The drive east from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to the Alberta border is only about 15 minutes. From there to Spirit River is about another 45 minutes. It was a short drive for us today. Why did we choose Spirit River to stop and stay and tour? Well Norm had heard about Spirit River for years and never had a chance to spend time there. His roommate in university was born and raised there. And since we were visiting his roommate soon after this we thought a stop in Spirit River would be fun!
There are not many choices for camping in Spirit River but we found the Chepi Sepe (which translates to Ghost River in Cree) on the main highway. The park is run by the town and they could not have been kinder. Check-in was easy and we had nice conversations with Vern who works in the office. Many workers in the area do use that park so it does get quite full at times.
Campground: Chepi Sepe RV Park
Location: Spirit River, Alberta
Site: 4 (back-in)
Cost: $35 (CAD)
Services: FHU
Comments: A nice small RV park with full hookups right in town within walking distance to everything. It is on the main highway but traffic noise was not a problem during the night. It was all very quiet and peaceful.
The campground has about 20 sites along with a dump station. There is a wood carving in the middle of the campground of a man, his dog, and a wagon wheel.
The Spirit River airport is next to the RV park but we never saw/heard planes take off. The town is across the street from the RV Park with a motel, a few liquor stores, a hardware store, pharmacies, etc. There are some terrific murals on the side of Home Hardware. Beautiful! And there is Ukrainian Orthodox Church across the side street from the RV Park.
The Spirit River and District Museum is within walking distance of the RV park and wow, is it a terrific museum. We spent a few hours there and it is free but of course they accept donations. There is the main building of the museum full of all sorts of interesting items and then there are multiple outbuildings to explore. The workers handed us a key and we went and explored the buildings and toured through them at our leisure. There are farm machinery, old vehicles, water well drilling units along with a 1934 cabin with original furnishings. There is an old school house from 1920 and another cabin from 1914. There is also an old Flour Mill from 1917, a personal residence house from 1918, a Greek Orthodox Chuck from 1930, an Anglican Church from the 1930s and the 1932 Spirit Valley Hall. All buildings are furnished with all sorts of interesting items and were moved here from their original location. Of course my favorite was the Spirit Valley Hall which had a huge collection of cameras! It is a fabulous museum and the town/district has obviously spent a lot of time, money, and love putting this together over the years. Thank you Spirit River and District!
And the fun part for us was afterwards going back into the main museum and going through old yearbooks. We found a few with photos of Norm’s roommate from 6th and 10th grade AND what his likes (war stories), dislikes (French), and ambitions (to become an engineer) were. We certainly had fun teasing him about this later as he had completely forgotten about that!
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