Some learned philosophies:
- Not all stops are created equal!
- There are silver linings in even the worst stops!
- Road Heroes come to the rescue when needed!
We stayed three nights at Mama Yeh RV Park & Campground 10 miles south of downtown Prince George (population 74,003). I selected this campground based on wanting to exceed our minimum criterion and using the details provided by our RV Trip Wizard app. Yet, we rated this site as our worst to date. The condition of the park’s sign on the main highway was our first indication. The parking spot wasn’t level and sat in a depression surrounded by unkempt trees, bushes, and weeds. While setting up, we were dive-bombed by large, aggressive, and persistent mosquitoes. On the bright side, our full-hookup utilities worked, and the personable maintenance man, Edward, greeted us and offerred his services for anything we might need. Site bad, Edward good!
On our first drive into town, we saw Mr. PG, the Prince George monument and trademarked mascot standing 26.7 feet tall at the junction of Highways 97 and 16. He was created in May of 1960 but appeared in various parades, regattas, and BC towns before taking up permanent residence at the intersection. He was built as a symbol of the forestry industry and its importance to Prince George. Ironic that while originally constructed of wood, environmentral conditions dictated his eventual replacement with metal. We found him to be a bit cartoonish and lacked modern appeal or context.
We subsequently learned the Prince George mayor announced Mr. PG would be replaced with a new mascot named Dewey at the same intersection beginning in the spring of 2023. (Yes you read that correctly, 2023.) A 6-lane traffic circle was to replace the old intersection, and Dewey would reside in the center. The new mascot symbolized the city’s transition from forestry to hydrogen energy (made some sense), while also representing the city’s location on the Fraser and Nechako Rivers (didn’t make as much sense). For unknown reasons, none of what the mayor announced had even started by the time we drove through in June 2024 or has happened since, according to my subsequent Google searches. Regardless, depite being a more modern symbol, we’re not convinced Dewey would be much of a mascot improvement anyway. Decide for yourselves!
Sadly, we didn’t find any coffee shops or breakfast joints worthy of mention. But we did find a beautiful city park where I hiked, and MFI visited a small, well-done touch-museum called The Exploration
Place. The First Nation tribe whose territory includes Prince George was identified in the park’s name. We’ll leave the pronunciation to you. On my hike, I saw an interesting wooden arch, which included indigenous art carvings, and a monument to explorer Alexander Mackenzie, the first European to cross North America in 1793.
Prince George was (and still is) the office location of the Fraser-Fort George Regional District, a governing body for regional municipalities. The district railway station (circa 1912) and the district schoolhouse (built in 1910) were relocated to the park as part of an outside historic display. In addition to moving the station, volunteers restored the original wood-burning #1 dinkie engine (renamed The Prince), which assisted in building the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Park volunteers also installed track (8-pound rail at 24 inch guage) identical to that used by The Prince back then. Today, the Fort George Railway circles the park to the delight of passengers and burns a cord of wood for a full day of rides. Disappointingly, The Prince was not running during our visit. In its day, the schoolhouse teacher taught 15-40 students in grades K through 8 for $90/month.
I joined MFI at The Exploration Place after my hike. Management was kind enough to let me in for free, since they were closing in less than an hour. The curator invited us to watch an employee feed their rescued, resident Magpie. These birds are extremely intelligent, and she behaved exactly as predicted by our host. She had a name, but damned if we could remember it.
In the open-time remaining, MFI showed me the museum highlights, and I took pictures we thought the grands would enjoy. Except for the Wooly Mammoth skeleton, these were all mammals we had the potential for seeing during our travels.
What really salvaged our Prince George experience though, were the two road heroes we met. The first was the maintenance manage at Wooden Chevrolet. Readers may recall that after we had Arthur upgraded with solar panels, we were supposed to have three VictronConnect bluetooth monitoring programs appear on our iPhones. Two of the three appeared, and the Ultimate Airstreams technician advised the missing one was likely a result of a specific burned-out truck fuse. We struggled finding that fuse and sought the dealers help. The manager didn’t have time for us on the schedule, but he stopped what he was doing until he identified the fuse in question. Not only that, he sent out another technician to check for any other burned-out fuses, all for the small cost of the new fuse. Absolutely outstanding customer service despite no appointment.
Our second road hero was the sole employee working at Mr. Quick Oil Change in downtown Prince George. I don’t know about you, but any retail establishment with “Quick” in its name makes me immediately suspicious. On top of that, it was raining, the building looked dilapidated (outside and in), and the employee was filthy. Against all these odds, he turned out to be superb. He not only changed our oil; but he also checked the rest of our fluids, the air filter, and our wiper blades without any prompting. Wow, outstanding customer support again.
We can never be certain of what kind of service we’ll get on the road, thus, we were grateful to have met these two “silver-lining” gentlemen. Maybe our stop in Prince George wasn’t so bad after all, with the exception perhaps of this stuffed guy on sale at the museum. I think they were trying to get rid of their stock!
