Sandy's Epic Spring Adventure - Port Hardy

 Finally!!!! We've arrived in Port Hardy on the northern end of Vancouver Island. It only took us 9 hours... ugh! But the humans have the stretchiest legs now... strange people... Do you see the bear on top of that sign! This is my sort of place.

Why are we in Port Hardy you might ask? Are we going further north to Cape Scott?? Nope...

Cute spring flowers though!

And a nifty totem pole!

I'm partial to the bear on this totem...

OK, OK.... enough prevaricating (is that a real word?)... why are we here??...

Well do you see that... waaaaayyyy off in the distance??

Yep... that boat... that's where we are going!

Where is the boat going?? Stay tuned!!

Seee... Port Hardy... and... I found a beary interesting exhibit here.

Apparently this is a big wind farm area! (Who knew!)...

And a few years back, one of the blades of a wind turbine got damaged during transport and the town got to keep it!! I somehow thought it would be bigger...

Oh, you think that's just a perspective thing? Alright... let's get a full-on pic of this thing!

There I am!! On the rock! See me??

Farther back!!!

OK... yeah... this thing is huge!!! It's 50 metres long (about 150 ft).

I like this Port Hardy sign better than the first one... more bears!!!

And a bear with a salmon!! Even better!!

In case you think we are dawdling again... we are. We can only check in for the boat at 4:00 pm soooo...

I learned a bit about some of the other villages up on the north island, places like Zeballos! Great salmon fishing and kayaking!

And Telegraph Cove - population 20 - former cannery town and now a launch off point for eco-tourism.

Woss we already know about but there's some great caving there too!

Ah, Sayward... bad forest fire burning near there right now.

Sointula?? Established on Malcolm Island by some Finns in the early 1900s as a future "utopia". Sounds interesting!

Holberg was settled by Danes and is enroute to Cape Scott. It had an RCAF base for a long time... in the middle of nowhere!

Oooh... we just moved closer to the boat terminal... Are we there yet??? Nope... but I love this sign!! The boat docks in Bear Cove! Isn't that just perfect? This sounds like my kind of place!

We are still waiting for 4:00 pm to roll around. Sigh.

Let's stretch our legs a bit...

Oooh... there it is!!

It's the BC Ferries!!! The Northern Adventure... that's a nice name!

It's huge.

Whups... a bit of a jump... we were just a few minutes from the ferry line-up soooo we joined it at 4 pm sharp and... there are already 20 cars ahead of us. But that shouldn't take long, right? The check-in info said if you have a reservation, you can ONLY check-in between 4 pm and 4:30 pm and if you are late, your reservation "might" not be honoured...

Yes... well... 4:25 pm and we are still 15 cars from the check-in booth. This is the slowest process ever. We are taking pics of the car clock so we can PROVE we were here on time.

Ugh... one of the humans does not handle this stress beary well!

***Later***

Alright!!! We are on the ferry! It was beary stressful... we got to the check-in booth at 5 pm and the lady just brushed off the stress of late check-in. Apparently they have a scouter who looks out at the line at 4:30 pm and notes which car is the "end of the line". Well... that would have been nice to know! 

And this is a beary different ferry from the regular mainland/island ones. On those, the bow and stern are interchangeable. So you drive on one end and drive off the other. They are like a drive-thru ferry. This one... you drive on one way and you'll have to drive off the same way! We are up in the bow, on a ramp bit and there, the little cars can sort of pull a u-turn so we are facing the stern now. But... down below... all of the trucks and RVs have to back on to the ferry!!

And... I don't think a lot of people with trailers know how to back-up into a cramped ferry very well!!!

Stay-Tuned!!

Sandy's Epic Spring Adventure - Still Driving North

 Hello again! Yes, yes... we are still driving to the north end of the Island... it took a bit longer than the 4 hours that "normal" people would do... sooooo much "leg stretching"!

Anyhow... I put my paw down when I saw this sign... I'd heard of Woss and wanted to have a look at this place so that this little bear can do their own dawdling!

Now... Woss used to be a bustling little place back in the logging days... now it's kind of sad and dejected with hardly anybody around.

But... it does have a beary interesting artifact here... are you read?? Jerry & Ben?? Ready??

Tadah!!!!! It's an old steam locomotive!!!

Isn't it pretty??? Up until the mid 1960s, Woss was only accessible by rail... and then they did a lot of logging using rail as well.

We didn't know we would find this here... but that's what happens when you go off the beaten track, you find cool things.

It is locomotive 113 of the American Locomotive Company - made in 1920 by the Portland, Astoria and Pacific Railway. Little Fox should know this company!

It is beary cool!

This is also a bit of a sad memorial. In 2018, 3 rail workers died when 11 railway cars, loaded with logs detached from the rest of the train in the reloading yard. The cars rolled backwards and crashed into a speeder that were working on the tracks. The speeder operator tried to apply breaks but... it was too much. It eventually derailed and 3 men were killed and 2 injured. The investigation found that the coupler connecting the cars to the rest of the train were faulty. And the cars should have derailed before they reached the speeder, but the railway ties were so rotten that when the cars hit the derailer, they just tore it out of the wood. So sad. (Host of errors blamed in Woss derailment that claimed 3 lives - Victoria Times Colonist).

There's also an interpretive display here that tells you a bit about the history of rail in this area.

They have some crazy trestle bridges here!

And then there's this locomotive... not so interesting...

At least not to me!!!

And Minnie got out to stretch her legs!!! She needed it!

Almost to the North end of the Island!