Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Where the Yakh? Must be Canada! Eh?


My Mountain Green is venturing out of Utah for the Summer.  Late in the afternoon on June 16th, 2011, my husband, STeve and I, set out on our annual WeSTOC XVI Rally motorcycle trek which is in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, this year.  For the first few days, the weather was tenuous to say the least, very breezy, cool temps, and the occasional rain showers.  We take the scenic route in Idaho driving through Challis, Salmon, Deerlodge, Bitterroot and Lolo National Forests on US 93 to beyond Missoula, MT before heading northwest to Coeur d’Alene/Post Falls, ID.  Boy, was I glad the bike had a heated seat!  Driving over the summit from Idaho into Montana near Big Sky, the temperature was 37’ F with light drizzle.   Thanks to the Mountain Cafe in Darby, MT for all their coffee, hot tea, gas heater and buffalo burgers to warm us up!
The next day, we head for the Canadian border on US 95, again traveling through Kootenai National Forest.  After the usual border crossing questions:  “What do you do for employment?  Here for business or pleasure?  Where are you going? How many days? Carrying any firearms?”, etc., we were waved through the checkpoint without any hassles.  
About 15 minutes on down the road, we see a sign for “Two Scoop Steve”.  With a name like that we have to stop, plus we needed a break anyway, why not have some ice cream too while we stretch our legs.  We find ourselves in the quaint community of Yahk, British Columbia, Canada. Yahk has a gas station, arts & craft store, an ice cream shop and is the home of the Yahk Soap Company.  
The Yahk Soap Company building has a grass roof over the porch.  Why?   Below is a sequence of photos.  





Go to http://www.yahksoapcompany.com for more information about their history and goat milk based soaps.  Unfortunately, no online sales nor do they ship outside Canada.  If you are ever in the area, be sure to stop.

We continue on and stay the night in Radium Hot Springs, B.C.  Before dinner, I relax on the porch of our motel room taking in the beauty of the park across the way, lo and behold, walking into my view are two Big Horn Sheep!  They graze near one of the picnic tables for a few minutes then lumber along down the street.  Just one of their horns was bigger than their whole head!


What a perfect way to end the day
Stay tuned for more My Mountain Green adventures in Canada!

3 comments:

Kathie Brown said...

Wow! what a trip! Love the little goats! too bad they don't sell their soap online. Heated seats on the bike? Awesome! glad you had such a good time! Uh...where are the BIRD pictures! ;-)

Kathryn said...

Kathie, it's hard to take pictures of birds while riding down the road! So it is not conducive to birding. Plus the weather was not the greatest for taking pictures. I did see bald eagles, other hawks that I could not identify, tons of magpies, a few gray jays, a common merganser and a few chickadees. There were tons of water birds at a WMA in Montana that the road traverses down the middle of, almost a visual overload due to so many birds.

Roy said...

Hi Kathryn, glad the Honda kept you warm.{;))

Yakh. it sounds like some kind of cow from Outer Mongolia.

Looks like an interesting trip, looking forward tot he rest of the posts on it.