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Ever since our brief foray onto Vancouver Island in 1992, we had wanted to go back and “drive to the end”. We figured we’d just go until the road ran out at the tip of the island. It turns outs there are a number of places the road ends but we wouldn’t figure that out until we got there.
For the Sequent sabbatical trip we had abandoned the trusty Volvo and rented an Explorer. That had worked out well so we did the same again. But this time, instead of a nice unobtrusive white one, we got an almost neon blue one. But other than that it was pretty much the same. It turned out it made it easier to spot in the mist and fog we were in most of the trip.
Thanks to the sabbatical trip, we had everything we needed in one big “camping box” and a system for how to load up the back of an Explorer with all our stuff for maximum efficiency. So it didn’t take much effort to hit the road. The camping box had become a key member of the team and joined us on many later trips until its untimely death and replacement by a more functional but less appealing plastic tub.
Vancouver Island, being an island, is not accessible by road. We therefore know we took the ferry to get there. We have pictures from Victoria Harbor so apparently we took the ferry from Port Angeles. I have no recollection of this part of the trip at all. Les has a vague memory of driving to Port Angeles and spending the night there. That seems likely, as given our history, there’s no way we got up and out of town early enough to make the drive to Port Angeles, catch the ferry and drive to Port McNeill which is a good way up the island.
So very likely we took the morning ferry. We came ashore and drove up the eastern side of the island on the only major highway, to Port McNeill. By the time we got there it was getting late in the day and I think we drove in to Port McNeill to look for a campground. We were meandering through town, possibly following campground signs, and ended up at the ferry dock where we discovered that the ferry to Alert Bay was just boarding. I assume we had some inkling as to where the ferry was going and possibly even realized it would take us to Alert Bay and a campground. But both our memories are that the ferry appeared as if by fate and we got on and took it to wherever it was going.
We arrived in Alert Bay and found the place was hopping. It turns out the First Peoples there (or Native Americans in US-speak) were having a potlatch — a kind of grand get together and gift-giving feast. It took us a little while to figure out what was going on, after we got past the ‘what are all these people doing here on an island in the middle of nowhere’ part. We weren’t invited so we found ourselves a campground and settled in. I don’t remember what we had to eat but I bet it wasn’t as good as what they had at the potlatch. I do remember (because we have a picture of it) that we were visited by the camp kitty. So we did make at least one friend.
The next day we went wandering along the beach by the harbor. It was a typically cool, cloudy and misty northwest day in autumn. The beach was littered with old equipment, broken down piers, rope, and various other leftovers from another time. Not sure what the industry used to be (timber and/or fishing I assume) but whatever industry it was, it was a ‘former industry’ now. We also saw a couple of boats that had sunk or washed ashore. Overall a general feeling that whatever used to happen here, no longer did, and whatever it was, didn’t go out on top in a blaze of glory.
We hit the road and continued north. At Port Hardy, the paved road ended. From here you can catch a ferry to Prince Rupert (which we would do on another trip). We were headed for Cape Scott Provincial Park which is at the very northwestern-most tip of the island. There was a gravel road that continued north so we continued north on it. As I recall the road was pretty “sloshy” from the rain and the Explorer bounced around on it pretty good. But that’s what we got the Explorer for.
The whole northern part of the island seemed to be one big forest. Or at least used to be. There was clear evidence of major tree cutting. A lot had been replanted although it was still some ways from its former glory days. But a lot hadn’t. It really felt as if a major swarm had come through and trashed the place, which I suspect is not far from the truth. But the place wasn’t completely uninhabited. Presumably as a result of the logging, there were people here and there and small ‘towns’ of a few dwellings. At one of the places where inhabitants congregated, we stopped at the Red Ibis for lunch. Hard to imagine there was much in the way of business to be had there although on the other hand, they pretty much had the market to themselves. I remember it being pretty good and had a nice view of a river or something like that.
Somewhere before Cape Scott we came across the Tree of Soles. This was a good sized tree, that at some point, someone had posted a sign on that said ‘Give Jesus your soul’. Some joker somewhere along the way had nailed a shoe to the tree (a sole), which was apparently funny enough that lots more people did too. By the time we reached it, it was covered in shoes. In fact, according to Google, it’s the world’s largest ‘shoe tree’ and started about 25 years ago (roughly 1985). I can certainly believe it took that long to generate the quantity of shoes it had because there was not a lot of traffic along the road. Anyway, it was of sufficient interest for us to stop and take pictures of it. We were disappointed though that we had no spare shoes to attach to it. If we ever go back, we’ll be prepared.
Somewhere further down the gravel road we came across another bit of humor. This in the form of a sign saying ‘be prepared for the unexpected’ atop a giant tree trunk that had crushed a car (presumably when cut down). It’s an interesting philosophical question as to whether you can actually *be* prepared for the unknown, but it seems like sound advice anyway.
