Car is PACKED!

The plan was to first spend a few days on Vancouver Island close to civilization to test out all the camping gear before we head up north. We figured that setting up a brand new tent for the first time in pouring rain with the bears breathing down our necks just to realize that we had forgotten the tent pegs or something else vital would be foolish. Therefore, we decided to do a ‘pre-camp’ in exciting Parksville, just north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Not the most adventurous destination (mostly known as a retiree community), but close to stores where we could pick up little things we might have forgotten.

Parksville beach

As we got to the camp site quite late, we realized we had forgotten that it would go dark within 30 minutes. The next hour became an interesting exercise in ‘how-to-set-up-a-brand-new-tent-in -pitch-darkness’. But have faith! Before midnight, the tent was raised. In the dark it looked really good. Well…sort of. The next morning we woke up realizing that even though the tent was standing, most of the set-up was backwards….

Victoria testing out the luxury camping bed

Pre-camp in Parksville

The next day and a half was spent trying out ALL the gear which include a wood burning stove with water heating system, a propane stove, our dining table and chairs, indoor and outdoor lighting and everything else that’s needed to make tent living as close to condo living as possible :). Our camp site neighbours were watching us in disbelief as they probably thought our gear was a little excessive for Parksville….

Woodburning stove with chimney!

The tent 'kitchen'

In all, the two days of testing everything was quite successful and we were now ready for pre-camp phase II on Quadra Island.

Lessons learned in pre-camp:
• Don’t set up a tent for the first time in the dark
• Don’t pull out the pegs first when you take it down
• DO read the instructions carefully before you start! Get a set written by an Englishman not a Chinese tent maker who had his version interpreted someone who has never seen a tent!!!

written by  Victoria & Robert on August 31, 2009 from Parksville, Canada
from the travel blog: the Canadian Arctic
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Waiting for the Quadra ferry

Barry and his wife Adrienne had graciously offered us (or perhaps we invited ourselves) to camp in their backyard. They live right by the beach with a stunning view of the sea.
Pre-camp phase II went a lot smoother in terms of setting up the tent correctly and getting all our stuff in order. There is still some fine tuning to be done as we are quite disorganized with storing things in the wrong places and not being able to find it when we need it, but practice will make perfect!

Camping in Barry's garden on Quadra Island

Barry and Victoria ready to go for an ocean swim

Robert spent some time on Quadra fixing and tuning the car which is now our home together with our tent. The car is a 1993 Toyota Landcruiser which is receiving much love and attention from Robert’s capable hands. It has a diesel engine and can go really far on each tank. Just how far was something we came uncomfortably close to finding out when driving from Quadra to Port Hardy as SOMEBODY managed to miss the last gas station and we barely made it by rolling in on the last bit of diesel fumes to the station in Port McNeill. But what would life be without a little bit of suspense? A night along highway 19 in fog and mist would surely have been the real ‘pre-camp’ test with risk that this journey (and relationship) would have ended somewhere between Campbell River and Port McNeill.

written by  Victoria & Robert on September 2, 2009 from Quathiaski Cove, Canada
from the travel blog: the Canadian Arctic
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View of the Inside Passage from the Northern Expedition

When we boarded the ferry in Port Hardy (had to get up at 5am!), the rain was coming down really hard and for the first few hours it just poured so there wasn't much to see. It cleared up later in the day and we ventured out on deck where we saw a few whales spraying water and waving their tail fins! A school of dolphins showed off some synchronized swimming next to the ferry. Very cool!

On the ferry between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert

Robert on deck

We spent the 15 hours reading, eating, greasing our boots (!), watching movies and taking naps.

mmmm.... grease......

Shiny boots

The ferry passed quite a lot of traffic on the Inside Passage including a boat that was towing two houses! Complete with windows, doors and everything! We also passed Boat Bluff lighthouse which is one of the manned lighthouse stations in British Columbia.

