Volcanic trails of Canada

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Trails of Western Canada by Janick Lemieux and Pierre Bouchard

“Long ago, this land began to shake and rumble. Nature’s harmony had been upset. It started by the river, as one child took a humpback salmon from the water and slit open its back. Then he stuck sticks in the wound, lit them and made the salmon swim. The children were amused to see the fish swim up river with smoke coming from its back. The child slit open another salmon and stuck a piece of shale into its back. Then he made it swim, but the humpback floated on its side, weighed down by the shale. The children laughed, despite the elders’ warnings, and the ground rumbled. . . . Eventually, a noise like thunder was heard, the mountains broke open and fire gushed forth until it seemed that all rivers were afire. The people tried to escape, but as the fire came down the river, the forest was set ablaze and only a few of them got away. The cause of the conflagration was said by the shamans to be entirely due to the anger of the spirit world at the torture of the salmon,” recites our Native guide, Teddy, standing right on the edge of the crater where earth’s fire oozed out “long ago.”

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This gripping tale of the Nisga’a, a Tsimshian people who call Northwestern British Columbia’s Nass River Valley home, is the only First Nations legend about a volcanic eruption in Canada that’s been verified and validated by science. According to volcanologists, the natural disaster took place some 250 years ago and killed an estimated 2,000 Nisga’a, who died mainly from breathing the lethal gases that accompanied the lava flows that originated from Tseax cone (609 metres) — exactly where we stood with Teddy. This eruption is the most recent to occur in Canada, and the area has been radically transformed. It also encompasses evidence of previous eruptive episodes, and in 1993, it was designated a site for preservation and remembrance and called Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park.

Retracing our footsteps and getting out of the woods, we retrieved our bikes at the Park guides’ blue-container office and continued on B.C. Route 113, Nisga’a Highway, alongside the disappearing Tseax River, its foamy fluorescent water strangely and mysteriously running above or below ancient lava flows now covered by a vigorous forest. When we reached the mighty Nass amidst the extraterrestrial expanses of moss-covered volcanic boulders that fill a whole plain lined by snow-capped lofty peaks, we had just pedaled the same 20-kilometre course that the streams of molten rocks and minerals had traveled down from Tseax cone, one part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. The very select, distinct group of active volcanoes hiss, puff, and slumber in some of the most remote and magical spots of B.C. and the Yukon. It was time for an exhilarating ride! 24

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A SHORT RECAP Upon our return from Northern Japan and Far East Russia in December 2007, we left our mounts and gear on Canada’s West Coast and trusted them to our friend Jean-Luc in Victoria, B.C. We then continued eastward to our Quebec “base camp,” where we spent most of the winter refueling and preparing for our cyclovolcanic quest’s ultimate sortie: some 54,000 kilometres via the epic MTB trek, we “only” had to comb volcanic zones of Canada, Alaska and Hawaii in order to complete the undertaking and come full circle. At the end of May 2008, almost nine years to the day after we had embarked on this expedition, we were hitting the road again with the same desire to ride toward volcanoes, hoping to learn more about these pulsating www.pedalmag.com


Most known for its hotsprings, the massive volcanic complex actually produced the most powerful explosive eruption Canada has undergone in the last 10,000 years. Ash was blown east as far away as Alberta! Nowadays, a geothermal-power-plant project on its south flanks aims to tap into its vast reserves of energy, on the way to becoming the country’s largest. We paid our respects to the fiery colossus and backtracked a few dozen kilometres to start the laborious haul up Hurley Pass, gaining more than 1,000 metres of altitude in a mere 15 kilometres of nasty gravel — all adding up to a daunting, grueling icebreaker of a ride! Snowbanks at the summit were high indeed, and the descent to Gold Bridge tested our nerves and brakes and called for a celebration at the minute outpost’s only hotel, a saloonlike lodge with a lot of character. Its bison burgers, beer and fresh apple pie à la mode certainly did the trick!

mountains and ways of the hearty people who managed to beam and thrive in their shadow. If something did change during these years, it’s that this passion for all things volcanic had evolved — or degenerated — into an obsession and an addiction! Eager to resume our journey, we said our thanks and waived “au revoir ” to Jean-Luc, transited through Vancouver enjoying many a reunion with more friends and paying a visit to the Geological Survey of Canada’s volcanologists-inresidence, and headed to the Sea-to-Sky corridor in the heart of the Garibaldi volcanic belt with its namesake provincial park and stratovolcano (2,678 metres). GARIBALDI VOLCANIC BELT Just as La Niña and its record winter-snow dumps stood in our way during our patrol of the Cascades’ volcanoes in the spring of 1999, now the global meteorological cycle frustrated our efforts again. Our scheduled hikes and “semi-clandestine” rides into Garibaldi Provincial Park were postponed to the following fall upon our return from Alaska. As well, our stay in Whistler was extended as the steep infamous Hurley Road, our passage of predilection through the Coast Mountains, was still not open as there was too much snow up there! Fortunately, Whistler is not a bad place to get stuck, and we waited several days in the booming mountain-resort municipality until local authorities announced the opening of the vertiginous pass. We then finally got on our way down the Sea-to-Sky to Pemberton and up the Lillooet River Valley to the base of Mount Meager (2,680 metres). www.pedalmag.com

