The ferries were pretty relaxing. We didn’t try to bring our own food on board, so no cooking or cleaning up, and we even had our own 10×10 room with a private shower. Oh the luxury!

Our first ferry got us to Prince Rupert, BC at about 4am. We carried Quinn down to the car and put him in his sleeping bag in the back of the van and drove out into the rain. Our next ferry departed at 7am bound for Port Hardy on Vancouver Island.

It rained almost all day as we traversed some amazing landscapes, which must have been photographed for the brochures one day when it was sunny in 1985.

Shades of grey

A tug boat towing a raft of logs

15 hours later we drove off the ferry and into the rain in Port Hardy. We stopped at the first campground we found to spend the night. The next morning we found a restaurant in town where we could eat breakfast and watch it rain.

After a few hours drive in heavy rain the afternoon found us in Telegraph Cove, a couple of hours south from Port Hardy. It was raining a little less so we were able to explore the quaint little village and its whale museum. We did some laundry and settled in at the local RV park. The spot was exposed so now we had wind and rain lashing against the side of the van. Not wanting to stress the canvas of the pop top, we decided to close up our turtle. We huddled around the laptop to watch the Lorax while the rain beat against the van. We slept downstairs with Jen and Quinn curled up on the sofa in back and Witt on the floor. Not great, but we did sleep.

The harbor at Telegraph Cove

On Monday we went out on a whale-watching tour, which we found out from some other passengers is world renowned. Miraculously it (mostly) didn’t rain, and we saw some amazing marine wildlife.

This cluster of birds indicates a “bait ball” – a school of fish below the surface that have formed into a tight ball. Often whales will lunge into these balls to feed.

Sea Lions

Harbor Seals

Tufted Puffin

We had a great lunch of salmon chowder and spinach salad in the local restaurant before heading south once more. It was raining, but dried out a bit in time for us to camp near the beach north of Courtenay. We saw some crazy fish leaping 1-2 feet in the air presumably to catch bugs above the surface of the ocean.

Leaping Salmon

On Tuesday we headed to Port Alberni in intermittent rain following rumors of a steam train. When we arrived we discovered that it had closed up shop a month ago. We really are behind the tourist season here. The campgrounds are fortunately still open, but they are deserted. We are usually one of 1 or 2 campers in campgrounds with 50 to 60 sites. What, people don’t like to camp in the rain?

Instead we went to Stamp River falls for some salmon viewing. It wasn’t really a waterfall, but more of a narrow canyon with a torrent of water forcing its way violently through. I’ve seen too much boater porn to say it’s unrunnable in a kayak, but it’s definitely at least class V.

The salmon have the unenviable task of swimming up the canyon. We hiked in to a viewpoint where we could watch the poor fish trying to hurl themselves up a 3-foot waterfall. We watched probably 50-60 attempts over the course of 30 minutes and most ended with the fish being briefly pinned between the falling water and the rocks below. There is a fish ladder installed here, and I imagine that after they give up trying the traditional methods they head for the ladder, trying not to let their friends catch them doing it.

It’s interesting that this ladder is bridging a natural feature rather than a dam or hydroelectric plant. It was installed in the 50s purely to increase the number of salmon that would spawn, thus increasing the population available to be caught later.

We camped for the night at Sproat Lake where we dined on, what else, salmon!