Day 15 - Peace River

The Peace River itself is so named because of a peace treaty signed between the Cree and Beaver Indians in 1782. The town of Peace River came into existence as Fort Fork in 1792, renamed as Peace River in 1916 (yes I'm getting this off wikipedia). I became aware of the town of Peace River about 12 months ago, and developed a kind of romantic notion about the place, purely based on its name and its location in the far north west of Alberta, miles from anywhere (you have to remember, though, as far north as Peace River is, there are still another 250 miles from here to the border with the North West Territories; we're only two-thirds of the way up this enormous province).

I was perhaps expecting a cute, quaint little town. Peace River is not cute. It has loads of character, but it's not cute. It's very functional. It needs to be, it's the biggest town in these parts. I reckon 80% of the vehicles we saw were trucks or jeeps, and most of them looked like working vehicles rather than the show-piece machines we've seen in other parts of Alberta. People have their vehicles jacked here because you don't have to go far before the roads vanish and you're left with real off-road tracks. There is every kind of shop and facility here that you can imagine. Cinemas, bars, restaurants, takeaways, community care, dance classes, video stores, furniture shops, garages, computer shops... everything you would expect to find in a decent-sized town back in England, all here for this community of 6,400 people, and the people in the surrounding villages.

We started our day off driving up to the grave of Henry Fuller "Twelve Foot" Davis. This guy was a real character. He was a trader and prospecter in the 1800s, who, during the gold rush, staked a claim 12 feet wide between two other claims, and made $12,000 (which was a lot of money in those days). He moved to the Peace River area and set up a number of trading posts. Apparently he was renowned for his hospitality (the inscription on his grave states "He was Every Man's Friend and Never Locked his cabin Door"). When he died he was buried overlooking the Peace River. (He really was a fascinating character, and you can read more about him here: http://www.calverley.ca/Part03-Transportation/3-023.html)

Having surveyed the view and taken pictures, we then tried to find the statue of the man himself. My gosh, for a tiny town it's easy to get lost! We drove around for ages, eventually giving up on the statue (for the time being), and drove up to the Sagitawa Lookout on Judah Hill to take more pictures. We then drove across the river and down the Shaftesbury Trail for a while, before returning to the hotel, dropping H off, and walking into the town itself in search of that statue, and also the museum.

At this point it started raining a little, so we ducked into the City Music Book Store (from where I'd ordered my PeaceFest tickets), looked around in there for a while, then went back to the edge of the river because it was 1pm and I thought the jet boats would be coming back for the end of the Gold Cup race.

Well I was two hours early, they weren't due until 3pm. But we did find the statue of Henry Fuller Davis. Then we had lunch, then we set off to find the museum again... but before we had gone more than a few paces we heard an engine roaring from the river; it was the first of the jet boats coming back. So we watched them for a while (it was a little disappointing, just single jet boats arriving back at the end of their trip around the Peace and Smokey Rivers, not really much racing going on), then, because the sun was out, we had a go on the crazy golf (to make up for not playing frisbee golf in Lethbridge!).

Then once again we set off to find the museum... and found it... and it was shut!

By then it was getting on for 4pm, so we came back to the hotel room, I had a sleep and Sandra read for a bit, then we went for something to eat at TJ's Canadian and Chinese restaurant. The guide book recommends choosing from the Chinese menu. We did this, and asked for small bowls of soup to start with. My gosh, I'm glad we asked for small bowls, we would most likely have drowned in large bowls. We had two different main courses, and each one would have been enough for the two of us. That's been a continuing theme throughout our travels, the portion sizes are enormous. And when you can't finish everything off, they offer to box it up for you to eat later. I have to say the guy in the restaurant was very cordial and courteous, we're still finding the Canadian people to be so friendly.

So tomorrow another long drive, 6 hours, back to civilisation and our seventh hotel, this time in the provincial capital, Edmonton. I'm glad I came to visit Peace River. I wanted to experience a part of Canada that was off the beaten trail, and we've done that for the last couple of days. Would I ever come back here? Well... there's a Beaver Indian legend that says, "drink the water of the Peace River and you will return". As I hunkered down on the bank of this mighty river today, and saw the colour of it, I realised that drinking from it would most likely give me the almighty squits... but I've drunk from it all the same.