Excerpts
from:
"Exploring Wells Gray Park" by
Roland Neave
This book
is available at the Clearwater -
Wells Gray Info Centre and at many
lodging locations throughout Clearwater.
Location
and Size of Wells Gray Park:
Wells Gray Park is located in east-central British Columbia, 410 air km
northeast of Vancouver and 137 air km due north of Kamloops. It is
British Columbia's fourth largest provincial park (after Tatshenshini,
Tweedsmuir and Spatsizi) and contains 515,785 hectares or almost 1.3
million acres of virtual wilderness.
Access to Wells Gray Park:
The most travelled road into Wells Gray Park is the Clearwater Valley Road
which starts at Clearwater in the North Thompson Valley, 122 km north of
Kamloops via the Yellowhead Highway, and extends 68 km north to Clearwater
Lake.
Mahood
Lake Road
The Mahood Lake Road provides access to the southwestern corner of Wells
Gray Park. The route winds across the Fraser Plateau to Bridge Lake
and then north past numerous fishing lakes and varied forest scenery.
The Wells Gray Park entrance is 121 km from
Little Fort and is therefore a considerably more roundabout drive than the
other routes in the the Park. Once
within the boundary of this western arm of the Park, the road extends only
another 6.7 km, part of which is along the north shore of Mahood
Lake. Another short branch follows the south shore to Mahood Lake
Resort and several private cabins outside the Park boundaries.
Flourmill
Volcanoes
Wells Gray Park is well-known for
its volcanoes and lava flows but most are accessible only by hiking.
The exception is the Flourmill Volcanoes, located on the Park's western
boundary and reached by rough roads from Canim Lake. The Flourmills
present a fascinating landscape of cinder cones, craters, volcanic blocks
and jagged lava.
Flourmill Creek which flows southeast from
the volcanic area to the Clearwater River was named first, and the author
extended this name to the volcanoes in his 1974 edition of this
book. It is a curious name which conjures an image of an industrial
plant in this remote area of Wells Gray Park. When
discovered and mapped by the early land surveyors in the Clearwater
Valley, Flourmill Creek was found to enter the Clearwater River exactly 4
miles (6.4 km) due north of the Mahood confluence. With great logic,
they named it Four Mile Creek. When the Department of Lands was
about to place this designation on the official map, they wisely decided
that a less trite name was needed. So they fiddled with the letters
and produced Flourmill Creek instead which is certainly more original if
less exact.
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