Two complete (!) houses being transported on the Inside Passage

Boat Bluff lighthouse

The ferry arrived late on Saturday evening and we went straight to our hotel.The next morning we went out to explore the surroundings and to get breakfast. Our hotel is located in downtown Prince Rupert and it would be a slight exaggeration to call it 'exciting' or 'happening'. Low, square, flat buildings from the 60's 70's all in different shades of grey, brown and beige.

However, as we walked down to the sea we were pleasantly surprised to find that Cow Bay is a very picturesque and charming area of the town and that Prince Rupert's courthouse is a beautiful brick building with a steam roller outside which woke up the little boy in Robert who had to climb up on it!

Court house in Prince Rupert

Robert on the steamroller

In Cow Bay there were a few commemorative monuments including one with flags from all the Scandinavian countries to illustrate the Scandinavian influence on the town of Prince Rupert. Of course Victoria had to give the Swedish flag a hug!

Cow Bay with Scandinavian flags

Tomorrow we are off to Terrace, BC which is located about 80 miles inland. We both got fishing licenses so we will try our luck in the river that runs all the way from Terrace to Prince Rupert.

written by  Victoria & Robert on September 6, 2009 from Prince Rupert, Canada
from the travel blog: the Canadian Arctic
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We've been on the road for a week now and after leaving Prince Rupert we headed to Terrace. Arriving Terrace in the afternoon of Sunday evening we drove to Lakelse Lake campiang. Campsites in B.C. have really impressed us as the ones we stayed at so far have been very well maintained and comfortable. Lakelse Lake is a beautiful lake with a campsite, hiking trails, fishing opportunities and more.

View on our way to Terrace

We decided that this would be the place where we would try our luck fishing for trout in the lake! Robert prepared the rods while Victoria was reading up on the fishing regulations. We had gotten our licenses back in Campbell River and with the licenses came a booklet thick as a smaller book with details of what you can fish and where. Who knew fishing was so complicated?

Sometime around 6pm, we were FINALLY ready to try out our gear and went down to the lake. This is when the fun started and if somebody had a video camera would have been able to make a pretty funny comedy. Victoria was float fishing and squirmy about putting the earth worms on the hook but once it got on, the real fun started.

Ewww.....wriggly worms.....

Within 5 minutes, Victoria got a fish! Yay! Fish! Wait!!! What to do when you get a fish? How do you get it out of the water? What kind of fish is it? Hmmm..... are we allowed to catch this fish? Where is the book that describes the fish you can keep? Are we allowed to keep this one? Is it big enough? A trout?

Gone fishing.....

Victoria with her fish

We got so flustered by actually catching a fish that Robert ran back to the tent to get the regulation book. Victoria got soft hearted and suddenly felt sorry for the fish and wanted to release it which we did.

Beautiful evening for fishing

After the initial excitement over the first fish subdued, we realized that the biggest fish was this one and we should have kept it. All the other fish we caught were tiny and in the end we let them all go back into the lake. Needless to say we did not have fish for dinner...

tiny fish

Robert with his catch :)

written by  Victoria & Robert on September 8, 2009 from Terrace, Canada
from the travel blog: the Canadian Arctic
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We headed north on route 37 towards Stewart which is a little town right on the border to Alaska and the United States. In fact, the closest town on the U.S. side; Hyder is only about a mile down the road from Stewart and several of our friends told us we should go there and get 'hyderized'. All we knew was that it was some kind of drink and since nobody really told us the details of what that meant we thought we needed to go and find out for ourselves... More about that in a minute....

We left Terrace and drove through some large areas of TREES, more trees, and yet more trees. On the way we saw a cluster of houses and this tiny little church with a very cute bell tower. No idea which village or town this was but it was very cute.

Very cute little church

Robert peeking through the windows.

Victoria pulled out some Swedish candies that she had brought from Sweden. A traditional Swedish snacks: BILAR which means 'cars' in Swedish. Little candies in the shape of cars.

mmmmm..... Swedish treats!

For my Swedish friends: a traditional Swedish treat!

As we approached Stewart, the mountains got higher and suddenly this enormous glacier appeared. It was quite a beautiful sight!

