SMITHERS

July 4th, 2014

Smithers is quite a nice town – small but yet with all the amenities you could want. They’ve made a serious attempt to make the town look like an alpine village with bricklock sidewalks and ‘swiss-looking’ storefronts. Friendly people and a sunny day and all is good! We are camped at the Riverside Municipal Campground, which as the name suggests is owned and run by the Town of Smithers and is located next to the Bulkley River just outside of town.

Smithers Riverside Municipal Campground

We only spent the day here to get a few things done including repairing a cracked windshield, doing some RV maintenance (oil change and new air filter), some well needed cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping.

Post Update: We would spend some more time in Smithers on our next trip north in 2016 including an epic hike up Hudson Bay Mountain. Click the link to check out our post.

Smithers – Hudson Bay Mountain in the background

Main St, Smithers

This morning we headed out of Smithers after stopping in Safeway for a few last-minute groceries.

We had only intended on driving 40km or so to a Rec site I’d noticed on the Backroads Maps book … was on a river with fishing etc. (Bulkley River Rec. Site) When we found it tho … it did not have RV sites as indicated in the book … only a walk-in to some tent sites. So we left there to our next choice –Kager Lake Rec Site – only to find it was not very nice – high off the lake and only a few sites in the trees with a few other campers there already. We set off again … up a long gravel road where there were 2 rec sites … Pinkut Lake and Division Lake. Pinkut Lake is quite a large lake and it was evidently the popular camping spot in the area as it was full.

Road to Division Lake Rec Site

Lots of kids, bikes, generators and groups of people. Not my idea of great – even if it was free. We headed back to Division Lake which is sort of an open site with 4 tables/firepits and it was empty. So we headed in and made camp. It’s right on the lake – but it’s a smallish lake and the view isn’t quite as nice as some … but it’s free and no one else around – so far.