A perfect circle around British Columbia
EVERYONE loves a grand circle, and this was mine: A 2,200-mile loop through British Columbia that showcased water, mountains, remnants of volcanoes and the storied sites of Canada’s gold-rush and fur-trade eras.
It meant driving the length of Vancouver Island, taking a 16hour ferry north on the Inside Passage, heading east on the storied Yellowhead Highway, then south down the Cariboo Gold Rush trail.
The highways on the loop are paved two-lane roads with plenty of services, tons of things to do and more beauty than we deserved.
Planning a 12- day jaunt around British Columbia with an 11year- old in tow was not hard. Two ferry connections had to be booked months in advance, but all our other reservations were made two weeks or less before we set out on a Sunday in midAugust.
Although we drove up from Seattle, it’s easier to fly into Vancouver, grab a car and head for the ferry dock at Tsawwassen, just south of the airport. The views of the Coast Mountains during our two-hour ride across the Strait of Georgia were stunning. We disembarked in Nanaimo, a mid-sized city best known as the site of the annual World Championship Bathtub Race.
We headed for Coombs, a small town on Highway 4A west of Nanaimo. You can’t miss the Old Country Market, a wildly eclectic grocery store with billy goats perched on its roof, contentedly munching grass.
The market was started in the 1950s by Norwegian immigrants who wanted a store with a sod roof, much like those found in the old country. Eventually, they needed a way to mow the grass that sprung up, so goats were brought in to do the job.
Across the street was the Billy Gruff Creamery (“Three Billy Goats Gruff,” remember, is a Norwegian fairy tale), where we sampled a few of the 69 flavours of ice cream and Italian gelato.
The next day, we headed west on Highway 4 to Cathedral Grove, a meandering walk through an 800-year- old strand of Douglas firs and cedar. Nine miles to the west was Port Alberni, at the head of a long inlet that leads to the Pacific.
Planning a 12-day jaunt around British Columbia with an 11-year-old in tow was not hard. Two ferry connections had to be booked months in advance, but all our other reservations were made two weeks or less before we set out on a Sunday in mid-August.
Canada has these amazing travel-friendly visitor centres that are marked with giant question-mark signs, stocked with maps and guides that one cannot find online. Folks at the Port Alberni centre directed us to Serious Coffee, a local java spot, then to Harbour Quay, home to several seafood eateries and picnic tables with sweeping views of the mountains.
On the way back, we drove past farms selling garlic, sheep and lambs, ending up at the Community Beach in the town of Parksville, where the salty sea was clear, shallow and quite warm. The boardwalk, the food carts, the play area and tiny water park, together with the periwinkle blue mountains shimmering across the strait on a late afternoon, felt perfect.
The next morning, we meandered past wineries, galleries, candle makers and glass-bead shops, ending up in Campbell River, a town known for snorkel-with- salmon tours for the millions of the fish that arrive there in the late summers.
Twenty-five miles to the west on Highway 28 was Strathcona Provincial Park, the unsung jewel of the island’s park system. The mountains dive straight down into Buttle Lake underneath the snow- capped Elk River Mountains. We drove down to the waterfront by the Strathcona Park Lodge and Outdoor Education Centre, where we found a boat house that offered rentals of motorboats, kayaks and canoes, as well as a secluded kids’ beach with floaties and barriers.
Although not as well publicised as its southern half, the northern part of Vancouver Island includes many amazing getaways, wilderness destinations and coastal lodges. An antique sawmilling village on Johnstone Strait, known as Telegraph Cove, is packed with sightseers who come for the whale-watching expeditions or fishing trips. There is also a cafe, restaurant, shops and lodgings dating back to the 1920s and 1930s. We wandered about a five-bedroom hotel built in 1912, Wastell Manor, which has a beautiful sun room and killer view.
We opted to stay in less expensive digs at the Inlet Haven Bed and Breakfast in Port Alice, a town on one of the coves off the island’s West Coast. Set on a hill facing due west, it is the site of a closed pulp mill that provided 75 per cent of the town’s tax base and half of its jobs. But it shut down in February 2015, leaving about 500 residents, including B& B owners Bonnie and Jim Overland.
The couple make the trip worthwhile, as they take visitors on drives to hidden places in the hills, such as pristine Alice Lake.
The next day, we were up at 4.30am to catch a 16-hour ferry ride from Port Hardy, a town on Vancouver Island’s northern tip, to Prince Rupert.
Named after a 17th- century British royal, this remote city is 117 miles south of Ketchikan, Alaska. The boarding process was lengthy and disorganised, but once on board, it was pleasant. Many of us took refuge on the glassed-in sixth-floor sun deck to gaze upon hundreds of miles of forested mountains, occasional lighthouses, canneries, waterfalls and scattered settlements along the Inside Passage. We disembarked close to midnight, then sped off to the Black Rooster Guesthouse, an upper- crust hostel a mile from the dock. — WP-Bloomberg