Erstellt am: 16. 12. 2013 - 11:54 Uhr
Johnny's Journeys through the Inside Passage
FM4 Reality Check: My journey through the Inside Passage is available as podcast and in today´s Reality Check (12-14).
Also, special thanks go to Eric Kalnins and the other lovely people at BC Ferries without whose assistance this feature would not exist.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
What is the Inside Passage?
If you have not heard of it before, it is a narrow coastal waterway surrounded by small mountainous islands, on the coast of the Pacific Northwest, starting from the US State of Washington, and leading all the way up through Canada to the border with Alaska.
* - a northern Canadian city, not far from the border with Alaska.
My journey officially started at the northernmost BC Ferries terminal on Vancouver Island, situated in the town of Port Hardy, where the ferry up to Prince Rupert* departs once every two days.
However, my journey unofficially began the morning before, in Vancouver.
A series of misfortunes I faced en route nearly aborted the entire endeavour, well before I ever got to Port Hardy.
Advance Planning
(1) - and still affectionately called the "Charlottes" by some old-school types.
(2) - and sailing on the tumultuous Hecate Strait
(3) - Because these places host departure terminals on important ship routes, the hotels and hostels tend to book out fast; arriving sans booking is highly unrecommendable.
The entire journey was actually quite a bit longer than I will relate here, and took me further to the islands formerly known as the 'Queen Charlotte Islands'(1) aka Haida Gwaii.
The time I spent on Haida Gwaii(2) is, however, an adventure tale for another day. For now, suffice it to say that the entire journey required advance-booking of a bus, multiple long-haul ferries, several different hostels(3), and quite a bit of money paid out for the entire affair, before I ever left the door of my sister's house in Vancouver.
Suffice it also to say that if I were to miss any one of those connections, all of my hopes would be dashed, and the entire trip seemingly cancelled.
I bet you can guess what happened at the very beginning!
Johnny Bliss, 2013
So there was a traffic jam in Vancouver, forcing my sister and I to sit in traffic for an extra forty five minutes. We arrived at the ferry terminal something like two minutes before the ferry was scheduled to leave.
Despite a convincingly mad last-minute dash to the docks, from a photographer's POV, I was in a great position to watch the ship leave.
OK. Don't panic. After all, I still had three hours before my Port Hardy-bound bus was scheduled to leave from the southern port town of Nanaimo (on Vancouver Island), where my ferry would come in. Also, the Nanaimo-bound ferry would only take about an hour, and there was another one leaving in... Just a little less than two hours. That's... bad.
OK. Don't panic. After all, if the ferry arrived on time, I should be able to get to the bus stop as well, right on time. And, I mean, they had my reservation. They knew that I was coming. And surely they'd wait for the ferry to completely disembark before leaving, right??
Wrong.
Just to be on the safe side, before we even left, I tried calling the phone number for the bus company (IslandLink). If I could get in touch with the driver in advance, surely everything would be all right. Oh, the phone number doesn't work. Well, that's all right. I've got my laptop, I'll just send them an e-mail. Oh, the e-mail address bounces all mail.
Are you f'ing kidding me, IslandLink? Oh well, at least your online payment system works. You definitely took my money successfully.
The best part is, the ferry wasn't even more than a couple minutes late. I disembarked, exited the terminal as quickly as possible, looked around for the bus, and discovered (to my chagrin) that it wasn't there.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Now, maybe you don't understand yet just how very screwed this left me.
Nanaimo, see, is down south on Vancouver Island, whereas Port Hardy is very much north. According to Google Maps, that's 387 km.
According to Google Maps, it is also 4.5 hours of straight driving, but that's where Google Maps doesn't know what it's talking about.
*- I went back the same way in a single car, and we needed nearly seven hours to make the trip, with only a little traffic.
Going at an ordinary speed, one needs at least six complete hours of driving*, if everything goes perfectly according to plan.
There were no other buses leaving that day; no trains, either. I don't have a driver's license, so renting a car was also not an option.
Meanwhile, my first hostel booking was for that night in Port Hardy. My first big ferry trip was for seven-ish the next morning, and I was required to appear at the terminal at just after six a.m., to collect my reserved ticket.
