The North Island; chapter one

We were persuaded that Saskatchewan in June wasn't the best season for a prairie experience so decided to make a long delayed excursion to the north end of Vancouver Island, which is actually a lot more west of here than north. We'd never been past Campbell River and  have wavered between "why would we" and "we should". I booked a B&B in Port McNeil back in March and for various good reasons we almost cancelled this trip a couple of times but kept coming back to it.
We stopped in Sayward on the way 'up'. The only thing I'd ever heard about it was during a rain-induced flood a few years ago and there's not much more to say. Like many of the north island communities, it's in a lovely location but is not exactly thriving. Ups and downs in the resource industries, fisheries and forestry, which used to make these places prosperous, have been mostly down for a dozen years. We had tea at the Cable House Cafe, made from 26 tons of recycled logging cable dragged out of the forest and welded to a steel frame. It's rustic and interesting with a new enthusiastic lessee but we wonder how long she can last with no custom except the odd traveller who ventures off the highway.

On we went another couple of hours, it's 5-6 hours actual driving time from Victoria to Port McNeil, to our reservation at At Water's Edge. And it was, with ferries, cruise ships and 7 eagles zooming past regularly. Our room was pretty cramped and basic but the location was superb. We had taken our propane campfire with us and enjoyed a nightcap on the beach each evening despite it being unexpectedly chilly.

Day one we went to Port Hardy and it rained. The various people we met were overly cheerful and enthusiastic about the town while we were depressed by it. We expected PH to be a bustling centre and it is not. Not only has it lost virtually everything due to the fishery collapse, it suffers from being too spread out (IMHO). Downtown Port Hardy, the sport fishery hotels, the BC Ferries terminal to Prince Rupert, and the beautiful Storey's Beach are not close together making it unlikely that the various players work together. Later, once we got used to no people and the road to ourselves we decided our first impression was culture shock because we are used to "cute" tourist destinations. Every visitor we met was from Europe (England, Belgium, Germany, France) looking for a wilderness experience and anxious to see bears and whales. I lie, there were groups of American sports fishers as well but not at our B&B.

On our way back to Port McNeil, we sidestepped down a winding fjord road to Port Alice for a look-see. It's tiny and isolated but seemed to have a better sense of itself. Our Irish house-exchanger from last year spent time working in the mill in Port Alice, yonks ago. Talk about culture shock from just outside Dublin to Port Alice.

Chapter two takes us to Alert Bay...