Locomotion to Haida Gwaii - DAY FOUR - Prince Rupert to Port Clements

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

I woke up in Prince Rupert in utter darkness. My room at the Black Rooster was in the basement, and even at 8:15, every single person was in a quasi coma. Shouldn't there be some sun-bleached middle-aged German backpacker, up and off and up to pray to the marmot shrine? Wait, these are costal mountains. Lower elevation, so tree-covered, so not so marmots. I guessed that I had missed the early risers.

But when I came upstairs and saw what the weather was doing, I thought I might be the only person in PR that was up and about. The mist, and rain, and low clouds were so enveloping - the sky was so just dark dark trees - and the city itself so tenuous, so obviously flung upon unsympathetic rocky hills - that the only sane choice was to hibernate. But I had a ferry to catch...

And some serious logistical changes to my show to deal with. I'll talk about this later, but I had to spend the morning on phone and email, trying to keep myself rigidly in problem-solving mode.

Most of the day was taken up by ferry travel. I checked in at 10:40am for a 1:00pm sailing. I attempted to stop at Timmy's out of the drizzle, but the line was so long that I didn't even bother to enter the building. (The fact that there was a line long at Timberly's does not, I propose, scuttle my theory that the entire city of Prince Rupert was in a coma.) In the ferry lineup I waited, made some more calls, waited, took some pretty cool pictures of the harbour and train tracks (the ferries and VIA trains come in to the same station. Which is pretty interesting stuff to try to photograph. And logistically...complicated, I'm sure). And waited. And boarded.



And sat next to a nice young English man who turned out to be named Andy, and be a high school history teacher, and to share a lot in common with me including age and ferry schedule. He is backpacking, on a short solo holiday in western Canada. I'm agreed to drive him around Haida Gwaii - and possibly down the length of Vancouver Island when we do that - for the exchange of gas money and the gain of a hiking buddy. No bear's gonna eat BOTH of us! With someone to talk to, the 6.5 hour ferry ride (8.5 on the way back. For some reason.) went quickly. There was little to look at but waves for most of the trip. I experienced seasickness for the first time in my life. I'm great with roller coasters! But I guess I can get off of them. The ferry across Hecate Straight is legendarily retch-inducing. This is even a joke in "Old Growth"! I listed to the starboard gift shop to look for Gravol. I was not alone. All they had was a homeopathic remedy, which I think I took too late. I couldn't entirely keep all of my lunch down (most of it though) and I think I was the only person on the ferry who couldn't. One of the locals on board said this is what the seas are like in the winter. He spent most of the voyage sleeping on an air mattress on the lounge floor. We'll be taking the overnight ferry back. I wish I had an air mattress!

I had to figure out how to open my passenger door to let Andy into my car. Those ferry ramps only have enough room to allow one side to open, and I hadn't thought I would have a passenger. But we figured it out, and made our way north. Within five minutes, we came to a beautiful sight - a large balancing boulder on a rocky beach with tidal pools and seaweed and tiny 6-legged starfish. (whatever happened to the odd-legged rule?) There were tens of tiny dark deer along the highway. We drove up to Port Clements, keeping on saying things like "Uh oh, I already worry that I'm going to want to move here". I cashed in my reservation at the Golden Spruce motel, and Andy decided to splurge and get a room as well. The local pub stops serving food at 8pm, so we had to make do with Andy's stash of cheese buns, and cheese, and fruit. I cracked open one of my last two Bushwakker beers from Regina. And we both wondered whether we were sitting in the room that Grant Hadwin stayed in, when he cut down the Golden Spruce. The rooms are lovingly-maintained retro, cozy as only earlier decades could do it. There is a golden tree-shaped air freshener in my room. And in Port Clements, another golden tree, this time a wooden way-marker: 6. We're going to drive those 6k first thing Thursday.