It was almost three in the afternoon. This left me with only one hope.
My thumb.
My thoughts ran somewhat in this direction:
I'm not entirely comfortable hitchhiking, but I'm even less comfortable with missing my Inside Passage ferry, and my hostels, and the other ferry too.
So I caught a ride with a French couple from the ferry, who rented a car in Nanaimo. I don't think they were that keen on having a passenger, to be honest, but they saw the desperation in my eyes and relented. They drove me for about an hour before they dropped me off at a gas station.
Unfortunately, at that particular moment, it was raining like hell. But I've always been a lucky guy. I leapt out of the car, thanked the Frenchies, and immediately flagged down this guy who was just leaving the gas station.
"Are you going north?!" I yelled at him.
"Yeah!" he yelled back.
"Can I get a ride?!" I demanded, with the same desperate look in my eyes that I'd used on the Frenchies.
And so, within thirty seconds of leaving the first car, I was in an RV piloted by a lovely fellow named Kevin.
Apologies, by the way, for the lack of photographs. I guess I was just too busy trying to make it to my destination alive and on-time, I didn't really give a damn at the moment about the eventual web story.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Kevin took me quite some distance north from there; after a quick stop at a nearby campground to change vehicles, we went on to Fanny Bay, which (incidentally) is the ferry terminal for Denman Island.
*- unpredictable weather seems to be a common theme on a lot of islands.
The weather was completely sunny by that stage*, so at the next gas station, I was able to comfortably not get picked up by anybody for the next half hour until a bright fellow named Patrick told me I would be much luckier doing this on the highway, and drove me to the next exit.
My next driver was Big Pete (see above), this ardent bicyclist who took me all the way to Cumberland, and spent the whole time talking about the joys of bicycling and repairing bicycles.
After that, I got a pick-up from a local First Nations fellow named Rick, who spent the whole time telling me stories about his own hitching adventures all across Canada, till we got to Campbell River.
Campbell River was about halfway to my destination. Everything I've related so far (from Nanaimo) took me about three-and-a-half hours, so I got to Campbell River at 6:30pm, give or take a few minutes.
This was early Autumn (beginning of September), so we still had light until about 7:30 or latest, 8pm. The first half hour of being ignored by every single car (or, worse, being glared at like I was a bug-eyed alien) was not even so worrying. Up until then, I'd been doing really well, and both Patrick and Rick'd assured me I was gonna make it, so I was feeling confident.
The thing about Campbell River, though, is that it's a trucker/logger/miner sort of town, completely unlike all the hippy villages I'd been passing up until that point. Nowhere near as friendly. Also, the highway was now running straight through town, which made it much harder to get picked-up, because there was an actual sidewalk, and very few places to pull over.
I walked quite a long while with my thumb out, just hoping to find a reasonable place to stand where cars conceivably could stop.
This took me to another gas station, some kilometres (and about an hour) onward. The sun was rapidly going down, and my desperate feeling was returning, leading to thoughts like do I really want to thumb it in the dark?? But I can't give up now! I've gotten so far already. I'm not missing this goddamn ferry! Where will I sleep, if no one picks me up?? and I'm "Lucky" Johnny Bliss, this can't happen to me!! and so on.
I even went inside the gas station and offered the attendant some money to arrange me a ride. Nothing.
* - which was every passing car
Muddy, bedraggled, and full of hate for every passing car that did not pick me up*, I raised both my thumb and a despairing, totally unfair glare, at a passing van... which actually did stop, despite the fact that I probably looked like the kind of hitchhiker you don't want to pick up, by that point.
First thing I noticed: the driver's on the wrong side of the vehicle. Neil, the hippy surfer guy, had somehow bought a Japanese-imported van on this little island in British Columbia. It was chock full with surf boards and beer.
And... he was going the whole way to Port Hardy (further, actually). Happy for the company. A little taken aback at just how grateful I was. At the next gas station (which had a liquor store attached... smart one, Canada), I purchased him a six pack of beer, that's how grateful I was.
See, I would have paid a reasonable amount of money to get to Port Hardy. It wasn't that. It was that there was literally no other way to get there, that day. Taxis were certainly no option, on my FM4-like budget.
