Kootenay-Alberta Road Trip - Salmo, BC, Canada

Karen and I left Trail during the late sunny afternoon and drove through the small villages of Montrose and Fruitvale on our way to Nelson, via Salmo, BC, 60 km (36 mi) away on Hwy 3B.

Salmo is a village high in the Selkirk Mountains on Highway 6. Before the Columbia River dams were built, the Salmon River was heavily stocked with fish, giving the original name as Salmon River. The townsite changed its' name of Salmon Siding to Salmo to avoid confusion with other places.

Keith and I had RV'd here when he was working in the area a couple of years ago and enjoyed the September weather. It made it very easy to travel to Trail, Castlegar or Nelson as they are all within a half hour's drive and Creston isn't far using the Salmo Creston Hwy. That was another great working holiday, work for Keith but a holiday for me ! And it was also before I was blogging.

There are a couple of RV parks in Salmo. We'd stayed in the one behind the Selkirk Motel on Hwy 3B and there is another on Hwy 3 heading south. Nothing fancy about either one but easy to get to and park in.

The Gold Rush and the logging history is told with stone murals around town. I've taken pictures of most of the murals but have featured only a few. If you wanted to see more done by the students of the Kootenay Stone Masonry School with local rock, check out
http://www.salmovillage.ca/news/stonemurals.htm

The Placer Miner
The first to be done and is on the back of the museum.

Grizzly Bear
Completed in Nov. 1990, a project of Kootenay Stone Masonry Institute

2 lifesized springboard loggers

The loggers are showing how it was done in the past.  After a short stop to view the murals and take pictures in Salmo, Karen and I headed north on Hwy 6 and passed thru Ymir, B.C., with it's historic old Ymir Hotel http://www.hotelymir.com/ but little else, and got into Nelson, B.C., after a long day of sightseeing and driving.

Stay with us and enjoy the sights of Nelson, a little town I never tire of and Karen's hometown.