Amazing view of Bear Glacier and Bear River

Flipping through the guide book Victoria found out that the glacier was Bear Glacier. That must mean there are bears around right? For the record, we had not yet seen any other wildlife in the week and a half we've been on the road than a raccon, a few deer and the odd squirrel. Well.... our wish came true when we turned a corner and a little black bear appeared next to the road.

BEAR!

We slowed down and pulled up right next to the bear which didn't seem to bother at all. This is how close we actually got to the animal.

A little black bear with no fear came up to our car....

We drove into Stewart early in the afternoon and continued straight to Hyder. It was slightly confusing because we weren't sure if we had actually crossed the border as there was no real official signs and no customs. In Hyder there was a General store, a church and a dozen buildings.

Hyder

General store in Hyder

Time to get hyderized! At Glacier Inn we would now find out what it meant! The following pictures is a visual representation of what happened...

Before

During...

Robert AFTERWARDS

AFTER being hyderized!

Turns out getting 'hyderized means a shot of 150 proof alcohol! It was like drinking fire! In fact, there was a warning text on the bottle.

150 proof !!!! Deadly stuff. Will warm you up. Guaranteed!

Warning label... should perhaps have read it beforehand

At least we have proof that we did it!

Robert outside the Glacier Inn

'Certified' survivors of being hyderized.

We stumbled out of the bar and decided never to come back. One shot felt like 4 regular drinks! Robert topped it up with some fine Alaskan beer as well. Victoria had to drive back. Enough said! :) As we drove back towards Stewart and Canada it turns out that even though the U.S. didn't have customs, Canada does! We had to explain to the border guy why Victoria was driving and the guy had some problems understanding why the steering wheel is on the right side of the car and threatened to detain Robert as he thought he was the driver... Quite funny!

Back in Stewart we found a very nice little hotel. The hotel lobby was guarded by... chickens...

Victoria is unsure about how close she can get...

Still feeling the effects of the experience in Hyder a cup of nice strong coffee rounded off the evening.

A cup of strong coffee after getting hyderized....

Victoria on the safety of the boardwalk.

Robert is comparing his 'paw' with the grizzly's.

Even though Victoria is pretty much terrified by bears she agreed that since the bears could be watched from a safe distance on a manmade boardwalk she would give it a try….
Several people were already at the boardwalk early in the morning and once we got to the river we quickly understood how the river got its name ‘Fish Creek’. In the shallow river, hundreds of salmon were standing, swimming upstream. Along the river bank were fish guts, half eaten fish and just the bones of not so lucky fish. It looked like the bears had had a feast!

It didn’t take long before the bushes rattled and a huge black bear came tumbling down the river bank. He must have smelled all the humans standing there, but he really didn’t care. Apparently he wasn’t in the mood for ‘human snack’. We were able to follow the bear which ate some fish (too lazy to fish himself so he just finished off somebody else’s half eaten fish) and mixed up his diet with some ‘salad’ from the nearby trees. Good thing to know that bears eat a balanced diet!

Black bear

Big black bear

Once we were on the road again, we drove a few miles and saw this ‘little’ guy walking next to the road. This was a grizzly bear but a very young and small one. Robert kept rolling down the window – on Victoria’s side (!!!) to get a better view. Victoria kept rolling it up again. While she can watch bears from a safe distance on the boardwalk, she wasn’t convinced that the bear wouldn’t leap in through the open window to get a Victoria snack….

Mr. teenage Grizzly

Little brown bear

Our destination was now Dease Lake in northern B.C. As we kept driving north, we also hit about 3,000 feet and the suddenly it was evident that fall is here. On higher altitude, the leaves have turned to beautiful fall colours!

Fall is here!

Dease Lake is a bigger ‘town’ than we thought and we did some grocery shopping but decided to continue a little bit north to find a camp site. The idea is to stay at Dease Lake for four days and do a few day hikes and trips from the ‘base camp’.
We missed the camp site we were aiming for but probably for a reason. Because instead we ended up at Dease River Crossing camp site which is an amazing place right by one of the lakes that the river flows in to. The camp site is surrounded by mountains and forests and it’s just gorgeous! The camp site has little cabins or you can just set up your own tent. In the middle of nowhere in B.C.’s wilderness this camp site has hot showers, laundry facilities, and internet access!!! Who said camping can’t be comfortable?

