The Valley

A Side Trip Up Our Favorite Mountain

The story behind Nustatsum...

Besides our love of going 4 wheeling up Nusatsum and other areas around Bella Coola, Gordon and I have a story that makes Nusatsum a little more of a memory. Twenty two years ago it wasn't so funny, but now it's a hoot and our kids just shake their heads at us.

When Gordon and I were first engaged he took me for a ride up Nusatsum on his Husquevarna 500 dirt bike. Anyone who knows Gordon, knows how he is on bikes. Well, he took me on the back of his bike, roaring up the valley. Now this bike, being a dirt bike, wasn't built for a passenger and had no foot pegs for steadying yourself. Not a big deal usually, but with Gord, any help you can get is great! As we tore up the road, he kept doing wheelies. Now, I was quite happy to hang on tight, but I kept on almost slipping off the back as I had nothing else to hang onto. I asked him several times to stop the wheelies, this road wasn't exactly smooth. He promised, and promptly started the wheelies again. After a few requests, I'd had enough and made him stop and let me off. I was mad, and Gordon, not used to any woman standing up to him, was madder still. So, he dumped me in the middle of Grizzly country, and took off up the mountain on his bike.I took off down the mountain on foot. He was gone for quite a while. When he came back, he stopped and basically ordered me back on. Now, I can be stubborn too. So I refused saying, "not if you're going to do wheelies", and the guy just took off back home leaving me as bear bait! ( I wasn't really in that much danger, but it makes for a good story!)

When he got home, his family asked where I was, and he said up the hill and I'm not going back to get her either! Finally Raymond, his younger brother, jumped on the bike and came and got me. Miracles of miracles, somehow we were able to make it home without popping one wheelie!!

Well, we managed to get married anyway, and twenty two years later its all good. Now we just have an understanding that when it comes to riding off road dirt bikes, I get to ride my own!

A little tradition of Gordon's is to alway build a drinking pool in the creeks he comes across. We took a little time to construct this baby, then filled up our water jugs with cold, clean water.

Fresh and cold, water on tap. Thanks to Gordon and his little tradition, it was easy to get at.

Radar, the Travelling Teddy Bear, (really Gordon's little friend, but I pretend he's mine :) ) poses at our camping spot. We stopped at Odegaard Falls, where we camped with the falls and the river as our background music.

Odegaard Falls. An incredible fall of water roaring and spraying down the mountain.

A little fire to scare away the mosquitoes.

A quaint little bench constructed by someone at the Odegaard Falls campsite.

End of the road. We were trying to get all the way into South Bentick Arm, but a washout turned us around.

Thankfully both Gordon and I like camping at it's simplest. Just us under the stars or at the most in the back of a truck or 4runner. Lucky for me, Gordon is my resident "McGuyver", the guy who can be dropped in the wilderness with a Q-tip and some chewing gum and build me a mall! So he can always make a vehicle sleep-ready. Okay, we will admit that we both are getting to the point where a foamy underneath is really appreciated!