Yellowhead Highway to Hazelton, BC

Today was a short drive from Smithers to the towns of Hazelton, British Columbia.  I say “towns” of Hazelton because there are three all within a few miles of each other – New Hazelton, South Hazelton, and just plain Hazelton.  We are up near just plain Hazelton (also called Old Hazelton), which is a couple miles north of the Yellowhead Highway via a very high and very scary one-lane suspension bridge.  Kevin made the mistake of looking down; I just kept my eyes glued to the road since I was the one driving.

We made this short detour because we wanted to visit the ‘Ksan Historical Village, a group of reconstructed tribal buildings of the Gitxsan people.  The name Gitxsan translates to “the people of the river of mist”.  They have lived in the area around the Skeena and Bulkley rivers for centuries.

The village was built in the late 1960’s, and all buildings were constructed of cedar planks using traditional methods.  The museum opened its doors in 1970 – seven buildings designed to show others the traditional Gitxsan way of life.

The Gitxsan did not have a written language.  Instead they handed down their history and stories through oral traditions and carvings on totem poles.  We learned that the most important figure on the totem poles is not the one at the top, but the one on the bottom which carries all the weight.

There is a very small ($5 Canadian) admission fee to enter the village, but that only gets you into one building (the museum).  At this time, the other buildings can only be seen with a guided tour ($5 extra).  We decided to take the tour, since the museum was so small that we weren’t going to get much out of the visit otherwise.  The tour took us through three buildings.  The first was the Frog House, a traditional cedar longhouse which is where the clan would have lived all together (up to 60 people at a time).  The second building was the Wolf House, a hall where feasts would have been held with ceremonial dances and shared meals.  And the third was the Fireweed House, where all the ceremonial costumes and treasures are displayed.  We thought the guided tour gave a lot more depth to our visit and we were glad we chose to do it, but unfortunately no indoor photos were allowed.

Tonight we are staying right next door at the ‘Ksan Campground.  Interestingly, when we pulled up the campground was more than half full of big Class A Motorhomes.  We noticed that people all seemed to be wearing similar yellow vests.  One of the ladies told us that they were all starting out on a guided caravan tour – 34 days to see the sights of British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska.  The tour leader keeps in touch with them on the road via VHF (of all things!) narrating all the interesting things they are seeing along the roadway.  Curious, we looked up the website on the internet and discovered the guy charges, get this: just under $7,000 (USD) per RV/couple.  The price does not include fuel but does include any admission/tour fees and all campground fees.  But still – seven thousand dollars???!!!!  And it turns out the guy leads three of these tours per summer, up to 18 RV’s in a tour.  He has managed to get people to pay him seven grand so that they can drive their own RV’s (paying for their own food and gas, too) to Alaska and back.  Do the math; we did, and we came away shaking our heads in utter amazement (and kinda wishing we’d come up with the idea first).