Mapping Road Quest

Victoria City Hall

While the initial meet-up was filmed in the UVic Parking Lot the day prior, the dashcam footage (and initial on-the-road footage) starts roughly at Victoria City Hall.

• 10 Days of Dashcam Footage Road Quest Bonus

Nanaimo to Vancouver Ferry

Now Playing · 26:14
I Do Believe In Ferries

Sea-to-Sky Highway

This section of BC Highway 99 stretches from Vancouver to Whistler was once a two-lane highway carved into the side of the mountains with no outside barrier, internationally-infamous for rockslides (which still occur with or without international attention) and earned the less-savoury moniker of the "Highway of Death". The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics provided the political will and budget to expand it to a four-lane highway to assuage safety and throughput concerns (despite ecological concerns (2020 retrospective)) which yielded a 66% drop in fatal crashes in 2010.

Squamish Spit

In the 1970s, BC Rail dredged the Squamish Estuary and constructed a 5 km-long training berm (aka "The Spit") for a deep sea coal port project that the Squamish Nation was never consulted about and that the federal government ended up rejecting (ref). This project cut off the Squamish Estuary from the nutrient-rich freshwater of its eponymous river, leading to dramatic decreases in the Chinook salmon population as it denied juvenile salmon an important transition zone for smoltification (ref). The Restore the Shore initiative (aka Central Estuary Restoration Project) serves as an act of reconciliation for the Squamish Nation who were affected by the bisection of a historical village (ref), the lack of consultation, and adverse effect on the culturally-significant Chinook salmon.

Phase 2 of the Restoration Project removed 850 metres of the Spit between January 2022 and September 2023 (video), leaving the tip as the newly-christened Pepehím (aka "Spit Island") as a launch point for the local windsports society (and other recreational pursuits).

Brandywine Falls Provincial Park

Alas, the falling water cannot trace its illustrious origins to Nenuial by way of the Baranduin. Instead, the Falls have much more mundane origins in brandy-either as the stakes of a wager over the height of the falls, or mixed with wine into tea as the cause of a lengthy inebriated slumber nearby.

Lillooet Lake

It's water. It's wet. It's dry.

Lillooet

The path the team took from Lillooet approximates the journey that wagoneers would have taken along the Old Cariboo Road, a toll-route to Barkerville starting from Mile "0" on the Main Street of Lillooet (as commemorated by a Cairn). This is not to be confused by the Cariboo Road which intersected the old Road at Clinton but started from Yale, taking the Fraser (River) Canyon route through Lytton to Ashcroft (as compared to the Douglas Road (Lake Route) from Port Douglas to Lillooet; see this rough map).

Lillooet is an anglicized form of Líl̓wat (the etymology of which does not involve onions). The L̓il̓wat7úl (pronunciation), or Líl̓wat Nation, "adopted this name when the newcomers came into their territory and mistook them for their cousins that live around Lillooet, BC" (source).

Bridge River Road

This stretch of road that follows the mighty Bridge River (Xwisten in the Lillooet language) is part of the longer Lillooet-Pioneer Road (aka Pioneer Road 40 or Highway 40) that runs from Lillooet to Gold Bridge. It's partially-paved, unplowed, subject to rock slides and shared with industrial traffic like logging trucks. While not strictly a forest or logging road, you can read about forest road procedures in the nearby Williams Lake Timber Supply Area.

Trip reports from 2017 and 2021 show the type of scenery you can expect.

• Driving Highway 40 (Lillooet to Gold Bridge)

Downing Provincial Park

BC Parks describes the "Pavilion Mountain Road, which connects the Cariboo to Lillooet," as "unpaved, narrow and switch-backed and best suited for compact four-wheel drive vehicles."

100 Mile House

100 Mile House (and many other road houses) are named after their distance along the Old Cariboo Road from Lillooet.

Williams Lake

Quesnel

Barkerville

Now Playing · 21:50
Barkerville

Billy Barker's gold strike in 1862 lead to the richest claim (1065kg) of the Cariboo Gold Rush. The eponymous town of Barkerville sprung up around his claim, growing as news spread via word of mouth. Its population grew to 3000-5000 but declined with gold yields towards the end of the 19th century. Barkerville was declared a National Historic Site of Canada in 1924 and a Historic Provincial Park in 1959 for B.C.'s centennial, providing the impetus for restoration to its 1869-1885 appearance (ref).

As for Billy Barker, he sought medical attention (for Parkinson's and/or jaw cancer) at the Old Men's (Nursing) Home in Victoria, B.C but passed away and, having lost (or given away) his fortune, was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave in the Ross Bay Cemetery. A commemorative bronze plaque was set in the grass in 1962, superseded in 2008 by one set in a boulder.

Princess Auto; The Royal Service Promise

Princess Auto is the happiest place on earth.

Founded in 1933 as Princess Auto Wrecking (PAW) on Princess Street (Winnipeg, MB), the company was sold in 1942 where it became a retailer of war surplus. Their "Royal Service Promise" on returns states "No sale is final until you're satisfied. We guarantee to make it right. We will repair, replace or refund any product to your satisfaction."

Hooty joined the party!

