Maxi, Jay and Charlie drove toward British Columbia on July 8th, but the photos in this post will not have those beautiful, clear blue skies we’ve been enjoying. There’s a wildfire up ahead:

That tiny spot in the middle of the photo is the sun! The fire is actually up in Alberta probably 100 kilometers from the guys.

Today was also upsetting because this is when they discovered that the Dempster Highway (now know as Devil Dempster!) had sliced the wiring harness under the trailer, so the guys had no brake lights on the trailer. They’ve revamped their homeward itinerary in order reach Prince George as quickly as possible so they can get a repair done there.

Sunday, July 9th found them enjoying the wildlife and the scenery in spite of the lack of taillights.

Most of the photos of Muncho Lake are too smokey to be useable, but here are a couple:

I believe this is one of the largest lakes in British Columbia, if not all of Canada; it’s approximately 7.5 miles long. The word “muncho” comes from the local Kaska aboriginal name meaning ‘big water.’

Nearby is the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum. Of course, the cars caught the guys’ attention!

That last photo is a Yukon Tree trunk. We saw one or two earlier. Their trunks seem to have strange growths, but I can’t find any explanation. I can only hope the guys bring home an explanatory pamphlet from one of the visitor centers.

Nice to know the Laird Hot Springs is encircled by bear-proof fencing.

An amusing note… The guys spent the night in a community called Wonowon. I assumed that was an indigenous word, but no! The present-day community name is derived from the mile number, “one-oh-one”, due to its location at the 101 mile marker on the 97 Highway. Historically the area was known as Blueberry. (PS — since Canada uses kilometers, why are the highway mileage markers in miles?)

That’s it for today, except for one last test of the photo loading problem — if you have not experienced the problem viewing my photos, feel free to ignore this. I am going to load a new version of an earlier photo that caused problems. If the solution WordPress has suggested works, it should load normally. (Fingers crossed!)

Thank you, and I hope this is the end of photo problems!