We drove something like 2.5 or three more hours in the dark, the whole time me thinking stuff along the lines, five minutes later I woulda been thumbing in the dark to drivers who didn't even see me. But my luck holds.
Jesus H. Christ, my luck still holds..
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Neil got me to my hostel short before 11pm, which leads us to
The Inside Passage
which is ostensibly what this web story is all about.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
That night, at the hostel, I met some of the people who'd managed to catch the bus over. They knew all about me, because the driver had apparently been asking if any of them were me. I shared my anecdotes, and made some new friends, including a Belgian girl named Tinne, Justin from Victoria in Australia, and Kevin, a fellow Canadian from near Vancouver, who you can see directly below this text.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Tinne, the Belgian girl, doesn't really factor into this story, because I didn't interview her, or even take any photographs. But the four of us, for this fifteen hour ferry ride, became kind of like the four Musketeers. Or since there were only three Musketeers, let's say we became like the teenage mutant ninja turtles. Because there's four of them.
By which, I'm trying to say we became close adventure time friends. If you've ever travelled anywhere, you know the type: has a big backpack, is far away from home, doesn't want to travel alone any more than you do, and is like family for the duration.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
We had to get up to catch a shuttle bus around 5 the next morning, to be at the terminal, out of town, by 6. There was a guy snoring in the bunk nearest me so I hardly slept; also because I was still so stunned that I'd actually made it, I hadn't been very tired.
Did I mention that the ferry ride takes around fifteen hours? That is why we had to leave so early. The ship, the German-made Northern Expedition, departs Port Hardy in early autumn around 7:30 in the morning.
The first two hours of travel included the only sighting of orcas, or killer whales, which is a shame, because I was still on my first coffee and not really ready to absorb what I was seeing. I thought, "oh well, we'll see more of them later", which we naturally never did again.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
(1) - That's actually a lie. I interviewed them later, but from a "story pacing" standpoint, the interview with them fits better here.
At some point, after a few coffees, and a pretty pricey (but good) buffet Canadian breakfast, I was conscious enough to display my journalistic chops, and go after some interviews. My first victims were two of my fellow ninja turtle colleagues, Justin and Kevin(1).
Kevin: We had to wake up seriously early. At five a.m., we got shoved onto a big old yellow school bus, and then off we went to the ferry, where we hurried up and waited for two hours. It was a gigantic ferry.
And what were your first impressions after the ship left Port Hardy?
(2) - I was in dining area drinking a coffee and being not awake, so I missed this bit unfortunately.
Kevin: Within a half hour [we saw] dolphins, or porpoises, tracking along the boat.(2) Beautiful morning to see the.... sea. The strait that we went through had very sparsely populated islands, that had expanses of forest and it was just nothing but green, and green water.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Justin: That first little bit before we actually got into the passage, with those big [rock] faces on either side, weaving through the islands and the sun shining through the big clouds... was the most memorable bit for me.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Justin: It got kinda boring with the, like, endless land on either side through the Inside Passage, but the first three hours [were great].
Kevin: Yeah, and as soon as it got boring, we got tired, and went to sleep!
Johnny Bliss, 2013
And what did it look like when you woke up?
Kevin: It got more narrow, and the mountains got taller and steeper. Going back out on deck, there were fish jumping. Still waters, and all of a sudden, this two foot long fish jumping three-four feet out of the water!
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Kevin: The most memorable part for me, of that narrow next bit was when there was a little giant tugboat that was actually probably three stories high. As soon as I saw the barge that it was dragging behind it, I realized the sheer size of the vessel that I was laying my eyes upon.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Kevin: The sea containers were stacked onto the barge, and then on top of the sea containers, there were semi [trucks] parked, and cars, and it looked like this tugboat was towing this miniature city, which was probably like seven stories high!
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Kevin: The [tug boat] was sitting low in the water, crawling by us. I had this realization of the sheer amount of mass that was involved in bringing all these sea containers from Alaska, all the way down to probably Port Hardy, where they'd be dumped off. So that was pretty memorable!