This life-like 16 in. Owl Decoy is used both as a yard decoration and to keep squirrels, small birds, rabbits and mice away from gardens.
SKU	8801805
Package (L×W×H)	17.8 x 8.7 x 7.7 in.
Weight	1 lbs
Colour	Multicoloured
Item Name	16 in. Owl Decoy
Material	Polypropylene
Type	Owl
Packaging (qty)	1
Size (in.)	16

New Episode of Car Talk · 29:08
Respect takes a Backseat ft. Hooty

Burns Lake Rest Stop

Smithers

Lordco Auto Parts

Baby joined the party!

Woodcock Airstrip

In 1942, construction began on Woodcock as a relief landing field to serve in a second line of defence against Japanese attack in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. After World War II, airfield administration passed to Transport Canada to serve as an emergency airfield. The Terrace Skydiving Club adopted and used the runway from 1969 to 2004. In 2019, the Vanderhoof Flying Club and the BCGA helped clear out overgrowth to create a usable section of airstrip.

Now Playing · 28:42
0-60 Eventually

Now Playing · 33:42
A Lineage of Jets

Hlgu Isgwit Hot Springs

Hlgu Isgwit is a culturally-significant site for the Nisg̱a'a people used for "ceremonial, medicinal and spiritual purposes". It's the dwelling place of a sbi-nax̱noḵ, a spirit being who conveys lessons (definition from "The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary's Journey on Indigenous Land"). The name translates to "little stinker" in the Nisga'a language for the slight sulphur smell typical of natural hot springs (according to real life box text).

Meziadin Lake Park

Boy joined the party!

Bell II

Located at (and named for) the Stewart-Cassiar Highway's (Highway 37) 2nd bridge-crossing of the Bell-Irving River (named Sto'ot Xsitxemsem by the Gitxsan), this locality began as a gas station/garage in 1979. The proprietors expanded the facilities to include a restaurant and cabins to support local heliskiing business.

Tatogga Lake Resort

Tatogga Lake takes its name from the Tāłtān word Tatāge (pronunciation) meaning "between two lakes" (Eddontenajon Lake and Kinaskan Lake).

Here be a taxidermied moose, partial moxen and other former wildlife.

Tatogga Lake Resort

Adam's avatar joined the party!

Dease Lake

Named in 1834 by the Chief Trader of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) after Peter Warren Dease, the HBC superintendent of New Caledonia District (ref).

Cassiar

A ghost company town that was established in 1952 following the discovery of abestos and the establishment of the Cassiar Asbestos Company the year prior until its closure in 1992. The provincial government then auctioned off and sent away most of Cassiar's assets to pay off creditors (ref). The mining operation leaves behind an open pit on the northwest flank of Mount McDame 6000 feet above the town (ref) and a large greenish-gray hill comprised of tailings (both highly visible from satellite images) in addition to a junkyard and 2 apartment buildings that still serve to house site reclamation workers/surveyors.

• Drone Footage from 2015

Sign Post Forest

In 1942, a convalescing U.S. Soldier (Carl K. Lindley) working on the Alaska Highway was asked to repair the directional signposts (run over by bulldozers) and added a sign to his hometown (DANVILLE ILLINOIS 2835 Miles). In doing so, he planted the seed that grew into the Sign Post Forest which had grown 6281 signs according to the first official sign count census conducted by Visitor Centre staff in 1988 (and up to 100,000 in 2024 according to Wikipedia).

Continental Divide

The Continental Divide cleaves the North American continent in 2, separating the watershed flowing into the Pacific Ocean from those flowing into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

Beej's avatar joined the party!

Teslin

The name given to the village, lake, river and historical HBC trading post is derived from the Inland Tlingit word tás ten, or "long sewing sinew” (ref) in reference to the eponymous 120 km long lake which straddles the border with BC.

Ian left the party...

Whitehorse

Named after the White Horse rapids themselves named for their "resemblance to bounding white stallions". The rapids were tamed submerged by the Whitehorse hydroelectric dam (see 2025 Report) under Schwatka Lake.

Lake Laberge Campground

Dredge No. 4 National Historic Site

Built in 1912 for the Canadian Klondike Mining Company (their fourth) and powered by their nearby hydro plant, Dredge No. 4 was (and is) the largest wooden-hulled bucketline sluice dredge in North America, operating until 1959. The gold dredge would scoop gravel from the bottom of the dredge pond it floated on using the ladder of iron buckets. The gravel passed through flowing water in a rotating cylinder (trommel) so as to isolate the finer material (like gold) and recover the gold from sluice tables. It would finally discharge the waste gravel through a long conveyor belt (stacker). The dredge would operate in sweeping arcs, creating prominent arc-shaped waste tailings that can be observed in satellite imagery east of Dawson City (ref).

Dawson City

The City of Dawson sits at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers. It was the centre of the Klondike Gold Rush wherein ~100,000 prospectors attempted to migrate to the region in light of the discovery of gold on 1896-08-16 along the Klondike River. It served as Yukon's territorial capital until 1953 when it was supplanted by the current capital of Whitehorse due to the latter's growth in economic activity and population driven by the Alaska Highway.

Midnight Dome Viewpoint

Top of the World Highway

New Episode of Car Talk · 27:01
Dirty Air Venting

Ch'ëdähdëk (Forty Mile)

Inscribed in 2023 as part of the new Tr’ondëk-Klondike UNESCO World Heritage Site, Ch'ëdähdëk is the first non-native settlement in the Yukon-established ten years before the Klondike Gold Rush (ref).