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Formerly the Guard House at Baldy Hughes USAF Radar Base |
The last couple of days we’ve been driving toward the border. In Prince George, we detoured back 56 years to when I lived at Baldy Hughes, Canada. When my family and I lived there, Baldy Hughes was a US Air Force radar base (yes in Canada—it was the Cold War era). In 1961-1962 my family lived at Baldy Hughes radar site for a 9-month period. I remember the topography and where my two brothers and I would sled down the roads or hills between the roads. I remember the beaver pond behind our on-base trailer. The pond froze hard in winter and it was a forbidden but irresistible curiosity for us. I remember long drills where all base residents had to shelter together in the dining hall with the black-out curtains drawn. I wanted to walk along those streets again and try to identify where we lived, but, Baldy Hughes is now a long-term residential drug treatment facility and security might be tighter than it was when it was a USAF radar site. We were refused entry, but the resident in charge pointed out the only two remaining buildings (the gate guard house and another building at the entrance) from the radar site. He confirmed that there is still a marsh with a beaver house along the far boundary that freezes in the winter. The ball diamond is still there. In the winter, the base fire department flooded the field and the baseball diamond became our ice skating rink. My trip down memory lane ended at the gate.
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One-room school house at Baldy Hughes |
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My brother Tim in front of our trailer with our gray Rambler in the background |
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In my room (the end of the trailer) with my two brothers |
Before going back in time, we spent 2 nights (9/22-23) in Tumbler Ridge because of the photograph we saw of Kinuseo Falls. The woman at the Visitor’s Center told us Kinuseo Falls is near the end of a 47k gravel road in Monkman Provincial Park near Tumbler Ridge. Her last words to us were to make sure we had a good spare. In deference to our tires, we drove slowly down the gravel road dodging the potholes and bumps. The waterfall is 197 feet/70 meters high making it slightly higher than Niagara though it doesn’t move the same volume of water. We walked to the various viewpoints high and riverside, but the best view is probably from the river jet boat tours that one can take earlier in the season. Even so, the scenery at the top was beautiful with the fall color of the aspens shining through the conifer forest.
On the rock wall above and behind the falls the folding and faulting which occurred with the uplift of the Rockies millions of years ago can be seen as an “S” curve.
Tumbler Ridge was just another depressed former coal town until a couple of young boys found footprints on the exposed rock bordering the river.
Some of the dinosaur footprints are still visible in the rocks. As a result, a dinosaur museum has been founded in Tumbler Ridge. It is also a great destination for hiking and birding.
Leaving Tumbler Ridge on Sunday, September 24, we headed south again in periodic rain showers. We drove through Chetwynd the home of hundreds of chainsaw carvings. These were very fine and the winners were from all over the world. When we drove back through the Northern Canadian Rockies, all the peaks were covered in clouds but the gold of the aspens was stunning.
We crossed back into the US and will have one more night on the road before we get home. We overnighted at Omak, Washington. The Okanagan Valley of Canada just north of the border is beautiful. It is an irrigated wine and fruit growing region nestled between the dry cliffs and mountains of the Cascades. Peachland on Lake Okanagan would be a wonderful place to hang out sometime....
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