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Ancient Forest adventures

When we moved back to Prince George, I first heard about the Ancient Forests trails and park and I was determined to go.On this last Labour Day weekend I finally made it, accompanied by my husband, my kids and my in-laws.
Ancient Forest road project

When we moved back to Prince George, I first heard about the Ancient Forests trails and park and I was determined to go.On this last Labour Day weekend I finally made it, accompanied by my husband, my kids and my in-laws.The Ancient Forest has been in the news quite frequently with its new park status, the great research going on from UNBC researchers and students and its current weekday closures while parking lot upgrades are ongoing. The Ancient Forest is open on the weekends in September while the parking lot construction is underway.

Before this trip, my husband and I had never been to the Ancient Forest but we had passed it a few times on other trips east so we were confident in approximately how long the trip would take.

We were wrong.

The trip was a little farther out of Prince George than we were anticipating and as such, we told our company that the site was "just around the next corner" for over forty minutes.

However, we got to the parking lot with no further difficulties.At the site, we loaded up the backpack with our picnic lunch and our water bottles and I carried the bag on the whole hike.In retrospect, I could have left the bag in the van as we didn't open the backpack at all on the actual hike but I was prepared for all hunger or thirst catastrophes.

Prior to our adventure, I had heard from family members and friends that have done the hike and that it was an "easy hike on a boardwalk that even your two-year-old could do." That was true, sort of, however, it was not mentioned that the boardwalk and the hike went straight up a mountain.Our daughter had to be carried for awhile as she announced to the group that she was tired and needed a nap.It was the first and only time that she has ever volunteered for a nap in her lifetime and we could not take immediate advantage of it.

There is always a part of me that expects a hike in the woods to be boring.We live in Prince George and we are surrounded by trees as far as the eye can see.Even in the midst of the downtown core, you can't not see trees, even if you wanted to.So I expect hikes to be nice but underwhelming. How surprised was I when we walk up the boardwalk (up the mountain) at the Ancient Forest to discover a magical inland rainforest.The red cedars that surrounded us were completely foreign-looking and a really fabulous surprise.The signs encouraging us to "Look Up!" to discover cedar circles were really wonderful.

In movies and on TV shows set in Canada, there is typically a shot of the night sky peeking out through the branches of a tree circle.Canadian painters will often have a requisite tree circle and sky image as well, which if I were honest, I would confess that people made up the tree circles.Turns out, the painters and the cinematographers were not lying.Natural tree circles exist and they are quite stunning.

As we walked up the mountain across little streams and rivers and tried to avoid falling off the boardwalk, I thought of how many man-hours this boardwalk took from hundreds of dedicated volunteers.Well done. I also thought to myself, how do people find these places in the first place?

From the highway, you cannot catch a glimpse of anything other than our standard boreal forest.Who thinks to themselves, "I'm just going to stop the car and walk up this mountain for a bit."The whole experience was a bit unreal and due to my poor map reading skills, we managed to miss the waterfall and only saw the Big Tree (impressive).

Luckily, the Ancient Forest is not too far away (even if it was farther than I thought) so there is something for us to look forward to seeing for next time.