Laden with 50lb packs and a positive attitude, we boarded the bus-to-the-ferry-to-the-bus-to-the-bus to the Vancouver hostel. It was a 7 hour adventure in total, which we thought would be a good exercise in preparing us for navigating public transportation during future travels.

All went off without much of a hitch, except that our directions from the ferry to downtown Vancouver were out of date, and we had to rediscover our route on the fly. Again – a good lesson learned I’m sure.

Cramming two people on buses with backpacks equalling the size of said people in the middle of rush hour through downtown Vancouver is no easy task, mind you. However aside from being berated by a sour woman for having backpacks on the bus, we survived the ordeal.

Our arrival at the Vancouver hostel was somewhat unnerving. We walked past porn shop after peep show, seedy bar after gritty head shop, to arrive at our destination. It was an old dilapidated building, with questionable amenities, but by this time we were accustomed to not setting any expectations of hostels.

This particular hostel is known in Lonely Planet (the bible guidebook for travellers around the world) as the best place to stay in Vancouver for cheap. I’m not sure what their criteria were, as it wasn’t even what we could call cheap – it was the most expensive place we’d stayed at yet.

But maybe it’s the ambience that makes it the best place to stay, we thought. The message board in the common area featured all sorts of pub crawls, walking brewery tours, and events for the party-going hosteller. And in the brochure the hostel was quick to note that it has a bar on the bottom floor…..this was mentioned many times and seemed to be a real point of pride.

Well, it wasn’t so much a bar as a nightclub. We know this because while we lay in our bed which was bouncing and vibrating to the thumping music until after 2am, we were able to work out topographically that we were located directly above the dance floor. Add to the mix an assortment of people who did their laundry all through the night (the laundry room being two doors down), and a young Australian girl who saw fit to call her parents in the hallway at 3am, and we had one sleepless night.

I will give our nameless hostel credit though: when we told our tale of woe to the manager, he was quick to fully refund our money without asking any questions. It’s our guess that he had dealt with this before…many times.

Our next day in Vancouver was a sleepy one at that. We had a few hours to wander around the harbour and Stanley Park, dozing from sight to the next. By 5:30pm, we had to be on the train, for our 24 hour journey back home.

Related posts:

1. BC Friendliness (Vancouver Island)
2. The Journey to Victoria Via a Little Place Called Home
3. A Ferry Big Mistake

Check out this video for yourself and decide!

Being a retirement city, there are also lots of nice cars being driven by those who have earned their retirement…..Rolls Royces, Jaguars, Antique Cars alike were all over the place.

So upon first blush Victoria is a city of wealth, beauty, and warmth.

But when you have to step over heroin addicts and homeless people to experience the wealth, beauty, and warmth, the city’s glamour is somewhat tempered.

We just spent the last 2 weeks touring cities all over BC and Alberta in which passers by on the street said hello. If there was no exchange of words, at the very least people made eye contact and smiled. No so in Victoria.

Kelly says Victoria has a feel quite similar to Ottawa; it’s beautiful and rich at first blush, but a peek under the surface shows a much less appetizing place on a number of different levels, many of which are difficult to define.

And we are not the only ones with waning feelings for Victoria; for years it has prided itself as the City of Festivals. However this year, 3 of the largest festivals have pulled Victoria off their roster for various reasons which are currently among debate in the newspapers. The city also just passed a by-law that basically outlaws busking marimba bands. Yup. Those pesky marimba bands must have crossed a line somewhere in there. The latin beats were just too much for Victoria’s ticking pace-maker.

Granted, in defense of the city, we didn’t make it out of the downtown area, and a lot of what was worth seeing may have been in the outskirts. Buchart Gardens was a ¾ hour bus ride away. Whale Watching and the beach was a boat ride away. Everything was…away.

And as a thriving retirement community, for those living in a beautiful condo outside of the downtown core, on or near the water, I’m sure Victoria is glorious. We just couldn’t appreciate it. All we saw was a little big-city with a small heart.

