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Published: September 16th 2007
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Lighthouse
Off Prince Rupert, BC We’re back in the rain belt again. We stayed one night at Lakelse Provincial Park and then came to the town of Prince Rupert, which is actually on an island off the BC coast. Again, if you look at a map of British Columbia, you’ll see that this part of BC has the same geography as the panhandle of Alaska: lots of coastal islands protecting the mainland. The place is a temperate rain forest and we learned yesterday that Prince Rupert gets THIRTEEN FEET of rain each year. The town is very clean and pretty and does not cater to tourists, so it was a pleasure to walk around. On the way to the coast, we passed through two nice towns with populations of about 15,000 each: Terrace and “the Hazeltons”. Terrace has the area’s WalMart, liquor store and two good grocery stores. The Hazeltons are more fun; there’s South Hazelton, which is a tiny community of houses and farms, New Hazelton, which is the business community, and the original Hazelton, which has been restored to its old glory and has a great restaurant where we had more bowls of $6 soup.
3 September: Yesterday, we went on our last saltwater
Victoria Harbor
Sharing the space in the inner harbor fishing trip. The silver salmon run must be almost over, since we had only a few bites. With the legal requirement for use of a barbless hook, we weren’t able to boat any. However, we did get two “rock cod” which are spectacular looking: many colors and some huge toxic spines. Their flesh is white and mild. Tom finally made our trip worthwhile when he caught a 15 pound halibut, so our freezer has been refilled. The weather was pretty good until mid-afternoon. It poured all night and it’s still raining. Again, we’re lucky that we’re at a commercial campground with full hookup, so we can dry everything out with the electric heater that’s part of the AC system. I have a feeling we’ll be reading and playing cards again today.
4 September: Yes, it rained all night, and the ferry ride down the inside passage to Port Hardy at the north end of Vancouver Island was gray and foggy. The trip took 15 hours and confirmed both our suspicions that we’d be pretty bored on a cruise. The ship’s crew lives aboard for two weeks, then swaps with another crew, so we had good service, though everything was expensive.
Vancouver Island
Camping under the enormous trees The cafeteria was popular, but we’d already heard about the cost of the food ($10.00 for a burger and fries), and brought smoked salmon and the necessary accompaniments. Tom noted that there are few/no plugs for electronics gear, and our little nook with a great view turned out to be where they played two movies for the passengers. If you have pets, they must stay with your rig, but the ship opens the car deck about every three hours for 15 minutes so that you can check your critters. We noted that most people cleaned up after their dogs, but not all. We also found that though we had to turn off the refrigerator, everything stayed frozen or cold for 20 hours. (It’s a Norcold refrigerator/freezer). Again, the ferry’s way of loading vehicles was interesting - you drove down the ramp and into the hold, where you had to turn around and back up into your assigned lane according to their directions. The last vehicle in was a HUGE fifth wheel who just came in head first, meaning that when we arrived, he had to back out of the ship and turn around before going up the ramp. He did very well at it, but we were glad we didn’t have to do that.
At both ends of the trip,w e stayed in commercial RV parks: Prince Rupert RV Park (also called Park Ave. RV Park) and Sunny Sanctuary in Port Hardy. Both parks are right near the ferry docks and both had good WiFi - and Sunny Sanctuary had tame rabbits that would take pieces of carrot out of your hands.
A couple of lessons learned:
• Two reasons to check whether you can put your bicycles into your camper. First, you’re paying by the foot, so the 3-4 foot projection will cost you $23 per foot if your vehicle is more than 18 feet in length. Second, the ramp to and from the ferry is steep, with a “ditch” at the bottom. We might have bottomed out and damaged the bikes, so we put a tarp down inside and loaded them in the morning.
• Dress for a chill. Many years ago, Corey and I took the ferry to Santa Catalina Island (off Los Angeles) on July 4th weekend. It was in the mid-nineties in LA, but we froze on the boat, since we didn’t bring jackets with us. The doors on the ferry were usually open, and you’ll get chilled even if you stay inside.
5 September: We slept late and left Port Hardy, heading for hikes and stays at provincial parks. We’re hoping that the weather improves, but have been told by many that this has been a continually cool and cloudy summer. Well, we’re just happy we’re not dealing with Tennessee’s heat and drought. We were warned about madman log truck drivers on Vancouver Island, but they’re apparently having a logger’s strike, so we saw only two.
7 September: Vancouver Island has been somewhat of a disappointment. It’s beautiful, with huge trees in a rainforest that covers most of the island. However, there’s only one road, which runs down the eastern side of the island and it’s been a rude return to so-called civilization. The northern half (north of Campbell River) of the island is pristine and remote, but the southern half is high dollar homes and tourist traps. The traffic has been very heavy, and though we were able to take a short hike yesterday in Strathcona Provincial Park, today we’ve been dealing with people, warnings about theft, and noise. It’s interesting that Vancouver Island is so big and has such a large and prosperous population that we saw a half-dozen RV dealers on the main road. When you think that all those big RVs had to come across the water by boat and that a ferry ride to the mainland will cost an owner hundreds to thousands of dollars depending on the ferry and the size of the rig, you realize the size of the island’s camping population and get into your own campground early. This is our last night in Canada and our last provincial park. We chose one called Goldstream about 10 miles north of Victoria, where we’ll catch the ferry to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Again, the surroundings are beautiful and we know why it’s the most expensive provincial park of our trip ($22 per night for no hookups), though there’s an extra fee dump station and water fill.
8 September: Arrived back in the US today via the MV Coho, a huge vehicle and passenger ferry that leaves from the inner harbor in Victoria. The harbor is fascinating, with large and small motorized boats, kayaks and canoes, and float planes all sharing the same space. We “endured” two customs inspections, one in BC before going on the ferry and one coming off. Both were brief, with no hassles and actual jokes from the inspectors. They only wanted to know if we had Canadian beef or tropical fruit (limes and lemons). The ferry takes you to Port Hardy at the north end of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. We stayed in the Elwha campground of the Olympic National Park under some enormous trees.
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