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Exploiting my new friends as cheap labour took up only a small percentage of my fifteen hours on-board. With some of the rest of that time, I took a tour around the ship, with my camera. Here are the results of this exercise.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Incidentally, the Raven Lounge was also the site of one of the most uninspired lectures about local ecology I've ever witnessed.
A very exhausted-looking employee came and read a script, and so clearly did not care about what he was reading, that it was comically memorable.
I don't remember a thing about the topic itself.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Another thing I did, during those fifteen hours, was organize an interview with the Captain of the ship. I didn't find anything about him on Google, so I may be misspelling his name, but it sounded like he said he was 'Orville Bouchart'. Whatever his name was, I found him a very pleasant sort.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
So how much of the trip is actually inside the Inside Passage?
Captain: There are a couple of areas where we have to go on the outside at sea, till we find the Inside Passage again, but I would say that 80 to 85 percent of the route is inside. So even if it's windy, we're quite sheltered here, and the beauty of it is that there's a lot of mountains, also a lot of snow. You guys in Austria are really used to high mountains, so you probably wouldn't be that impressed (laughs), but also there's a lot of lakes that we don't see that are between the mountains.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
You also see a lot of modern ruins.
Captain: There's a few canneries along the way that have been abandoned.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Captain: [There are] quite a few lighthouses that are still in operation, and also manned.
Manned lighthouses! I didn't even know those still existed.
Captain: That's right, they exist, mainly on the west coast of this country.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Captain: Sometimes we make stops at the town of Bella Bella or Klemtu, and when we do then obviously the trip is a little bit longer.
Bella Bella seems like its pretty remote. What is it like?
Captain: It's a native reservation. We've got a pretty good dock at each place. You wouldn't know that you're in such a remote town if you didn't know where you are. They're on small islands. In fact in winter we bring all of their food in reefer trailers, big trucks that roll them on and off, so it's big enough that we can do that.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
What sort of wildlife can one see on this route?
Captain: Mainly humpback whales and also a few orcas. Quite a few dolphins, and also bald eagles, especially when we get closer to land. Often you can see them just leaving tree tops and diving toward us.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
------------------
There's one more thing I wanted to show you, just because it's so weird.
You see some very surreal things floating on that water. For example, entire neighbourhoods of completely-built houses.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Epilogue
* - But I will in the future. Stay tuned! ^^
I had a great journey following the Inside Passage. For another ten days or so, I was in the thick of a wholly different adventure. I won't get into that now*, but eventually I returned the same way, with long-haul ferries leading me back from Haida Gwaii, to Port Hardy.
A funny thing happened on my way back. As I have related here, I didn't exactly have a good experience with the IslandLink bus service on Vancouver Island. E-mails kept bouncing, and there seemed literally no way to get in touch with them, except for giving them money.
So I decided to hitchhike back...
Johnny Bliss, 2013
This guy is one of two people I met, who seem to be in charge of running the North Coast Trail Backpacker's Hostel in Port Hardy. Very friendly and funny reliable people, and they remembered me when I came back.
Anyway, I asked him if he knew anybody who was driving south. He instantly introduced me to another guest (see below; let's call him... Bob), who would be driving the next morning all the way down Vancouver Island, and would happily take a passenger along.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
Long story short, I easily got a ride with Bob, making the return trip far less eventful, or interesting to relate as an anecdote.
So why am I even bringing it up?!
Well... I had checked the ferry schedule for Nanaimo, and it looked as if we would make it in time for Bob to drop me off at the terminal ahead of a particular ferry back to Vancouver.
Perhaps it was a little bit tight time-wise, but it essentially looked good. So much so, that I even coordinated to meet my partner on-board that ferry; Bob and I even stopped for lunch along the way.
But then we got caught behind this vehicle (see below) for a good long haul of it. There was nothing we could do; it was a long and winding mountainous road, with only the one lane each direction.
Johnny Bliss, 2013
This cost us maybe half an hour, maybe longer.
Either way, by the time we reached the ferry terminal at Nanaimo, it was... just a couple minutes before departure.
I guess you know what happened?
Johnny Bliss, 2013
C'est la vie. The perfect bookend to a long and crazy adventure.