Related posts:

1. The Journey to Victoria Via a Little Place Called Home
2. Victoria’s Bushfires: Update Feb 10th
3. City Life vs Country Life: An Unbiased Analysis

After a few rainy days in Tofino we decided to make our way back towards the eastern side of Vancouver Island and homeward bound. After spending a night at Gary & Michelle’s home (Gary being a friend we just met on the ferry to Vancouver Island – how’s that for BC Generosity!) and a wonderful evening of live music and good food at a local Grill, we got great vibes off the place.

Courtenay is apparently the fastest growing city in Canada, believe it or not. I’d have put my money on Edmonton, but the town (yes, they still call it a town with 30,000 people) of Courtenay is experiencing some explosive growth.

Any why wouldn’t they? They’re nestled in between the ocean, mountains, and lush green-all-year-round rainforest. They have a thriving arts community, rife with writers, musicians, and artists alike. Lots of festivals come through the place, and many musical and artistic tours even go out of their way to put Courtenay on their roster.

Even the weather is perfect in The Valley (as the Courtenay-Comox area is known); while we were driving across the Island from Tofino on that cold rainy day, the skies magically opened up as we got close to Courtenay and we had nothing but sun and warmth for the next two days.

After a riveting coin toss and then a decision that we’d veto the outcome (!), we planned to extend our trip by a few days.

The original plan had us heading to Nanaimo and catching a ferry to Vancouver, but we decided to check out Victoria for a few days and head to Vancouver from there instead, catching the train to Edmonton later in the week.

So we left home (Courtenay) to head home (Edmonton) via Victoria (definitely not home)! Stay posted…..

Related posts:

1. BC Friendliness (Vancouver Island)
2. Victoria: The City of Beautiful Flowers Among Ugliness
3. Victoria’s Bush Fires

I would crave it. Dream about it. If I had the mis-fortune to pass by a KYC in my daily travels I would be driven to virtual insanity. With desire.

And once – once in a very long while – I would succumb. With an empty bucket of chicken and an unrecognizable mixture of artificially flavoured salad remnants and congealed gravy in my wake, I would moan and belch for hours.

“Never. Never will I do that again. Oh – I feel so…..so…..greasy”! I would vow to myself over and over again while rolling around in bloated agony.

Any yet, months or (if I’m lucky) years later, I would repeat the same act of foolishness all over again. Crave. Smell. Succumb. Moan. Belch. Vow. Rinse & Repeat.

I have a similar eat-hate relationship with fish & chips.

Now, I’m the 1st person to embrace a culture and experience the best of any particular offering. And ever since landing in Prince Rupert – the Halibut Capital Of The World – I understood my new mission on the coast was to experience the best fish & chips.

However, I also recalled a recent vow never to have them again after a particularly greasy Moaning & Belching & Vowing experience with “the best fish & chips” in Toronto. So, weary of taking on the mission, I merely threatened to go out for the prized dish. I visited numerous pubs in search of the place that LOOKED to have the best fish & chips from the outside and perused the menus in the window to check prices.

And hiding behind the feign of trying to travel on a budget, I would ultimately stick my nose up to walk away and return to the hostel for a healthy home-cooked meal.

But I’ll tell you without a shadow of a doubt, the grungy looking, fluorescent lit, tiny restaurant on the corner boasting the plain hand-written sign “Burgers and Fish and Chips” most certainly had the best fish & chips in Prince Rupert. I just didn’t try them.

Once on Vancouver Island though, we couldn’t contain ourselves any longer. Off we went on a local’s recommendation to a pub for what were supposed to be some of the best fish & chips in town. We walked right by the other pub I’d already pinned for having the best: all the tables sported both malt & white vinegar alongside salt & pepper as condiments….how can you go wrong?! But instead we marched on trusting the local’s advice instead.

Admittedly, it wasn’t bad. The fries weren’t as I imagine the quintessential fries for the perfect fish & chips should be, but the fish was plentiful and expectedly greasy.
After the feast, I rolled out of the pub, already Belching and Moaning. I still maintain that the other pub had better fish & chips, but I just vowed never to eat fish & chips again, so I guess I’ll never know.