Dease Lake River Crossing camping

Canoes at the camp site

Highway 37

View over Dease Lake

Since it’s getting a little chilly we decided to put the wood burning stove inside the tent. So now we even have heating inside the tent! In fact, our tent is actually bigger than the cabins you can rent here!

Camp by Dease River Crossing

The second day Victoria decided to go for a run in the morning, but in fear of running into a moose or bear, she ran around the camp site. Not just once or twice though: eight and a half loops around makes 30 minutes. Our fellow campers probably thought she was completely nuts!

Victoria at dusk overlooking the lake

We decided to do some more exploration in the area around Dease Lake and Dease River. A friend of Robert’s had advised us where to go for hikes, fishing, hunting etc. so we set off to see what we could find. Dease Lake is a very long but narrow lake. Somehow we ended up on the WRONG side of the lake so we found ourselves at the end of the road with a small passage of the river between us and the road which continued on the other side. Robert wanted to drive across. Victoria was scared it would be too deep and the car would…hmmm…. float away….. After weighing pros against cons (getting across in 10 minutes instead of an hour, or going for river rafting in a landcruiser) we came to the conclusion that we would take the safer route and drive around the lake instead.

Hmmm. the road is continuing on the other side of the river...

The river crossing

Looking for wildlife

We tried some fishing along the river, but the fish were too smart or we were too clueless. Or perhaps both… The only thing we were fishing for was tree branches and Robert had to get the hook unstuck as Victoria managed to hook on to a tree instead of a fish. Robert got to test his rifle and probably scared away all wildlife within a few kilometers radius….

Trying our fishing luck in this river

Robert fishing for Victoria's fishing hook...

Back at the camp site, Robert is right now fishing for dinner in the lake. Victoria
is pessimistic and has prepared short ribs from the store. We’ll let you know in the next blog what we had for dinner!

Robert fishing for dinner

written by  Victoria & Robert on September 11, 2009 from Dease Lake, Canada
from the travel blog: the Canadian Arctic
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Our stop in Dease Lake was truly amazing and since we spent four days there, we’ll write a little more about our adventures and excursions. After our second night at the Dease River Crossing camping, we set out southwest towards Telegraph Creek and the Edziza Provincial Park which is the home of several dormant or extinct volcanoes.

Pointy mountain in the distance

Every morning, despite our best efforts we seem to not be able to hit the road before 10:30 so in an attempt to get an early start we rushed so much that Victoria had to bring her coffee in a portable cup in the car. Well, she didn’t get to enjoy much of it as Robert put the cup onto the roof of the car while packing and then we drove off. We had driven a few minutes when we heard a loud ‘clunk’ and the second the cup hit the road we remember what it was. However, Robert stopped and found the poor cup in the ditch!

Robert found the coffee mug!

New attempt to get going…. We really wanted to see some moose as everybody had kept telling us that this is ‘moose country’. Signs were everywhere warning for ‘wildlife’ and moose, so how hard could it be to get a glimpse of the king of the forest? Our eyes were peeled in search for the elusive moose and as we headed down the gravel road towards Telegraph Creek we saw something in the bush! We excitedly peered through the trees and saw this:

A moose? Not exactly....

Unless there are black and white moose, this was not quite what we were looking for. It turned out that the black and white moose was a horse! So we have driven hundreds of miles into the Canadian wilderness to see a horse!?

On the way to Telegraph Creek we crossed into Stikine River Provincial Park which is the home to the Grand Canyon of the Stikine. A very steep, narrow, serpentine unpaved road took us first down to the river bed and then up again through the mountains. The landscape is fascinating as the mountains are formed by volcanic activity that the Stikine River over millions of years has cut through to create an amazing canyon. After the disappointment with the horses, Robert was now looking for a mountain goat but all we saw were white rocks what kind of looked like goats for a distance. In fact, we have seen very little wildlife or at least less than we expected.

