The Victoria Day long weekend is the unofficial start of camping season for many in BC. As a result, it’s usually quite difficult to reserve a campsite anywhere close to population centres. As a result, we explored our neighbors to the south, and landed on the picturesque Silver Lake Park of Whatcom County.

This is a 410 acre park set on the western shore of Silver Lake, just 25 minutes east of Sumas/Abbotsford crossing. The lake is fairly small, only 5km in circumference, but it’s surrounded by beautiful mountain slopes. The day use area features a large grass field, a playground, and a park office that only opens 1 hour a day. On the weekends, pedal boats are available for rent.

Silver Lake at Whatcom County is quite comparable to our Buntzen Lake in terms of size and scenery. It also has a boat launch for boats under 10HP. However, with dozens of campsites across 3 campgrounds (Red Mountain, Cedar, and Maple Creek), 6 cabins (all at Cedar), and a Lakeside Lodge for rental, Silver Lake Park provides much more immersive recreational opportunities.

We came with 2 other families: Andrew and Kim, and Matt and Shelly. Interestingly, they were also our camping buddies at our previous Silver Lake (BC Provincial Park) trip. As the weekend drew closer, it became clear that we will have a wet one. We booked Site 1a, 1b, and 4 at Cedar Campground, which are nicely adjacent to each other up a small slope so our 8 (!) kids can easily hop around campsites. Site 1a and b have peek-a-boo views of the lake, but they are also quite close to some pretty steep slopes down to the lake.

Cedar Campground has only basic amenities: water tap and pit toilets. The neighboring Maple Creek campground (designed for RVs) on the other hand has a fantastic washroom. Why do the RVers need a fancy washroom when their rigs already come with showers and toilets, while the campers and cabin users at Cedar who pay good money only get pit toilets? We could always drive over to the Maple Creek side and use the washroom I guess.

In preparation for rain, our first order of business was to put up our large rain tarp to cover our main activity area. With ample trees to choose from, it wasn’t hard to pick the perfect anchors to cover the entire picnic table and the surrounding few feet of space.

This time, I put a string light on the central ridge line under the main tarp for extra ambience and illumination, and it really shined. I think this will be our new rainy set up going forward.

We captured a few hours of breaks from the rain, and played baseball around the campground.

The rain made it tricky to start and maintain the campfire, so we spent an hour or so to design a tarp-under-tarp system to protect the fire ring. This was the most complicated camp tarping architecture project I’ve attempted. The criteria were:

1. The fire tarp cannot be too close to the fire, otherwise it would melt or catch fire
2. There has to be enough ventilation for the smoke to escape upward and away from our main tarp
3. Protection from wind and rain, and to direct as much of the heat as possible back to the group
4. The tarp cannot obstruct the traffic of 3 families
5. Head room, tripping hazard management
6. Clear drainage points on all the tarps so water doesn’t pool

We managed to pull this off and got to enjoy hours of campfire under constant rain. Andrew even got to live his dream of open fire cooking.

With a few sunny breaks, we snuck in some quick paddles around the lake. The kids enjoyed paddleboarding as expected, and Big Bro picked up where he left off last season, standing and paddling his board comfortably right away.

There were a lot of people fishing for trout around the lake, but for a non-resident, a 2-day freshwater fishing license is $28.95 USD.

After 48 hours of rain, the few hours of sunshine were not enough to dry up our gear. Some of our tents leaked and others had so much condensation, the insides were wet anyway. We decided to cut our trip 1 day short and go home after 2 nights. The rain tarps held up amazingly well though!

Overall, Silver Lake County Park is a worthy, lesser-known destination outside the Provincial and State Park system. If you are interested in fishing or watersports on a calm, small lake, this may be your jam. This is also a great option if you want to camp with friends who stay in one of the Cedar cabins, but the nice shower and flush toilet facility is about 1km drive away at the deluxe Maple Creek campground.