B.C. long weekend travel primer: gas prices, weather, and wildfires

Many British Columbians will be kicking off a busy travel season this long weekend and it sure looks more like high summer than Victoria Day.

Along with warmer-than-usual weather and early wildfire worries, the price of gas is also on the rise.

A litre of regular jumped into the $1.90 range Friday morning in Metro Vancouver, a five-to-seven cent per litre jump from the day before.

“They have nothing better to do than raise the gas prices,” grumbles one driver CityNews spoke with. “Coincidence? My a**. I’m not going to say much more, but it’s not right. Everybody is jacking up everything and we are struggling just to survive.”

If you are hitting the road for the holiday weekend, meteorologist Michael Kuss says the Sea-to-Sky region will see some weather pattern changes over the next couple of days.

“It will be warm to kick off the weekend in Whistler but temperatures taper, the winds pick up, and the overnight lows drop down, so keep that in mind if you’re camping Sunday into Monday, and there’s a small chance for showers in there, a little unstable. The overnight lows could be down in the mid-single digits,” Kuss said.

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In the Squamish area, flood concerns have closed some roads into the backcountry along with some recreation sites, including the Squamish River FSR. There are high streamflow advisories throughout the region.
If you are worried about air quality, Kuss says there may be some wildfire smoke lingering in the Okanagan Valley, but it will dissipate over the weekend.

“Temperatures in the area look alright to kick things off. On Saturday, it’s in the mid-20s with the smoke clearing out quite nicely. We do have cloud filtering in on Sunday and Monday as a low tracks across the Okanagan with a chance of showers Sunday and cooler on Monday, just up to around 19 or 20 degrees,” he noted.

If your long weekend takes you further afield, keep in mind there is a campfire ban as of midday Friday for much of the northern half of the province — the region covered by the Prince George Fire centre — because of the wildfire risk. Across the rest of B.C., you can still have a campfire.

For air travel, Vancouver International Airport is expecting a fairly busy long weekend with about 60,000 passengers passing through YVR’s terminals per day.

As of Friday morning, BC Ferries was already reporting waits, with a number of sailings filling up.

As is usual before a long weekend, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia has sent out an advisory to those hitting the roads for the holiday to take it slow.

“Over Victoria Day long weekend, on average, two people are killed and 480 people are injured in crashes in B.C.* Speed is a top contributing factor in these crashes,” the public insurer said on Thursday.

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