We were at the point where we starting to look for a place to stay. We came across this place that I think was in the middle of nowhere but may have been in one of the ‘towns’ along the way. It looked like a motel so we stopped in to check it out. And it was a hotel or a dorm or something. But mostly what it was, was a haze of pot smoke. We wandered a bit through the haze and found a group of guys who were apparently tree planters. They couldn’t offer us a place to stay but they did offer us jobs to be tree planters too. They quite possibly also offered us some pot but I don’t remember. I do know we did not partake, although I’m sure we got a bit of a contact high just from breathing the smoke. It was thick. It definitely had an Apocalypse Now feel to it. A small battalion of men in the middle of nowhere, wondering who was in charge.
We thanked them and moved on. We thought maybe we could camp at Cape Scott at the tip of the island. It continued to rain and we continued to slosh around on the road. We made it to the entrance to Cape Scott where we discovered that to actually get to the tip of the island and the campground, it was a 25 km walk. We actually seriously considered it for a bit. After all, to get so close to the end and not make it seemed wrong. But we weren’t prepared for backpack camping. There was too much equipment to carry and it was raining pretty hard to boot. We did wander down to the beach and have a look around though, wearing our rain ponchos.
Since Cape Scott wasn’t workable, we continued down the road. Actually Cape Scott was at the end of one fork in the road and we went back and took the other. I don’t remember if we knew there was a ‘town’ farther down (I think there was a sign) or if we just continued because where else would we go, but ultimately we ended up in Winter Harbor where the road just kind of came to an end at the last house on the street. We passed an actual campground on the way into town and Les was lobbying for camping in the rain. But I wasn’t. And lo and behold, amongst the 10 or 12 houses in town, a Bed and Breakfast. It was called the Last Resort, which is a great name for a place a good 100+ miles down a gravel road from the last town on the northern tip of Vancouver Island if you ask me.
We knocked on the door and a man answered who informed us that his wife wasn’t home. Which didn’t bother me any but Les explained that what he really meant was “that means no one is going to cook breakfast tomorrow”. Which also didn’t bother me as long as I could sleep indoors. I think he had actually shut down for the season. But he agreed to let us stay and as an added bonus they had a hot tub, which was awfully nice after a long day of driving down a gravel road in crappy weather.
After our soak we rejoined our host who was in the living room watching hockey on TV (like a good Canadian). In what has to be the world’s smallest cable TV system, he told us he got his TV by running a wire from the neighbor next door. (It wasn’t clear how the neighbor got reception — but satellite is my guess). The only drawback was, he had to watch whatever his neighbor was watching or whatever channel the neighbor left his TV on. I guess there weren’t too many to choose from so it didn’t matter too much. But he told us occasionally he’d be watching a movie and the channel would change and he’d call up the neighbor and ask him to put it back until he was finished watching!
He told us a bit of the history of the area. Which boiled down to “a bunch of people came up here and cut down all the trees and a few of us liked it here and stayed”. He said the town population was roughly 7. We didn’t see anything that indicated he was too far off. It was a pretty harbor and I guess during ‘tourist season’ people would come in by boat. And maybe some backpackers who ventured up to Cape Scott. Its 100 miles or more on gravel road to get there. I suspect the B&B business is more of a hobby than a profit making opportunity. Possibly it gives them some tax breaks.
The next morning it was cereal for breakfast, which was actually more breakfast than we expected. The only thing to drink was coffee and not wishing to be impolite I accepted a cup. Now I’m not a coffee drinker but I figured I could force down a cup. But I was wrong. Nasty stuff. I passed it quietly over to Les to drink and I don’t think our host noticed.
We went out and had a wander around town. The rain had stopped and there was a heavy mist over everything. The water was completely still. It was really pretty and I took one of my favorite photographs of all time of the water, trees and mountains. With the mist it looks like an impressionist painting. There wasn’t a whole lot to see, not too surprisingly for a town of 7. A few boats in the harbor and a couple of commercial buildings. You could tell this was clearly an area that was wet a lot. Things were rotting and moss covered. There was a house where the moss on the roof was so thick there were trees growing out of it. You really have to want to get away from it all to live there and have a large reserve of vitamin E in your system. I don’t think the sun comes out much.
We got packed up and said our goodbyes. Our host’s big German shepherd ‘Cheyenne’ came and wished us safe travels. We had really taken to Cheyenne during our brief stay there. There was no way out but back the way we came. But at least it had stopped raining (I think). So back down a hundred miles of gravel road, to Port Hardy and the paved highway. I was driving and let’s just say I was not wasting any time. The truck was sort of planing across the gravel and water and I was bouncing around a bit on the seat too. Not so much steering as maintaining a general direction. It’s not like there was anyone else on the road. The vision I always have of it in my mind is Cruela DeVille in 101 Dalmatians, at the end where she’s driving maniacally.
