Our explorations today took us along the U.S./Canada border from the Strait of Georgia in the Pacific Ocean to the foothills of the Cascades. According to our Good Sam atlas, the Canadians refer to the extension of the Cascades into Canada as the Lillooet Range. Lillooet must be an Indian word for “the extension of the Cascades into B.C.”
We started by driving east out of Blaine on H Street which seems to extend for miles paralleling the border. The road all the way to Sumas, WA, is within sight of the international boundary with a few side roads going north right up to where spitting on the separation is possible. There is little fencing. There is certainly no wall or sheet pile barrier dividing the territories.
We continued east from Sumas to a turn off that took us to Silver Lake Park, a nice facility that, despite its remote location, was filled with Washingtonians enjoying a day at the lake. There is a campground there that is very pretty but we advise against taking any substantial RVs through the campground. The road is narrow and closely-lined with large trees, many of which have gruesome markings in their stumps where too-savvy drivers have scraped off expensive attachments formerly mounted on the sides of their RVs. Some trees are missing all their bark on the road side of the stumps.
We continued our exploration by exiting the park and noticed that some folks across from the park entrance had set up a Skagit yarder, a massive machine with six guy lines, a 110′ tower and big drums filled with thousands of feet of wire cables. I used to work on one of these very same machines in Oregon back when I was indestructible and young (stupid). It brought back fond memories of the years of unrelenting toil, alfresco toilet facilities and rain-soaked lunch sandwiches bracketed with moonlight rides in a comfort-challenged bus every morning and evening. The folks I worked with were great, though. The yarder is set up in a pasture in front of something called the Black Mountain Forestry Center.
When we arrived, we were immediately greeted by Phil and Joanne, docents that staff the little museum installed within a house built by a Norwegian using dovetail joints to lock the massive wall planks together. It must be a sturdy form of construction because the 2-story house still looks great. Sprinkled around the pasture next to the house are little display sheds with old logging stuff in them. There are chainsaws here that look like they they required a big hombre to run them because they are about the size of a V-6. Old logging equipment is scattered around offering displays of the heavy vehicles, rigging and blocks required to perform timber harvesting. The Black Mountain Forestry Center was a great side trip and it is free. They do have a small donation box in the museum and we crammed some money into it.
We turned back west after the Forestry Center, again skirting the border. The mountain vistas into Canada along the road are spectacular. Mount Baker could be plainly seen east of us. The road passes through very lush pasture and forest country all the way, all surrounded by dramatic mountains.
Upon our arrival back in Blaine, we felt compelled to reward ourselves by making a trip into the Ocean Bay Chinese Restaurant where we gorged on coconut curry chicken and sesame chicken dishes. They were very tasty meals and the cost was around $30. I found it amusing that the cook delivering the food, according to my gweilo ear, referred to it as cully chicken.
We took some pictures you can see if you click here