Related posts:

1. Recipes From The Road: Homemade Flat Pizza Crust / Naan / Pita / Tortilla Chips
2. Eating in Asia
3. Supafly – I mean, Supafry

Related posts:

1. The Journey to Victoria Via a Little Place Called Home
2. BC Friendliness (Vancouver Island)
3. Searching For The Best Fish & Chips – Without Eating Them

A picture taken from the summit of Mt Hays by Matt. Eagles playing in the sky.

I’ve said it over and over to people, and now I’m truly seeing and realizing it: Canada has so much to offer. From one coast to the other, there is so much variety, and even great cultural differences everywhere.

When we came to British Columbia, as a Torontonian I was actually a bit “put off” by the overt friendliness of everybody there. Usually if a stranger said “hello” to me on the street in Toronto, I’d assume I was in the process of being mugged.

Here in BC it’s another story.

Although every experience in BC has been fantastic, our first introduction to true BC hospitality was on the ferry to Vancouver Island, where we met Gary. He lives in Courtenay and was returning home. A short conversation with him led to an invitation to hitch a ride to Courtenay with him – a 300km adventure.

After the ride into Courtenay and even driving us right to the car rental place, he extended further hospitality and invited us over to his home to stay for the night. Exhausted from our ferry ride (see our last post: A Ferry Big Mistake) we decided we wouldn’t be very good company and made the push for the west coast instead.

Once in Uclulet, we found yet more BC friendliness. Everybody (almost without exception), even passers by in cars, were sure to say hello.

Now, we are some of those people; we say hi to everybody we come across. In fact, we even came across a couple that looked at us like we were from Mars when we said hello to them, and we immediately knew they were from Toronto!

Related posts:

1. The Journey to Victoria Via a Little Place Called Home
2. Sleepless in Vancouver – and Beyond
3. The World’s Shortest Ferry Ride

The ferry ride from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy (on Vancouver Island) is a 20 hour adventure, taking passengers through the beautiful inside passage. Lush mountains covered in trees with white snow caps are everywhere. The water is like glass as you glide through it. Eagles are flying around everywhere, bears are dotted along the shorelines, and every once in a while you are lucky enough to spot a school of porpoises or whales.

In an effort to embrace the “roughing it” aspect of our future travels in developing countries (and of course to also save a few bucks), we decided not to listen to our Kiwi friend Matt (quoted above – “Ye, it’s woof its waieet in gowld, ass wha ya gotta deo”) who had taken the trip from Vancouver Island a week prior, and to instead try to spend the night in the common area.

Because we’re still in the shoulder season, the boat was almost empty. “Ye can plaee a gaem a cricket, its saoo beeg,” said Matt in reference to the hundreds of empty seats that made up the economy section. In total I’m guessing that only about 20 people occupied it.

We were also warned from a number of previous passengers that the ferry was cold – really cold. Of course, these were mostly English passengers, who are the first to admit they are used to the super-heated ferries in their neck of the woods. Nevertheless, we bought a fleece blanket for the trip, knowing it would come in handy more than once during our travels.

We immediately set up camp towards the front of the boat, with the intention of sleeping on some narrow couches that were dotted around.

Once night fell and we were ready for bedtime, we had a slight dilemma on our hands: Sleep feet to feet on the narrow couches and try to share the one blanket we had, or to share our body heat and cuddle on the floor.

“I’m not really that cold, and it would be nice to spread out a bit on the floor. There won’t be as many blanket issues, and I can fall sleep anywhere anyway,” were the words I used, that I’m still eating today.

I guess it’s been a while since I’ve slept on a hard surface, especially one that vibrates and moves up and down with the waves, as was the case on the ferry. But, eventually we were able to fall into blissful sleep.

For a while.