About 3/4 of the way down the island, somewhere north of Nanaimo, we took a right on the only paved road that goes west and headed across the island to Port Alberni. The paved road ended there, at least down the eastern side of the Alberni Inlet. Looking at Google maps now, it appears the road continues down the western side, but it seems like we would have followed it if we could have. Maybe it wasn’t there then. Anyway, we found a logging road (Les remembers it was marked private) and continued down the eastern side of the inlet towards Bamfield.
To this point we had seen very few cars along the way and really felt like we were out in the middle of nowhere. Then, all of a sudden, we passed a marina/campground that was *filled* with campers. It seemed like hundreds. A major gathering. But we didn’t stop there.
Somewhere along the way to Bamfield, we came to a bridge. Well actually, we came to an area that could not be crossed except by a bridge, but there was no bridge there. It was actively under construction. There had been no signs and no indication as to what we were supposed to do now. We stopped and Les got out and walked over to where the men were working. He waited patiently for someone to acknowledge his presence but they didn’t. They saw him, they just didn’t want to talk to him. People say Canadians are very friendly and our experience up to that point was that was true. But not these guys. They actively ignored us. We couldn’t get directly to where they were so we had to wait for them. After a good 5-10 minutes of standing there with no response we gave up. What a bunch of assholes.
It was clear we were not going to go forward, so the answer was to go back and try to find another way around. We made a valiant attempt but ended up lost in the forest on various gravel roads. We were up in the hills and we could see the town we wanted to get to, we just couldn’t get there. We’d get our bearings through the trees and try to head that way. Finally at some point we got back to where we had started and found the detour sign that had been knocked over. It pointed us in the right direction and we finally made it to Bamfield
But when we got there, we noticed something odd. There was no one around. Absolutely no one. It was like a neutron bomb had gone off, wiped out all the people and left the town standing. It was a reasonable sized town. There were cars and office buildings and other signs of life but no people. It was eerie. Across the harbor there were islands and we could see people out there. But no one in town. There is a big science center there (the Bamfield Marine Station), which according to Google was started in 1972 as is the largest employer in the area. We went and peaked in the windows but saw no one. Now granted, the population (also according to Google) is 155 and not everyone must work for the Marine Station, but still we expected to see at least a few people. We wandered around a bit more but as there wasn’t much to see, we decided to move on.
I’m not sure if we just continued down the road or had some inkling there was camping further down, but we followed the road to an Indian (First People’s) reserve where there was a campground. Home of the Nuu-cha-nulth people according to Google (which sounds like a group from Middle Earth – the Indians, not Google). And it looked like it wasn’t doing *too* terribly as reservations go, but it definitely reminded us of the reservations we came across on the Sequent sabbatical trip. We passed through a collection of homes and beat up cars and such and got out to the campground, which was in a great spot. The camp sites were right on the beach on a nice bay with interesting rocks and hills. The only problem was, it was raining and cold. And likely because of that, we pretty much had the place to ourselves except for one other small group.
We got there pretty late in the day. The rain must have let up or at least not been too heavy because I’m pretty sure we cooked outdoors and didn’t spend the time huddled in the tent. We were under some big trees and I’m sure that helped.
The next morning it *was* raining. But undaunted, we donned our rain ponchos and had a wander along the beach and amongst the rocks. Despite the weather it was a really nice spot. We spent a few hours wandering around. But then it was time to head home.
As usual, we were peeing in the trees as nature called, but that morning when the trees weren’t sufficient we went in search of the camp bathroom and discovered what is, still to this day, the worst toilet I have ever been in bar none. It was an outhouse of course. It was a small wooden structure, very run down, overgrown with bushes and moss, filthy, and the smell was horrific. I’m pretty sure we decided to just hold it in and move on.
We headed back up the gravel road, somehow navigated past the non-existent bridge, and when we got to the camper campground, everyone was gone. Whatever the party was, it was over. We stopped in and had a look around. It was the China Creek Marina and Campground. There was a large boat dock and I’m pretty sure we saw an otter on it. We talked to the guy a bit who ran the place. They were shutting down for the season as well. I guess yesterday had been the last day. It was a nice spot and we decided we should come back by boat sometime (which Les’ brother did at some point).
We made it back to the paved road and made our way to Nanaimo where we caught the ferry to Vancouver. And from there, down I-5 through Seattle and back home. I remember very little about that part. We were quite tired by then and as was usual for our trips, we had tried to maximize the time we had.
I can’t jive it with the maps I look at today, but at the time I believed we had reached the ‘end of the road’ in the 3 places you could. One at Cape Scott, one at Winter Harbor (which were essentially two ends of the same road) and one at Bamfield. But I guess there are a few more ‘ends’ we’ll need to get to next time. Certainly we saw more of Vancouver Island than most people.
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