Parksville to Port Hardy

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After breakfasting with Maureen and Marcel, we left Parksville around 10 am, headed northward.

We chose to take highway 19A almost as far as Campbell River, and really enjoyed meandering through tourist country along the water. The traffic was light, and we drove leisurely, enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the oceanside communities between Parksville and Campbell River. While this is a prime tourist destination, it hasn’t been developed to the nth degree as so many places have these days. There is room for wildflowers to grow between the well-groomed gardens, and there is a casual friendliness in this area that makes me feel guilty when I lock the car door behind me before going into a café or shop. I imagine it must make me look like someone from a big city, and that the locals must surely be laughing at us. But it would be a gentle, non-critical laughter, not judgmental. That is my fantasy, anyway. It all reminds me of what the world was like when I was young, when there was not only room in the world for kids to disappear after breakfast and be unaccounted for until at least lunch time, but encouragement for them to do so. And when there were abundant adventures to be had for those kids, not all prepackaged and high cost entertainments with endless adult supervision. A world in short where one could get lost, at least for short periods of time, and no one minded. It’s a world which seems to have disappeared in most places I frequent and one which I still miss even though I’m well past the age for building forts in the woods and conducting crusades with my friends.

The weather had been sunny when we left Parksville, but throughout the day, it alternated between sun and showers. Just about the time I decided the sun was going to last and I should put on my sunglasses, the rain would start up again for a few miles.

We stopped just north of Campbell River to fill the gas tank. It was only about half empty, but it was probably a good thing we stopped, because we didn’t see another gas station until we were close to Port McNeil. North of Campbell River the road enters virtual wilderness. Often we were the only traffic for miles and miles, and aside from endless forest along the roadside, all we saw were occasional logging roads. When I let myself think about it, I felt very vulnerable traveling along that road. We imagine we are safe, carrying our home upon our backs in this little camper. We have food, water, fuel, amusements. But if something should go wrong out there, this turtle shell would not be useful very long. In a day or two we would run out of water. Then we would be at nature’s mercy, too feeble to get ourselves out and too ignorant to survive in that environment for long. It’s a humbling thought. We saw some wildlife, who all take living in this forest completely for granted - deer who know where to find water and brouse; eagles know where to find and how to kill small animals in the meadows and fish in the water; bear know where to find ripe berries and succulent shoots. Apart from berries, which are abundant right now, we wouldn’t have a notion how to feed ourselves in this forest. And feeding on berries we might well find ourselves in more immediate danger from the bears than we would from starvation.

The road from Campbell River to Port Hardy seemed endless at times. We stopped for lunch at a diner at the Sayward junction - it was an excellent choice. I had a logger, which was a quarter pound hamburger on a whole wheat bun, with lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, bacon, and red sauce (whatever that is). It came with a bowl of home made beef barley soup. Roberta had liver and onions, with mashed potatoes and al dente cauliflower and carrots. Everything was just delicious.

I had hoped to see something of Port McNeil, but it turned out it was a few kilometers off the highway. By the time we got there, we were both too tired for exploring. It was 4:00 and we still had 45-50 km to drive to get to Port Hardy. So we continued on, as we had most of the day, bookmarking all the places we’d like to return and explore more thoroughly. Just outside Port Hardy, we were lucky enough to see a large black bear, probably a solo male, feeding on grasses on a bank just by the side of the road. Just short of town, we took the turnoff to the Bear Cove ferry terminal, and drove down there to pick up our tickets for tomorrow. They made us take the camp chairs off the roof rack - apparently these vehicles just barely fit onto the Queen of the North with nothing on the roof rack. Then we looked around for a good campsite for the night.

There are a number of private campgrounds within 5-7 km of the ferry terminal. It seems they do quite a lot of business putting up people who are either departing or arriving from Prince Rupert. One campground even had a special area set aside for guests coming in on tonight’s ferry! The ferry is due in around 10:30, but apparently it often gets off schedule, and doesn’t come until 12:00 or later, so the campground owner considerately places these new arrivals near the campground entrance, so they aren’t driving through and disturbing all the sleeping guests who will be rising at 5:30 the next morning in order to be at the ferry terminal by 6:15 to begin loading for the return trip to Prince Rupert. Yes, even though our ferry doesn’t depart until 7:30, we have to be at the terminal by 6:15. Quite a difference from the big ferries that move among Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo, where 500 or so vehicles are loaded in 20 minutes and the ferry departs immediately afterward. It will be a long day tomorrow - we are scheduled to arrive in Prince Rupert at 11:30 pm. I wonder what time we really will arrive? We are told there will be a brief stop in Bella Bella, where we can get out and stretch our legs with a walk to the longhouse. I plan to take a couple of books, my knitting, and the computer up to the passenger deck, so I won’t be bored. We reserved reclining chairs, so we can grab a nap, too, if we feel like it. Hopefully the weather will cooperate, and there will be some sunshine.

We finally settled on a regional campground associated with a fish hatchery - it’s just a little nicer than the privately owned campgrounds, and also a bit off the highway, so it will be quieter. It looks like it’s been raining here most of the day, so we were careful to select a site that isn’t a mass of muddy ruts, so we won’t have any trouble getting out in the morning. Then we headed into Port Hardy for a look around.

Port Hardy is really a small town in the middle of nowhere! There is a main street and a little mall, but lots of empty storefronts in both. Most of the usual services are covered with one business - groceries, hardware, videos, hairdressers, real estate, a bank, auto supplies, clothing store, A&W, a few hotels, pubs, and restaurants. No big box stores at all. It’s hard to guess the population but it seems small. Enough to support a grade school and a high school. A couple of churches. It looks like there is a sizeable native population. Unlike many places we’ve visited on this trip, we both found ourself unable to imagine ourselves living in this place. We ate dinner in a small restaurant on main street, Captain something or other. We guessed (correctly) they would have good fish and chips. We split a fairly tasty two-piece halibut fish and chip dinner (though Roberta says she still hasn’t had any to compare to C Lovers in Vancouver), and headed back to our campsite to relax from the long day’s drive.

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Photos

Welcome to Port Hardy
Port Hardy is a tiny town, but with beautiful carvings, such as this one.