Our passage from Whittier to Yakutat across Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska was a scheduled distance of 346 statute miles; from Yakutat to Juneau is another 269 miles. Of the ten ships currently in the Alaska Marine Highway fleet, only the Kennicott is certified to operate in open water; consequently, only its … Continue reading
Our internet access in northern Canada and in Alaska has been mainly limited to the towns, primarily via cellular, occasionally connecting through public wifi. In the campgrounds, wifi network signals are typically either too weak or of limited bandwidth or both. My last post was uploaded at Juneau Airport while waiting for our connecting flight … Continue reading
We left Whitehorse late Monday morning and drove south for 10 miles on the Alcan to where the Klondike Highway (Yukon Hwy 2) veers off to Skagway, Alaska, 98 miles distant. The Klondike Highway’s northern terminus is Dawson City and its route and name are a result of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, gold … Continue reading
We filled up the fuel tanks on the RV and the Jeep before leaving Stewart Thursday morning, then headed up the Glacier Highway, BC37A, to the Meziadin Junction of the Cassiar Highway, BC37. About halfway, Dale spotted a black bear lazily crossing the road ahead of us. By the time we reached him, he had … Continue reading
The drive north from Hyder runs along the easternmost edge of the Tongass National Forest. The Tongass, established in 1907, is the largest National Forest in the United States with 16.7 million designated acres, most of it temperate rain forest. The Tongass encompasses most of the Southeast Alaska “Panhandle,” an archipelago that includes, in addition … Continue reading
The town of Stewart, British Columbia, is located at the head of the 90 mile long Portland Canal, named, like so much of the Pacific Northwest, by the English explorer, George Vancouver, this time for the Duke of Portland. The word “Canal” is a holdover from the earlier Spanish, meaning “channel.” In fact, the Portland … Continue reading
Another late start, we left Smithers around 10:00 a.m. after stopping to fuel up. Diesel in Canada costs about CAD$5.00/gal, but the favorable exchange rate between the US$ and the CAD$ (1.00:1.32) makes our cost US$4.00/gal, just a little more than what we were paying in Washington State when we left. Of course, fuel is … Continue reading
We departed Bellingham, Washington, yesterday morning on our way to Alaska! Getting an early start, we headed north through the farmlands of Whatcom County (below, top left) to the border crossing into Canada at Sumas (top right). Once in British Columbia at Abbotsford, we took Highway 1 up the Fraser River valley to Hope where … Continue reading
On Friday, after making a detour into Jasper for fuel, we drove south on the scenic Icefields Parkway (Alberta Hwy 93) about 150 miles to the crossroads at Lake Louise. There’s not much in Lake Louise other than a campground, a 550-room, luxury resort hotel on the lake, a ski resort and some of the … Continue reading
After leaving Cluxewe following our Grizzly Bear excursion, we spent an entire day driving to the opposite end of Vancouver Island, just south of Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, to Pedder Bay. We wanted to be close enough to Victoria to make a day trip there, but far enough away to be out of … Continue reading
The day after we visited Alert Bay and Sointula, we went on an excursion in search of Grizzly Bears with Tide Rip Tours. Their boats leave from Telegraph Cove (which is just east of Port McNeill) and head up Knight Inlet in search of bears feeding along the littoral zone. The typical tour heads to … Continue reading
The ferry to Alert Bay leaves from Port McNeill on Vancouver Island several times each day. Its typical route is: Port McNeill to Alert Bay; return to Port McNeill; Port McNeill to Sointula; return to Port McNeill. Rinse, repeat. But if, like Dale, you do your research, you can buy a single round-trip ticket to … Continue reading
The Kwakwaka’wakw people, also known as the Kwakiutl, are the indigenous people of northern Vancouver Island. In the U.S.A., we would call these people “Indians” or “Native Americans,” but in Canada, they are collectively referred to as the people of the First Nations. The term Indian here (according to the Canadian Encyclopedia) is “considered outdated … Continue reading
The forecast for this Memorial Day weekend on Vancouver Island is warm and sunny, in the high 70s. Of course, Memorial Day finds its origins in the American Civil War, so it’s not an observed holiday here in Canada; lucky for us, since that means it won’t be a busy holiday weekend. With temperatures expected … Continue reading
We spent the day driving from Tofino on the Pacific coast, over the Vancouver Island Mountain Range to Parksville on the Strait of Georgia on the east coast, then north on BC19 to Campbell River. From Port Alberni to Campbell River, the road is mostly a modern 4-lane divided highway that looks like this: We … Continue reading
The wind died down slightly overnight, although the surf continued, due to the fact that the wave action along this coast is mostly from swells, rather than being generated by local winds. After lunch, we headed back down to Long Beach to walk its length. As soon as we walked out on the beach we … Continue reading
We scheduled our day so that we would end up back at the beach at low tide. Dale had discovered during her planning for this trip that there’s an offshore island that’s accessible from the Chesterman beaches via a sand spit that is high and dry when the tide is out. The island is called … Continue reading
After spending a couple hours watching the surfers, we decided to head back to the car for an off-road drive to the Norm Godfrey Nature Trail near the northwest end of Kennedy Lake, six miles on logging roads. This nature trail boardwalk through an old-growth forest is not in any of the guidebooks or tourist … Continue reading
I mentioned in my last post that this part of Vancouver Island is a surfer’s paradise. So much so that one of the tourist maps we picked up at the visitor’s center turned out to be a map of all the best surfing spots and beaches. There are several of them and most are within … Continue reading
Tuesday started off looking like a cold, windy, overcast day – perfect for a walk along the coast in search of a lighthouse. So, off we went, driving 25 miles south to the village of Ucluelet, settled in 1870 as a trading post catering to sealers. Ucluelet (pronounced, “you-clue-let”) sounded to me like an aboriginal … Continue reading
If you look closely at the map of Vancouver Island in my last post, you’ll see that most of the road network runs north-south along the eastern coast of the Island, from Victoria on the south, through Nanaimo, Courtenay and Campbell River, ending at Port Hardy in the north. There are no roads running the … Continue reading
Several months ago, Dale started planning an RV trip to Vancouver Island and I booked a reservation for Monday, May 23, on the ferry from Vancouver’s terminal at Tsawwassen to start the trip. The end of May is the beginning of the high tourist season on Vancouver Island and reservations were recommended. I chose the … Continue reading
The Road Less Traveled 