The Grand Canyon of Canada. Very impressive

Volcanic landscape

Stikine River

Telegraph Creek is a surprisingly developed community with a police station, school and school bus service! Unfortunately, to get any closer to the volcanoes which we could see in the distance we would have to hike by foot as the area is not developed for traffic.
As we haven’t been lucky with the fishing (yes, answer to the question what we had for dinner the other night was store bought food), we decided to spend the following day to explore the little lakes in the area.

Old log house in Telegraph Creek

We drove north to Boya Provincial Park by Boya Lake. It is truly an amazing lake! At an altitude of 3,000 feet (about 1,000 meters) this lake has crystal clear water that is as blue as any water you would find in the Caribbean! We could even see the fish and how uninterested they were in our attempts to catch them!

Not the Caribbean but almost...... only a little bit colder and on an altitude of about 3,000 feet

Despite our hard efforts, the fish didn’t even take a nibble. We tried everything including attracting the fish with bread. The only thing that ate the bread was some kind of fearless little birds that shamelessly snatched the slice right in front of us!

The view compensated for not catching any fish

Two little fearless birds stealing our bread!

As this would be the perfect opportunity to go for a swim, Victoria felt ‘obligated’ to go for a dip. How could you give up on such a treat? However, as strange as it may sound, Victoria is actually quite scared of swimming in lakes. She much rather swim in the big scary ocean and get nibbled on by a shark or a seal than venturing out in a lake with ‘who knows what’ is lurking at the bottom.

Victoria ready to swim

Yes- this is Canada, not the Caribbean!

Even when wearing a full body wetsuit, the water was FREEZING!!!!! When she finally got in she must have set a new Boya Lake record in swimming from point A to point B which was a distance of about 800 meters! She did admit afterwards though that the swim was one of the most amazing ones she’s ever done. The water was so clear and when it got too deep to see the bottom it was like floating in an aquamarine coloured universe! Sounds poetic and if she hadn’t been so afraid of being eaten by the Boya Lake monster or getting hypothermia, the swim was perfect! To all swimmer friends: highly recommended as one of the most amazing open water swims you will ever do!

Victoria is swimming towards the dock

No lake creatures ate Victoria- thank goodness

On the way from Boya Lake back to the camp, we took a little side track straight into the woods to Hot Lake. Not sure what gave the lake its name. It didn’t seem particularly warm and it wasn’t hot for fishing either…. Once again we returned to the tent with nothing to show for…

Bumpy dirt road to Hot Lake

View over Hot Lake

The next morning we set off to Whitehorse in the Yukon! We only made a couple of stops; one of them at the junction of highway 37 and the Alaska highway.

Different modes of transportation: motor cycle or a home on wheels..

Restaurant at the junction joining highway 37 and the Alaska highway

The landscape has now changed from the wet rainforest of central B.C. to more of an alpine environment with sparse and short trees and big mountains! We reached Whitehorse in early evening and found a really nice Bed & Breakfast where we will spend the night. More to come as our brains are exhausted from looking at too much highway today. Apologies for the somewhat dry and boring report. More to come shortly! Good night folks!

written by  Victoria & Robert on September 14, 2009 from Telegraph Creek, Canada
from the travel blog: the Canadian Arctic
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Here is a little synopsis over our trip to finally took us to the arctic circle and above!

We left Whitehorse - which by the way is a really nice city that both of is instantly felt we liked- to start our journey that would take us up the Dempster highway and to Inuvik. We had stayed for one night at the Bicicletta B&B which is owned and run by a guy who has biked around the world ! and his wife. Really fabulously nice people!

Whitehorse

Instead of going to Dawson City on the way up, we decided to just go to the junction where the Dempster starts and overnight there. On the way we went through little places such as Pelly Crossing where this interesting note was posted on the board outside the local store:

Sign on the board outside the grocery store...

We ended up at the Klondike River Lodge. On the way we saw a mommy bear with her two little cubs crossing the road.

the Klondike River logde at the start of the Dempster. INTERESTING place!

