Hell's Gate

This summer, for our holidays, we drove to Vanderhoof. Papa and a bunch of my family live there, plus, Grandma & Grandpa Klassen and more aunts, uncles and cousins came for the weekend for a family campout at Uncle Dick's.

It's about a 9 hour drive if you go fast and don't stop. We wanted to do the drive in two days and so took it slow and stopped frequently. It was a really hot day, so our first stop was for Popsicles.

When we came to Vancouver when I was a kid, my favourite parts of the drive were the tunnels in the Fraser Canyon and Hell's Gate. I forgot though, that summer also means construction and there was a fair bit of it all the way up. The highway is being upgraded to four lanes all the way to Prince George. So, after waiting at the front of the construction waiting line, we finally made it to Hell's Gate.

It was cool. (Especially because kids 5 and under are FREE! and a season's pass costs the same as a single ticket.) We took the tram down to the lower touristy level. It's a long way down.

First thing we saw out of the tram was the wishing well. It wasn't deep, so they could see all the coins in it. Very exciting.

We then panned a bit for gold. Good thing we'd had some practice at Science World the week before - we knew how to do it. Didn't find anything though. (And I think we were supposed to pay...)

We went for a walk on the suspension bridge. I was surprised that Rowan wasn't scared. When we were at the CN Tower, after he realized that he was looking at ground below him through the glass, he wouldn't walk on it anymore. The bridge had a steel deck, with plenty of holes, but he was completely not bothered by it.

A couple of years ago (maybe 2008), a new tribute to Simon Fraser was made. You can see the kids' little faces peeking through the railing. When Simon Fraser came down the Fraser River in his canoe 200 years ago, he got to this spot and had to climb around the rapids. In his journal he wrote "surely, this must be the gates to hell" and hence the area got the name Hell's Gate.