Fort Steele was a village set among the mountains in the East Kootenays

Last night was a very long sleep. I am not sure why I sleep so much in the camper but I’ll put it down to catching up on a lot of interrupted sleep in previous times. So I woke up late enough to discover one of our neighbours had packed up and already left. After a quick breakfast and clean up, we headed for Fairmont Hot Springs for a nice soak and a good shower. The hot springs reminded me of the Aldergrove Community pool with a large warm pool filled with families and a smaller, hotter pool with more adults. I’d say the hottest pool was about 40C or 104F. You get used to it surprisingly quickly.

Before I entered the pools, I went to the bathroom. My stall was not freshly flushed but I used it anyway. Unfortunately, when I did flush, the water and contents of the toilet came spraying upward, onto my legs. EWWW! I quickly went to the shower and used plenty of soap. I also used plenty of soap during my second shower, after soaking in the pools. I may never get over it…

After a quick peanut butter sandwich and cup of tea (we eat a lot of peanut butter lunches), we made our way to Fort Steele. I didn’t know what to expect and frankly pictured a plaque and an old building. But no… it was an amazing old town, mostly reconstructed, so you could get the idea of what this thriving late 19th century alpine town was like. We spent over 2 hours visiting the buildings and reading all the signs.

From there, we found a nice campground a few kilometres south as we make our way out of BC and into Alberta tomorrow. Next stop, Lethbridge.