Sometimes, the best vacations are the ones closer to home. They don't require a day's worth of airplane rides and can be easy on the bank account.
Sometimes, it's just fun exploring where we live. For that reason, we've come up with a handful of local destinations to visit and explore.
Visit Barkerville Historic Town and Park
A short two-hour drive from Prince George takes you back in time to the mid-1800s. A Province of B.C. Heritage Property and a Government of Canada National Historic site, Barkerville is the largest living history museum in western North America. A trip to Barkerville will transport you back to the Gold Rush days of B.C.’s past, where you can pan for gold, ride in horse and carriage, drink in a saloon, have an authentic 19th-century photo taken, and experience what life was like more than 100 years ago in a Gold Rush town. You can even make your day-trip a weekend event, and stay on-site in a historic B&B or the 1890s St. George Hotel.
Travel back in time with a trip to Barkerville. (via Facebook/Barkerville Historic Town and Park)Spend the day at the Huble Homestead
The Huble Homestead is a historic site located in the Giscome Portage Regional Park, only 36 minutes from Prince George. It was built in 1911 by Albert and Annie Huble and is the oldest building on its original location in the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George. Admission to the Huble Homestead is by donation and allows you to view sites such as the Huble House, General Store, First Nations Fish Camp, Salmon Valley Post Office and Blacksmith shop. The Huble Homestead also hosts a variety of events throughout the summer and fall. Upcoming events include the Homicide on the Homestead murder mystery event on Sept. 16, Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving on Oct. 8, and a Halloween Spooktacular on Oct. 26 and 27.
Walk through the Ancient Forest/Chun T’oh Whudujut Park
An accessible natural wonder, the Ancient Forest is located just an hour-and-a-half west of Prince George. It’s the only inland temperate rainforest in the world and is home to a waterfall, enormous thousand-year-old western red cedar trees, and rich biodiversity of plants, mosses, lichens and fungi. It’s also an easy trail full of interpretive signage with 450 metres of boardwalk enabling everyone to access this unique forest. It’s a must-see for anyone visiting, and a local favourite for day-trips.
Get wild and go horseback riding
Why not experience the natural beauty of the region in a new way by taking a trail ride and soaking in some fresh air on horseback? Twenty-four minutes from downtown Prince George, the 94-acre El Shaddai Ranch offers standard or sunset rides. Trail rides take about two hours, including 15 minutes for basic orientation and to get-to-know your horse. Riders travel around the ranch, through a forest and meadow, and also stop at a lookout point with a view of the Baldy Hughes area. Rides are even available until the snow starts to fall!
View the stars at the Prince George Observatory
Spend the evening seeing planets, the moon, comets, galaxies, nebulas and globular clusters through the telescopes at the Prince George Astronomical Observatory. The observatory is open on Friday nights during the fall and spring public viewing hours, and is 20 kilometres southwest of Prince George near West Lake on Tedford Road. The fall session is from mid-August until the last Friday in November. The observatory is home to a 0.16 Cassegrain Telescope housed in one of the largest facilities of its kind in Canada, which is an unheated dome to reduce air turbulence and improve the view. The observatory also has an 8″ Celestron and some smaller Newtonian telescopes. Visitors can view astronomical slides and presentations in the 50-person classroom, or check out the astronomical software, or just come out and look at the stars through the telescopes and enjoy the night sky.
