Mt. Vernon, Washington

Good morning, my friends. It's our last morning on the road. We've crossed the border into the United States, and we're here to stay for a while. Probably a long while. We'll be doing more traveling eventually, but we have no plans to travel internationally at this point.

After the heat of the day before, we got on our way early. As it turns out, it never got very hot yesterday, but we took no chances. We needed fuel, and the cheapest fuel was down the road in the Ashcroft First Nation territory. As we drove across the bridge over the Thompson River, we noticed where newly-minted high school grads had left their marks.

We backtracked from the gas station. Along the way, I noticed this little chapel. I couldn't find any other information about it, but it was located in the area inhabited by the Ashcroft First Nation people.

Here, we had a good view of the town of Ashcroft. You can see the bridge on the left side of the image. We were camped on the far side of that bridge and on the right.

We crossed back over the bridge, and then we were on our way. Right away we started seeing barns. It was a barn-heavy drive.

In British Columbia, highways are built over the tops of mountains, rather than blasting through rock as we often see in the United States. So we headed up, up, up a steep grade. When we reached the top and drove over the top, we came across this interesting landscape. We thought, at first, that it was an earthen dam, but it looked so weird. And there was almost no water, so WTF?

Looking off in the other direction, it looked like this:

Very shortly after, we came to a view point that explained the whole thing. It's a tailings storage facility for Highland Valley Copper, Canada's largest copper mine.

We could see it for several miles of driving.

Look at all the piping in the center of the image below.

We've seen some mining operations in Montana by Anaconda Copper, but we've never seen anything as large as this.

Continuing on, we went down, down, down. It was an up and down drive. The next little town we came to was Logan Lake.

Possibly if we'd turned off somewhere, we might have seen more, but all we could see here was this row of stables. There was also a sign warning us to watch for horseback riders. Possibly this is some sort of horseback riding business? Hard to say.

There were many of these, although we didn't see any horses, nor any riders.

And then I just took lots of pictures of barns and rustic structures in varying stages of disrepair.

Here's Logan Lake.

And some more barns.

Here's another big bird's nest. We could see the bird, but we can't tell what it is. It looks to have a white breast(?). This could be an osprey.

Next, we passed through Merritt. It was the first town of any size. Once known as Forksdale, the community adopted its current name in 1906 in honor of mining engineer and railway promoter William Hamilton Merritt III. 

The town of Merritt was once host to an annual Merritt Mountain Music Festival that is estimated to have drawn as many as 148,000 people at its peak in the summer of 2005. The festival, along with the development of the Merritt Walk of Stars (a display of bronzed handprints from Mountainfest artists placed around the community), the Merritt Walk of Stars Mural Project (painted by artist Michelle Loughery), the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, Music in the Square and in the Park as well as other tourism development activities have solidified the city's branding as the Country Music Capital of Canada.

And oh look! A tunnel! My picture of the light at the end of the tunnel didn't turn out, and so you'll be spared my usual bad joke about that. I liked the bear relief decorations there.

The road took us alongside the city of Hope, but we didn't turn off there. The only thing we saw was the sign.

Here's an aerial view I found in the public domain.

(Image credit: "Aerial View, Hope BC" by PreparedBC is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)

Wikipedia tells us that Fort Hope was established in 1848–49 by chief trader Henry Newsham Peers. He discovered a route through the mountains that did not dip below the 49th parallel, which had become the American border. Thus, the hope that his route would be workable was fulfilled.

The Stó:lō people (historically known as Staulo, Stalo or Stahlo, and commonly referred to as the Fraser River Indians or Lower Fraser Salish) have lived in the Fraser Valley for around 8,000 to 10,000 years. In late 1782, a smallpox epidemic killed thousands – an estimated two-thirds of the population.

Explorer Simon Fraser (that guy got around) arrived in what is now Hope in 1808, and the Hudson's Bay Company created the Fort Hope trading post in 1848. The area was transformed by the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, beginning in 1858. The following year Governor James Douglas laid out the Fort Hope townsite. Hope became part of the new British colony of British Columbia when it was created in August, 1858. Along with the rest of British Columbia, Hope became part of Canada in 1871.

I took this next picture to show you how smoke had settled into the valley. We took an alternative route to the one that would have taken us through Lytton, where the wildfire is burning. Nevertheless, we saw plenty of smoke during our drive.

Here's another peaky peaked mountain. I checked the map, but couldn't identify it.

Just about the last town we passed through before leaving Canada was Chilliwack.

About two-thirds of city land is protected as part of the Agricultural Land Reserve, and agriculture accounts for about 30 percent of the local economy. It shows in the number of barns we passed by.

In the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of gold miners transited the area on their way to the goldfields of the upper Fraser River. By the mid-1860s, settlers had established farms around Codville's Landing, Miller's Landing, Minto Landing, Sumas Landing, and Chilliwack Landing along the Fraser River.

On April 26, 1873, the "Corporation of the Township of Chilliwhack" (note the variant spelling) became the third municipality incorporated by the Province of British Columbia. The town center at the time was concentrated at Chilliwhack Landing along the Fraser River. Steamboats were the main mode of transportation, carrying goods and passengers between Chilliwhack and New Westminster. After the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, many residents began to cross the Fraser River at Minto Landing to ride the train from Harrison Mills.

In 1881, with little room for expansion and the threat of floods constantly looming, the town center was moved south to "Five Corners" at the junction of the New Westminster-Yale Wagon Road, Wellington Avenue and Young Road. This subdivision was initially named "Centreville", but later was renamed "Chilliwack", as it was more commonly referred to by locals in 1887. The area would experience catastrophic flooding in 1894, 1935, 1948 and most recently in 2021.

So let's just see the barns of Chilliwack.

Phew! Lots of barns in a short period of time.

Okay...here we go. We're approaching the border.

And oh my. What a clusterf*ck this is. We waited about a half hour for our turn. Happily, we passed through with just a brief chat.

AND WE ARE BACK, BABY!

We drove a number of miles through an agricultural area before we reached Interstate 5.

Finally, we reached our final destination of Mt. Vernon, Washington.

Mount Vernon is the county seat of and the most populous city in Skagit County, Washington. A central location in the Skagit River Valley, the city is located 51 miles (82 km) south of the U.S.–Canada border and 60 miles (97 km) north of Seattle. The population was 35,219 at the 2020 census, making it the 35th most-populous city in Washington, with 62,966 people living in its urban area. It is one of two principal cities of and included in the Mount Vernon-Anacortes, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area, covering most of Skagit County.

Mount Vernon and the surrounding area is known for its annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival and hosts a street fair in downtown once a year with millions of tulips grown in the Skagit Valley annually. Between the 2000 and 2020 census, Mount Vernon grew by 34.3%, and is a prominent location in Northwestern Washington, connected to neighboring communities via Interstate 5 and Amtrak.

Okay, and so this morning we'll begin the final leg of our journey home. We have about 250 miles to drive today. We're holding off leaving a little while this morning in an attempt to avoid rush hour traffic going through Seattle. In our experience, traffic is always awful in Seattle, but we're hoping it won't be so bad after the morning rush is over.

From here, I'll probably take a couple of days off from blogging. When we reach home, we'll be unpacking and resettling ourselves. When I get my land legs under me, I'll be back to tell you what's going on. Thanks for being such good traveling companions during this trip. You were all so well-behaved, I barely noticed you were there. It's been a long road, so rest up, now. Sewing awaits.