SWEET BYWAYS OF THE CHILCOTIN We kept going inland all the way to Lillooet and the Fraser by skirting glacier-fed Carpenter Lake and coasting down the stupendous Bridge River canyon, a dizzying helical chute through the mountains. This abyss-like descent catapulted us into a whole new world, a realm of steep, tall and dry slopes covered with sage brushes and pines — welcome to B.C.’s Interior Plateau! We refilled in Lillooet and crossed the river to reunite temporarily with Sea-to-Sky Highway’s pavement, only to get to Pavilion where we made a left to eat some more dirt, climb high again and enter a series of wild, sweet byways that crisscross the Cariboo country. Offering breathtaking vistas of the Fraser’s deeply cut gorge, the timeless paths zip through Canoe Creek, Dog Creek and Alkali Lake tribal lands with their gifted wild-horse catchers; by such iconic Canadian Far West ranches and homesteads as Gang Ranch, North America’s largest; and past countless stacks of organ pipes and other arrays of magmatic avatars, all exposed relics of Chilcotin Basalt Plateau’s ancient lava flows that shaped the land left and right of the impetuous Fraser several millions years ago. A stunning and easily accessible showcase of that geological process can be observed at Chasm Provincial Park, just off B.C. Highway 97, a few kilometres north of Clinton. We indulged in the roadside volcanic attraction and lingered there long enough to be invited by a sympathetic couple to use their Williams Lake log home as a pit stop: “We’ll be there in two or three days . . . we’re going the back way!” we announced to our future hosts while writing their phone number down in our B.C. Road and Recreational Atlas. We left Williams Lake with our panniers swollen with several days worth of food, including one kilo of our new friends Mike and Mira’s homemade smoked wild salmon (plenty to share with bears, we thought), and steered a course for the Pacific Coast again on B.C. Chilcotin Highway 20, another amazing road that translates into epic June 2010 PEDAL

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cycling. This time, we were heading to Bella Coola, hoping to catch glimpses of the distant volcanoes of the Itcha-Ilgachuz ranges and hike in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park South amidst the eroded and multi-hued cones of the Rainbow range (all considered parts of the Anahim volcanic belt, along with Nazko cone) to the east and the Milbanke Sound cones to the west. This drew a lot of attention and made national headlines in 2007 with its seismic swarm. All went according to plan on the 455kilometre-long, mostly paved road, including the relentless assaults of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. On a couple of occasions, we even had to ride with our bugs helmets on, which we usually only wear at campsite! However, they couldn’t keep up with us down Heckman Pass on Chilcotin Highway’s notorious “The Hill,” a 1,200-metre-drop over 16 kilometres of dirt! TEAMING UP We thus re-entered the lush world of the Pacific Coast and got off the bikes for a couple of days at the sumptuous, historic Tweedsmuir Lodge, home of Bella Coola Heli Sports, waiting for Queen of Chilliwack ferry to drop its anchor in the harbour. For this final leg, we decided to take advantage of the BC Ferries and Alaska Marine Highway routes system to perform a huge loop between Vancouver and Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians, a tactic, we thought, would allow us to explore the volcanic islands of South East Alaska as well as the formations of the Stikine belt hidden inland. Did we mention how logistics were pivotal during this quest? So, in order to get to Prince Rupert and keep with our volcanoes, we first needed to sail to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island and then through the famed Inside Passage onward to Prince Rupert. Upon landing in Port Hardy, thanks to fate or complex logistics, we bumped into a sweet Swiss couple on a six-month Western Canadian adventure who had just missed the northbound ferry, as their old fully camperized Dodge Ram bought for the journey, laden with a canoe and bikes, had broken down. They managed to get Hancock fixed — that’s what the four of us ended up naming the vehicle in dishonour of the Hollywood blockbuster we all saw later that rainy Rupert night! — and we all got on the next ferry, some 36 hours later. This time spent together in Port Hardy and on the ferry was enough to make us feel like old friends and devise a foursome that would last more than three weeks starting at the Prince Rupert wharf, then up the Skeena on the Yellowhead to Terrace, to the Nisga’a Highway, to its magical lava beds and beyond, which saw them driving (Sabine sometimes riding with us www.pedalmag.com


while Nik took the van and stopped at every fishing hole he’d see) and us, well, riding! To be continued . . . . Mo’ Info Map of Canada’s active volcanoes: http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/volcanoes/map/index_e. php

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