Mother bear with two cubs

The Klondike River lodge is a VERY interesting place! The service was mediocre (Victoria's diplomatic judgement. Robert thought it was complete sh*****t). We weren't too sad to leave early the next morning to embark on the epic Dempster highway.

Start of the Dempster

We were lucky with the weather which was a mix of sun and cloud. The experience is truly an 'experience' that is difficult to describe in words, but to give you a little taste of it, here are some photos:

LARGE sky. Large plains. Small humans...

Canadian tundra

Sheep? Moose? Squirrels? ANYTHING?

At the mid-point of the Dempster is the Eagle River Plains hotel. Everybody traveling up the Dempster pretty much have to stop here as it is the only gas stop in the middle of the highway. We only stopped for fuel and some food and then continued on.

Eagle Plains River Loge- Mid-point on the Dempster

After about four hours we arrived at the Arctic Circle! It was cold and windy, but Robert thought it was a good idea to show off some muscles! Victoria kept her clothes on.

At the arctic circle... Robert being...hmmm....manly?

Victoria and the tundra

The rest of the trip was breathtaking with tundra, mountains, forests but again.. surprisingly little wildlife. We saw four caribous but nothing else. The trees got shorter and shorter and were leaning all over the place. They actually looked a little pathetic. Or as Robert put it: Want to be a tree???? Grow some needles!!! And stand up straight!!!!!

Sad trees after forest fire

Soon enough we crossed into the Northwest Territories where they have really neat license plates on the cars:

Cool license plate!

Our plan was to not drive the entire way up to Inuvik but to stop overnight in Fort McPherson. As we drove into town and asked for a rate at the only hotel (which apparently had monopoly over the whole lodging business) we decided to continue to Inuvik as they wanted $200 for a room that you might have to share with somebody else!

We arrived Inuvik late in the evening and stayed at a bed and breakfast that was run by a Swiss/American lady and her Norweigain/Canadian husband. One wonders how people who weren't born in these remote towns end up there!

The next morning we went out to get a good look at Inuvik. Trying to be diplomatic in case there are Inuvik residents reading this blog, the best way to describe it was.... hmmm..... quiet.... and a little... boring.... Not much was going on after the summer season ended and even the camp site was closed. We went to visit the Igloo church (closed), the tourist centre (closed), the swimming pool (closed), the greenhouse (closed) but manage to find a liquor store and a grocery store that were open!

Downtown

Igloo church

Colourful houses

All houses are built on stilts because the permafrost in this part of the world makes it impossible to put the houses directly on the ground.

House on stilts!

We had this idea that we wanted to go on a chartered plane ride to Tuk, a little town right by the arctic sea to see pingos and perhaps even a polar bear. Unfortunately, since the tourist season is over, the cheapest way to get there would have been with a regular scheduled flight at a cost of $700. As we thought that was a bit steep and since there didn't seem to be much else to explore in town we decided to hit the road again.

We didn't mean to drive all the way back to Dawson as the weather now was getting bad and the gravel road was more like a muddly rollercoaster, but when we came to the mid-point of Eagle Plains we decided to keep going. 10 hours from the start we rolled into Dawson and decided to get a room at the first hotel we could find. We ended up staying at the Downtown Inn which is (in)famous for serving the 'sourtoe' cocktail. According to myths, the drink contains a human toe which is dropped into the drink. You are not supposed to drink the toe, just let it touch your lips as you throw the drink back but if you do, you will be part of the brave group of people that has done a 'sourtoe'... As it was too late we decided to have a good night's sleep before deciding if that was something we wanted to do.

Downtown hotel in Dawson

In the morning, we ventured out to take a look at town. It is a really charming place which is being restored to the state it was in during the 1890's gold rush. The houses are wooden and a lot of old signs are still up.

Store fronts in Dawson City

Robert by the Klondike river

Tomorrow we will be visiting some gold mines and try panning for gold ourselves! Tonight we'll stay at Bombay Peggy's which is an old house built around 1900 that has an history as a private residence, brothel (!), bed & breakfast and now, a posh boutique hotel.

written by  Victoria & Robert on September 17, 2009 from Inuvik, Canada
from the travel blog: the Canadian Arctic
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