Road Trip to Alaska | British Columbia, Canada | Alaska Wedding, Lifestyle, and Portrait Photographer
Getting closer and closer to the end of our trip, and the views just kept getting better and better! While passing through British Columbia, we stayed the night at Toad River Lodge in Toad River! With the cutest little cabin and a private view on the water, this was one of our favorite spots; Hunter's especially. We ate at their little cafe and browsed through their gift shop learning some of the history about this little town. Their world famous hat collection was the coolest thing!
We read some of my favorite little excerpts about their history on the back of their menu:
There are many stories of how different places got their names along the highway. We kind of liked this one about toad so we’ve adopted it. Back around 1942 when the Canadian and U.S. armies were busy building the Alaska highway (it was not the super highway you just drove in on), there were problems crossing the river because a bridge was not yet built, so it was par for the course to be “towed across”. The proprietors of this establishment at that time adopted “Towed River” as the name of their lodge. Did someone really think they meant “Toad” or were their language skills lacking? Your guess is as good as ours at this point. So that’s our story and we’re sticking to it, for now anyway.
The hat collection began in 1979. One evening after a stressful day at the lodge, the proprietors (could be the same two mentioned above) were having a brew or two. One left to see a man about a horse and the other tacked his hat to the ceiling. There you have it, doesn’t take much to get something started around here. At the time of this writing there are over 7,200 hats from all over the world tacked to the ceiling in the lodge. Do not leave your hat unattended!
Who are these people? You ask. Well the population hovers around 75 souls. Employment is limited. Most locals either work maintaining the highway or like us, maintaining the people that travel it. There are also several outfitting businesses in the area that have clients come from all over the world to enjoy the wilderness and hunt.
Our school has an average enrollment of 25 students from kindergarten to grade 12, with two full time teachers on staff.
Since we don’t have a school bus, our students get to school in a variety of ways horseback, snowmobile, ATV, airplane, on foot, and of course by automobile. The longest trek to school is around fifty miles. On cold days when things refuse to start, we get to stay home.
There is an abundance of wildlife to see along your way, just try not to run over any. You can frequently see elk, moose, caribou, stone sheep, black bears and sometimes grizzly bears on the roadside. Please don’t approach them or feed them since this will usually result in them or you being hurt. Do take lots of pictures, have fun and come back to see us soon. -http://toadriverlodge.com/
