Advertisement
Published: June 10th 2008
Edit Blog Post
trees in the clouds
on our arrival into Sayward, we stopped the van and got out to capture this mystical spectacle of beauty Hello all!
Whew! have we been busy. It is 7:20 pm in Prince Rupert and I am again in a laundry room with power. The sun shines! More of that to come as we travel towards the interior again, leaving the wet coastal rain forests behind.
We’ve pretty much seen all of Vancouver Island. And we hit some of the little gems off the beaten path. Sayward is a little town in the north and we found an excellent campground. We watched cruise ships go by towards the inside passage, fishing boats come in from a day of fishing and sea otters near the dock. The view was amazing.
Whilst in Port McNiel we took a ferry ride to Cormorant Island, the village of Alert Bay. The cultural centre was amazing in its display of Haida masks, totems and culture. The story of their culture being outlawed was heart wrenching, and their quest to regain identity is hopeful.
Telegraph Cove was another cool little place of boardwalks along shore, on stilts, heritage buildings and a whale museum (worth the trip). You can see hundreds of bald eagles here feeding on the fish parts they use with sawdust
Fish Hatchery
these little salmon fry are just so keen to jump! BC is full of fish hatcheries for maintaining stocks. and wood chips for a new environmentally safe fertilizer. It was an incredible sight and sound sensation. Flutey chirps surrounded us as we stared up into the white-headed dotted trees.
We explored the lovely trail in Cape Scott to the ocean beach through more rainforest on San Josef Bay and also canoed on the tidal river of San Josef. It was neat that when we launched, there were logs sticking out of the water and a very shallow bit with a fast current. And when we returned, the tide from the ocean pushed levels up hiding the logs and slowing the current right down with opposing force.
We stayed in Port Hardy for 2 nights at a cute little campground, on the inlet and we prepared for the big 15 hour ferry ride to Prince Rupert, via the inside passage, buying groceries, checking the internet...
The ferry ride was incredible scenery of mountainous islands and mainland, pods of whales, rainbows...and I read my first novel in a long time. What a treat! We met a few people on the ferry and had many hours to bond with them. In fact, our traveling for the next couple days may
Sayward
view from the campsite be 4-6 of us heading to the same places.
From Prince Rupert we headed to the Queen Charlotte Islands, a lovely 6 hour ferry ride. We stayed for 5 days and 4 nights at a hostel, rented a car to see the sights, and now we are back to Prince Rupert! We had a great stay and didn’t see the World Heritage Site of ancient totems (because of cost, mainly) but we did see lots of totems throughout the villages as well as the wonderful cultural centre/museum and info videos on cedar basket weaving, and the protests against logging. (it is shocking how much logging has been done here). Fascinating how the government of BC and the Haida Nation has agreed to preserve a part of the islands from logging and limit tourism, and how it is still unknown who really owns these islands...? the dispute continues...
Dave is fascinated by the Haida Language. He has learned to count to ten already from the little audiographs in the museum. He likes the word for number nine... 'Cllallwallta-skwansing-gow'...
The Queen Charlottes (Haida Gwaii) are a very nice relaxing place to enjoy coastal beaches and rain forest. You can
even find an organic grocery store here with free range eggs and a few artisans...
Okay. we are off towards our bed. good night John Boy!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.33s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 30; qc: 167; dbt: 0.2038s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb