The clear sky of last night pushed temperatures down to 16-17°F, but by the morning the sky was overcast signaling a, slightly, warmer day.

Around lunch time we stopped at the township of Smithers and to our surprise the local Safeway store had a cafe with free wifi, so we checked emails and uploaded yesterdays journal entry. At first glance the town was a typical unattractive inland BC service town but the main street was quaint and clearly set up for the tourist business, with a number of sporting goods stores and coffee shops all with free wifi. The town was also situated at the foot of the impressive Hudson Bay mountain.

As we have traveled west the scenery changed from the relative flat of inland BC to more mountainous landscape, the river valleys were narrower and the mountains more jagged.

At the town of Hazelton we turned off towards the the campground we had identified for the night, Keynton Lake. From Hazelton we turned north to Old Hazelton, which hosts the KSAN, a museum of first nation buildings which we had explored on previous visits. Continuing past Old Hazelton we turned onto the Kispiox valley road but eventually discovered a closed gate and a road closed sign which prevented us from getting to our intended campsite. So we decided to camp on the road just short of the closed gate. Although it probably does not sound much the camping spot we finished up with was picturesque, as we were right beside the Skeena river with a great view of the Rocher Deboule mountains.

Late in the afternoon a local farmer dropped by on his old 80cc Japanese motorcycle to collect sap from a couple of maple trees right near where we were parked. His name was Ted, he had been in this place since 1952 when his parents bought the farm he now owns. We chatted for a while about world affairs, Australians, the Queen (of England), and how to identify maple trees. After Ted departed we cooked our dinner over our nice campfire.