A
small town along the inside passage (note the seaplane)
Sunday, August 24th, 1997
A fishing boat
in the inside passage as we leave the Port Hardy terminal.
I wake at 3:03 to my beeping watch. I am hating life as I crawl into the front seat and clean up as best I can, have a quick swig of water from my canteen. I smack myself in the face to make sure I'm really awake and crank the engine. Driving is very difficult. I sing Billy Bragg songs and slap myself silly. Somehow I keep the truck on the road and avoid ramming one of the handful of cars I pass during the 3 hour drive.
The Port Hardy terminal is not actually in Port Hardy, I am dissapointed to discover. The GPS comes in very handy as I back track through the twisty streets, and head south to Bear Cove. The Queen of the North is lit up like a little floating city as I drive up to the dock.
We go through the usual questions about the 5-gal jerry cans, and soon I pull into lane #4 to board the ferry. We sit for about one hour. We have driven almost 3000 miles in about 2-1/2 days. I rest on my back in the cab, staring at the roof while Sean sleeps on soundly in the back. A pink sun creeps up on a very moist morning.
They finally send us into the ship on the lower level behind a big RV towing a boat. I start to organize the cab, clean things up a bit, and I begin orienting myself to the ship. I walk around on the outside decks and snap a few pictures (above). Soon the ship's engines are growling and the ferry is rolling slowly as we make our way north through the maze of islands that is the inside passage. I am dissapointed to discover that the ship store is out of Dramamine. I don't get seasick easily but I don't want anything interefering with my impending oppurtunity to get some rest. Back down at the truck, the exhaust fumes and cramped quarters conspire to upset my stomach. Sean sleeps on, oblivious. He is dead tired. I finally have to wake him when they announce that they will soon close off the vehicle deck to passengers.
We carry our gear up to our "palatial" cabin and drop it on the floor. I specified a deluxe cabin (with shower) when I made the ferry reservation and I'm very glad now that I did. I have trouble imagining how cramped the regular cabins must be. I eat a pop tart, shave, and take a long shower. I feel like a new man. I sleep for a while on the lower bunk while the ship rocks very gently in the waves. I could sleep through anything right now.
A
small town along the inside passage (note the seaplane)
I get up around 12:30 and go outside with my camera and the binoculars. I am moved as I watch a man on the shore cutting huge logs into 10-inch long chunks and carrying them on his back over to a stack of about 25 of them. He is a heavy man and he moves slowly in his waterproof overalls. This seems to me to capture the essence of the small towns and quiet coves of the inside passage.
We eat lunch
at the promenade buffet- a decent meal of fresh salmon. We discuss
the odd names given to Canadian currency by the locals. A single
Canadian dollar is called a loony- I presume because of the image of a
Loon stamped on one side. To my surprise, when Sean asks the cashier
she says: "I don't know...'cause we're loony for them I guess." The
two-dollar coins are called Toonies. We didn't ask the cashier about
those.
A long, wet, hazy afternoon. Postcards of the Inside Passage are always taken on the two days out of the year when the fog lifts and the gorgeous islands are uncovered. Many on board have made this journey dozens of times. They tell us that the current weather is par for the course.
Lunch of cold Ravioli is eaten at the truck when they announce over the PA that the vehicle decks are now accessible. The ship rolls more heavily now, and the Ravioli doesn't like it. Back up on the promenade deck, I spend some time programming the GPS and talking to the coffee stand attendant- a recent Physics graduate from Vancouver University. A native of Prince Rupert, he tells me we can spend the night in the Safeway parking lot and be reasonable certain that we will not be disturbed. We discuss the loonies and the toonies.
Prince Rupert creeps up out of the darkness at 10:30pm. We spend the last 1/2-hour on board running around cleaning and organizing the truck and moving our stuff out of our cabin. The people sitting anxiously in their cars watch us as we pack up the truck and climb around on the roof rack. It is dark as we drive out of the belly of the ship and into the light rain. Not so cold now that we are off of the water and out of the wind. Driving through the small city we are surprised at how clean and modern it is. The Safeway parking lot is empty and well-lit in the center of town. We find a nice space and I shut down the truck. Immediately we begin to read our guide books and review our maps. We sit quietly for a moment, looking out of the closed windows listening to the light rain on the roof, and realize we are not hardly ready to go to sleep. "Doot dee doo..." I say to break the silence. We laugh and I crank the engine.
The road east out of Prince Rupert is a federal highway and one of the best roads we've traveled on in 4 days. Well marked with an excellent surface and smooth, fast turns. We drive for about two hours before we decide we are ready to call it a day. At first we pull into an actual campsite- lots of gravel spaces available in a dense wood. But the small park requires a fee and we just didn't feel ready for that.
We finally turn into a boat ramp parking lot after several aborted attempts to find good camping spots. It is a fairly large area, and devoid except for a single truck and trailer parked near the water. In the blackness we can tell that we are surrounded by mountains because they blot out the stars in some areas, and we can tell that we are next to a large body of water. We go to sleep curled up in piles of warm bags and blankets anticipating a beautiful sunrise in the morning.