Rockies, North, Vancouver Island – (Ox tour through the West)

After our last blog post, we continued with our dear friends through the West of Canada, where the individual stages of the tour were often tightly scheduled and required quite a bit of coordination from everyone regarding when and how to meet to travel to the next destination.

After leaving Valemount, we first headed to the northernmost point of our journey, but before that, we passed by Mount Robson, the highest peak of the Rockies, once more. Unfortunately, there was no time for hiking or even climbing the mountain, as our travel itinerary resembled that of American European travelers wanting to visit 17 capitals in 14 days. Our tour bus for our round trip was over 5 meters long Chrysler Pacifica, which, despite its innocent family car demeanor (one friend repeatedly expressed her criticism, insisting she wanted a pickup truck instead, especially since she was in America), safely took us over gravel roads up all the mountains.

Prince George

Unfortunately, it initially brought us to the quaintly named place “Prince George,” which, with a high percentage of First Nations, promised a diverse cultural experience. And with over 2500ml of rainfall per year… The following will list all of the attractions of the place:

In defense, it must be mentioned that a promising First Nations art gallery was closed on the day of our visit, and in the deserted downtown, between homeless drug addicts, vacancies, and warehouses, at least a few people attempted to create a sense of community. However, if the best open restaurant belongs to a fast food chain, further questions about the cultural offerings might be deemed unnecessary. But let’s end on a positive note: The hotel had a pool.

Smithers

That’s still more than we remember from the hotel in Smithers. By now, we have packed our bags over 30 times, and the individual accommodations blur in our memory. However, the town of Smithers remains memorable for its lovely mountain hike, where we reached a crater lake beyond the tree line, even though we left the level of the peak to nature and didn’t stomp a path through the wilderness. The view was beautiful, as were the various landscapes (forest, flower meadows, grassy knolls with lichens). Although we kept bears at bay with bear bells, loud conversations, and a Harry Potter audiobook, we could at least imagine that the paw print at the crater lake belonged to a cougar.

In the forest, it was intriguing to see colorful ribbons with wishes for Mother Earth tied to trees by representatives of the First Nations.

Prince Rupert

Finally, Prince Rupert was more touristy, featuring good food and artisan shops. We sat with a view of the Pacific Ocean enjoying vegan sushi, diving into Japan for an hour. The next morning, we headed to the ferry to Vancouver Island.

Ferry

A sixteen-hour ferry ride with a closed onboard restaurant through fjords and always along the coast of the offshore islands, starting at the ferry terminal at 5:30 am, sounded far from attractive at first. However, the journey turned out to be unexpectedly enjoyable. In addition to shopping for new clothes for the colder season, this was mainly due to the nature around us. Mr. Ärmel couldn't even get through his lousy comic, and we saw several whales (presumably humpback whales), sea lions, and – to Mr. Ärmel's particular delight – even a sea elephant. The backdrop of often untouched islands with dense primeval forests was impressive, even though there was general lamenting about the lack of cell towers on these islands. The only brief stop was at Belabela Island, still inhabited by a First Nations tribe. However, there were cell towers here.

Port Hardy

When we finally reached Port Hardy in the dark of night, phone reception mattered no longer; it was only the call of the beds that mattered – which was unfortunate because the First Nations-operated hotel was really nice and deserved more attention than we could pay with our eyes closed.

The next morning, phone reception was also unimportant as we enjoyed breakfast while watching American football on nine combined screens. And then it was back on the tour bus to the next station.

Whale Watching

Between Port Hardy and Campbell River, we went whale watching. The law requires whale watchers to stop their engines as soon as they get within 200 meters of the whales. The animals only come closer if they want to. This prevents the animals from being disturbed – otherwise, we wouldn’t have booked such a tour. The staff was very nice and competent, and in fact, we saw orcas, humpback whales, harbor seals, and sea lions during just 3 hours – a definite highlight of our trip.

Campbell River

Things worth mentioning in Campbell River: a very good vegan restaurant, many nice little shops, without the place feeling too touristy, salmon jumping from the river, which were spotted by Ms. Waas and friends, and an art gallery that works with drug addicts, enabling them to participate in art projects. Some of this art is available for purchase in the gallery, as the very nice gallery owner, who also creates animal portraits and First Nations art, explained to Mr. Ärmel during her lunch break.

Things to mention around Campbell River: where it rains so much, nature grows tall: giant trees and waterfalls create impressive scenery in many places on Vancouver Island, and we saw plenty of it. The gas station in the middle of nowhere with only one type of gas (87 octane!) also spread a lot of local atmosphere. On the roadside, we also repeatedly saw white-tailed and mule deer does.

Ucluelet

These could also be seen in Ucluelet (“Ju-Clu-E-let”). The name means “people from the safe harbor” in the Yuułuʔił language, and indeed the place offers a lovely natural harbor, and we felt at home here. Normally, we tend to think about living elsewhere in big cities, but Ucluelet offered enough cultural activities with its tourists and is not too touristy. Unfortunately, the sandbank with sea lions that we repeatedly heard in the distance was on private property, but the place had a lot of charm. Right next to our hotel was a First Nations government, and the evenings at the pub or the ice cream parlor were lovely. It would be nice to live here.

Not so carefree is life for the black bears, which are still hunted here. Nevertheless, they showed themselves to us from the boat we took for bear watching when they searched for fish or shellfish on the beach. Besides black bears, we also saw sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, a kingfisher, an osprey, and a bald eagle. In other words: animals. The wildlife on Vancouver Island and off its coast is impressive. It’s understandable why even Canadians rave about the nature of Vancouver Island, even though this country is generally blessed with abundant nature.

Victoria

Finally, at the end of our trip with friends, we reached the island capital Victoria, which is charming and comparatively European with nice shops and vegan restaurants. On the way to downtown, otters even posed for us. Unfortunately, decorum dictated that we shouldn't take photos of the bathers enjoying a hot tub on a steamboat in the harbor area.

Unfortunately, Victoria also had the hunched-over or slumped-over homeless fentanyl addicts found everywhere in North America, so it also mattered to choose the right corners in Victoria. Otherwise, the city is charming, featuring, for instance, the most beautiful (small) Chinatown we saw during our trip.

What we didn’t like about Victoria, however, was that we had to say goodbye to our friends here, who returned to Lummerland. And Ms. Waas almost vomited not only metaphorically (as she often commented on North American food) after a typical farewell breakfast with greasy omelets made from 4 eggs, 2 slices of toast smeared with oil, and fried greasy potato wedges. However, neither the farewell nor our café choice can be blamed on the city; thus, Victoria, like the whole island of Vancouver Island marked by impressive fauna and flora, will certainly remain a beautiful memory for us.