and listening to its roar through the window.
After lunch, we walked the 30 steps outside to take some photos and video.
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Our next planned stop was another 78 km down the road, at a little boondocking site 38 km outside of Chetwynd because - as explained in the intro above - we were afraid that with this being the final day of the International Chainsaw Carving Championship we might run into traffic/crowds and/or might not be able to secure a spot in the Visitor Center RV Overflow Lot for the night.
On the way, we saw some pretty scenery . . .
. . . and our first black bear of the trip! Unfortunately, Christine was busy dealing with a mosquito at the time - and the bear was coming out of the woods, saw the car, and turned tail and ran back into the woods before we had much time to react - so this crappy dashcam screengrab and footage is all we have from the encounter.
As luck would have it, the iOverlander coordinates for our boondocking location weren't particularly accurate (and it didn't look particularly like its photos as it flew by at 100 kph) so we ended up passing our intended stopping point for the night. The one-lane each way highway wasn't really wide enough for us to safely attempt a turn-around - and the Awards Ceremony in Chetwynd started at 3 p.m., and our arrival at this point would be 4 p.m. - so we gambled on the fact that everything would be “over” and most folks would’ve cleared out and gone home by the time we arrived, and drove straight through to Chetwynd.
It turns out our original fears were completely unfounded. Chetwynd was a virtual ghost town when we rolled in, and the Visitor Center RV Overflow Lot was completely empty. We parked, and then spent a couple of hours viewing and photographing the chainsaw sculptures that lined the road in the immediate area. Some were much older than others (as evidenced by both the dates on their plaques, as well as the weathering of their varnish coating) and their subject matter varied greatly.
The little segment designated "Carver's Row" not only had some of the more recent carvings grouped closer together, but also had a water bottle fill station in the middle of it - a rarity so far in British Columbia.
We're not sure whether any of the pieces on this fountain came from one of the Championships, since there weren't any of the usual plaques anywhere around it.
We decided to pop in to the IGA Market as we passed by, to see if there was any good/cheap produce, anything interesting for dinner, or any chocolate covered espresso beans (which Tom eats to stay alert when driving some times, but our supply has been getting low). The produce at IGA was very picked over, though, and the prices in general seemed high to us; we ended up not buying anything there.
Across the street from the IGA was "Gerry's Freshmart" - which we assumed was some sort of grocery store / supermarket as well? It turned out that it was, and was better stocked (although still didn't sell chocolate covered espresso beans, as far as we could tell) and more reasonably priced than IGA. Christine bought some pears there.
Having seen "all" the carvings on our half of town, we decided to retire back to the T42 for the evening. For a little while we were able to pull in the free Wi-Fi from the A&W across the highway by putting our repeater up on the roof . . .
. . . but that eventually failed and we had to fall back to the low-speed Starlink instead. Dinner that night was tuna pasta (prepared at Hartway) with canned mixed veggies from Dollarama (which aren't as good as the Great Value ones from Walmart).
Tom worked on researching warranty options for our damaged Zero-G hose and then worked on blog post #6, while Christine worked on planning, until bedtime around midnight. Tomorrow was planned to be a "milestone day".
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