About 3 hours after bedtime, around 2am, I awoke, shivering uncontrollably. The boat didn’t seem so cold earlier in the evening, and we were even making fun of our English wussy friends who thought the ferry was cold.

But the temperature on the floor is about 10 degrees colder than the couches 2 feet off the floor. Mistake number one.

Then, I realized that I couldn’t move. My shoulder had locked, and my hip was definitely bruised from sleeping on my side. It took about 5 minutes to excruciatingly extract myself from my twisted position and roll over.

I realized our initial mistake in choosing the floor as our bed and attempted to relocate to the couches, but of course it was too late – the prized beds were snapped up by other sleepy passengers.

Then, it happened.

The ferry stopped in Bella Bella to pick up a few more passengers at this ungodly hour. I’m guessing that most of them were drinking hard to pass the time until the ferry came, because “quiet – people are sleeping” didn’t seem to be part of their vocabulary. One particularly rowdy group of people were making such a ruckus, I was sure they were actually setting up a tent in the common area. Another family of 3 with a small child came and set up shop near to us, and to pacify the child, they played a DVD of James Bond – at decibels that would be practically unacceptable during the daytime, much less when people all around were trying to sleep.

Nothing like good old 007 to lull your small children to sleep.

So, with 3 hours sleep under our belts and drunken foolery taking place on every side of us, we became punchy. Shivering, we lay there actually writing this article together verbally. Unfortunately we didn’t have the presence of mind to whip out the laptop and start typing, so what you see is what we remember from the foggy tiring night.

Next time, Matt: we’ll listen to you. We promise.

Related posts:

1. The World’s Shortest Ferry Ride
2. Sleepless in Vancouver – and Beyond
3. Bloody Cold: It Really Is That C-c-cold

And to an extent we understand why; it’s a beautiful town, with friendly people and majestic scenery – when it’s not raining. We didn’t see much of the wet stuff ourselves, but anybody who has spent much time living in Prince Rupert doesn’t have many nice things to say about their weather. I have to wonder though: how would the same people view the harsher snowy winters we are so used to in Toronto and Edmonton?

The four day visit and sunny weather had us enjoying the outdoors as much as possible. On day two we hiked up Mount Hays: a 2400ft elevation in some pretty heavy snow up top – up to our waists at times – which made the slog quite tricky and cold. (Our tootsies were happy to have a hot shower when we got back from the 5 hour climb)!

Another day we hiked about 10kms around some reversing tidal rapids and grassy beach areas just out of town. After our summit of Mount Hays though we were in real pain by the time we returned from our second consecutive long hike for sure!

But we were glad to have the exercise, as the 20 hour (plus 3 hour delay) ferry ride to Vancouver Island left us not much choice for exercise other than running from one end of the ship to the other!

HOSTELLING:
When we started traveling, I didn’t quite understand the whole Hostelling concept. Sure the cost is somewhat cheaper (not always as inexpensive as you might think though at times!), but it’s a transient lifestyle at best. Until we came to Prince Rupert, everybody we came across in hostels pretty much kept to themselves.

And when we did find ourselves in conversation with fellow travelers, it was somewhat repetitive:
“So where are you from?”
“How long have you been traveling?”
“Where to next?”
“What’s your favourite….”
“Okay, well have a nice life”!

…yadda yadda yadda. We’ve only been on the road a short time and I’m already tired of the same old rhetoric!

However I realized that we just hadn’t met the right people or made the right connections. When you only stay one night in a place there’s often little point in trying to forge new relationships. Most travelers are going different ways and uninterested in a one-day-travel-affair.

It was only when Matt, a Kiwi (from New Zealand) volunteered to tag along our hike up Mount Hays that we discovered what hostelling is all about. He’s actually a business traveler, but chooses hostels as his preferred mode of accommodation. He said it’s more friendly, unlike the anonymity you hold when you bunk up in a little hotel room and are forced to eat out every night. You meet all kinds of people, and sometimes you can even find somebody traveling your way and experience new adventures together.

In fact, we are looking forward to connecting with Matt again in Edmonton and taking some trips out to Jasper together for more mountain climbing this summer!

Related posts:

1. Are you a Mountain person or Water person? (Edmonton to Prince Rupert)
2. Small Town Life
3. Searching For The Best Fish & Chips – Without Eating Them

I was promised that during the train trip through northern Ontario, moose would be everywhere. In fact, there was a good chance that the train would hit one, they’re so thick in number.

And after 48 hours of riding across Canada from Toronto to Edmonton, I saw nothing. Not one. Not even a trace of one….no furry antlers sticking around as evidence of their presence at one time, not one twisted mac truck to prove their existence.

Again another 26 hours from Edmonton to Prince Rupert, and again – no moose.

So, I’ve come to the conclusion that moose just don’t exist. I haven’t exactly figured out why so many people worldwide would collaborate to pull the wool over my eyes in this giant sham, but apparently it is so.

At the insistence of many, I continue to keep my eyes peeled for these huge furry creatures. But my hope for ever seeing one is waning, as the days and weeks of touring through remote areas of Canada continue.

Stay tuned for the hunt for the elusive Moose.

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1. Surprise!
2. The Journey to Victoria Via a Little Place Called Home
3. The Train Trip to Alberta

People say that you’re either a “mountain person” or a “water person”. A water person not only craves the vast expanses of open water and feels calm when near it, but when they’re in the mountains they can feel crowded and panicky. By contrast, a mountain person feels cradled and protected in the mountains, and over-exposed on or near the water.

Having grown up with wrinkled fingers from all the swimming pools I practically lived in, I would have coined myself as a water person. But I also have known (ever since a trip to the Rocky mountains when I was 20) that the mountains hold a special place in my heart, and there is an awesome spiritual contentment I have gotten every time I am surrounded by these luscious giants.

So, after a week’s rest in Edmonton, we were ready to hop on the train again and answer the call of The Mountain.

Left: The Hostel we stayed at in Jasper…after a fresh light snow

Right: Taking a walk in our warm winter wonderland

The train first took us to Jasper, an old haunt of Kelly’s and a quickly endearing place in my heart. One night spent halfway up a mountain at a hostel fed us enough negative ions to make us feel truly at home and happy. Needless to say we will return to Jasper many times this summer.

The next day we hiked the 7kms down to the train station with our heavy packs, in an effort to get some exercise before the 8 hour train ride to Prince George. The scenery was unbelievable, with mountains on either side of us for hours. The landscape eventually flattened out as we came to a higher altitude plain, and arrived in Prince George.

Kelly had never been to a Bed & Breakfast before, which was our choice for accommodation this night. And I think he’s now a B&B convert – after Sharon at Blue Moon B&B took such amazing care of us.

Some of the scenery from the train to Prince George

The stay was short lived though, as less than 13 hours later we had to re-embark for another 12 hour ride. Now we’ve been on the train a lot in the last week or so….and as much as we like it, it’s getting a touch tedious. By the end of the 12 hours, we were suffering from some good healthy cabin-fever.

What kept us from completely crawling up the walls was the amazing scenery, especially as we neared Prince Rupert. The landscape and mountains became more dramatic with each turn. Every time we thought we had seen the most breathtaking combination of mountain, river, and trees, we would round the corner and see something even better.

We saw things from the train that people just don’t see. For example, people pay good money to go on tours to see bald eagles, where they may be lucky enough to view a few from a distance. We had the luxury of seeing bald eagles, swans, and even the rare golden eagle pacing our train alongside us, as if to say “Welcome to our beautiful corner of the world”.

We have decided to settle in Prince Rupert for a few days instead of hopping on the ferry right to Vancouver Island. We are even toying with the idea of the short (6 hour) ferry to Ketchikan Alaska, just to say we did it.

Such is the fun of not planning a trip to within an inch of its life…..it takes on a life of its own.

Related posts:

1. Prince Rupert: A Town of Friendly Faces
2. Moose Don’t Exist
3. Edmonton: Even The Eggs Are Different