Our time on Haida Gwaii

 July 11^th – Normal Everyday stuff

What you may not be aware of is that we choose to go to Haida Gwaii for a specific reason.  Part of this reason was to explore a new area but the larger reason was to rest, relax and decompress after leaving our jobs and selling our house.  Unfortunately, this would not be the day to relax.  Kendra had a doctor’s appointment so we had to run to Masset for cell service.  We were also out of food. 

Now, when you’ve already decided that most of the day will be spent doing normal everyday stuff and not relaxing, a hike or two will not ruin your day so we did a bunch of the hikes around the Northern portion of Naikoon Provincial Park including hiking up Tow Hill.  Luckily it was a sunny day so we decided to sit at the top and be told by countless others that “you can see Alaska from here”.  It was amazing how excited Canadians were to see Alaska from Haida Gwaii.  What was more interesting is just how many people told us this.

The rest of the night was spent doing what we needed to do, which was absolutely nothing, while we listened to the waves crash on the beach.

 

July 12^th – Nothing

We relaxed all day, we read our books, walked along the beach and had a delicious dinner of steak, potatoes and a bottle of Spanish wine we had bought in the Rioja region of Spain (March 2022).  For dessert, Hoeddeok!  It’s amazing what we can cook in the back of the van with the right ingredients.

On a side note, we stayed at Agate beach for three nights, we only saw the BC parks person once, on our last night so we scored some of the best camping we have ever done at a 66% discount!!

July 13^th – “I guess you could go that way if you’re up for an adventure.”

Unfortunately, it was time to leave the dynamic beauty of Agate beach, the only campground we had been to where you camped right on the ocean.  We once again had a taste for exploration. We headed to Port Clements for a short hike to where a Golden Spruce once existed then thought to take a forestry road to Rennell Sound and within two seconds of driving down the forestry road an employee from the Ministry of Forestry was waving us down. 

Kendra was driving, and he proceed to tell her that these were gravel forestry roads, with active logging and hauling and it is a long way to Rennell Sound from this location (NOTE: it was only 60 km).  *(You may notice a trend that strange things only seem to happen when Kendra is driving, which isn’t very often…hmmm.)

After he looked at our tires and told us that we could pop a tire driving down gravel roads he finally said, well, I guess you could go that way if you’re up for an adventure.  Obviously, we were!

The road was not an adventure, it was a typical BC forestry road, we didn’t see any logging trucks, we didn’t see anything except trees, some invasive deer and 2 pickup trucks, but we had made it to Rennell Sound.  It was beautiful, yet slightly eerie and cold.  We decided to just have lunch and make our way to Daajing Giids.

Unbeknownst to us July 13^th, 2022 will be a special day for Daajing Giids, as it is the day the Province of BC recognized the new name for Queen Charlotte City as Daajing Giids, a move to recognize traditional Haida names and a move toward Reconciliation.  This all happened while we were in Daajing Giids, unfortunately, we were unaware.

After the drive to Rennel Sound and back to Queen Charlotte City/Daajing Giids we decided to catch the ferry over to Moresby Island and take in a highly recommended rec site (free campground) called Gray Bay. After a quick ferry ride and some forestry roads, we made it to our campground and WOW! Haida Gwaii does not disappoint, it was just like Agate Beach BUT actually free AND no people within 300m of us.  We knew at that moment we would be spending the next day here as well.

 

July 14^th – “I REALLY like rocks”

We did nothing.  We slept.  We relaxed. We walked along the beach.

We did end up walking Rupert to Secret Cove just a kilometre away from the campground where we found an even nicer beach with sand and ended up sitting there for a couple hours just watching the water.  We had a conversation with the first other person we officially encountered on Moreseby Island; a man (a Terrace-ist) spent an hour telling us how much he liked rocks, how he had travelled all over North America for rocks and traded others from other countries for rocks.  He told us that he is a highly in-demand man that museums call him up asking about his rocks within a rock- from volcanic times, and teachers invite him to enter their classroom to show students his rocks.  In short when he said “I REALLY like rocks” he meant it.  If you find yourself agreeing with this man and you also really like rocks, you will really like Haida Gwaii. There are a lot of rocks to look at and find.  We do not really rock people, we don’t know the names of rocks (and had to Google what an Agate was) but “we” (aka Kendra) did find some cool-looking rocks to keep as a souvenir.

July 15^th – Our last day on Haida Gwaii

After a lazy morning, we headed to Sandspit for a coffee and a walk along the sandspit.  The only restaurant/coffee place open at the time was at the airport which I guess was extremely busy and chaotic due to all flights to Haida Gwaii having to land there due to fog in Masset; it didn’t seem too chaotic to us but the chatty security screener getting a coffee ahead of us informed us it was a very exciting time at the Sandspit Airport.

We spent the next few hours exploring more of Sandspit, catching up on the world thanks to some free WIFI and shopping in Daajing Giids to prepare for our 7-hour ferry ride back to Prince Rupert.

We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner and chose Blacktail a restaurant that had all the good reviews and wow did they earn them.  We may have smelled like we hadn’t showered in a week (because we hadn’t) and looked dishevelled, but we ate like royalty.  The salmon tartare was to die for.

Finally, it was time to head to the ferry.  Kendra had never driven onto a “big ferry” before so she took the wheel and parked in the appropriate lane.  Loading started and after half of it was done the BC ferries person directing cars asked Kendra to reverse, in the lane she was parked in so the motorhome in front of us in line could back up and squeeze around the vehicle in front to board.  We had blocked the back window out of the van to prepare the van for us to sleep in so Kendra could only use her rear-view mirror and was a bit nervous about reversing the 8 feet she was asked to do so, but she did it…nervously.

After Kendra reversed the rest of our lane was loaded up, but he didn’t ask us to load. We should point out we paid for a normal height vehicle but our full-sized spare tire and propane tank (which we can remove) make us over-height.  There was room for additional over-height vehicles so we didn’t have to remove our tire and propane tank (and we saved a few bucks), but we were included in the lineup with over-height motorhomes, tow trucks, and trucks pulling fifth wheels.

We then started to notice that everyone who had to go onto the ferry (the last 30 or so vehicles) had to reverse from the terminal building, down the ramp, and into/onto the ferry.  It seems the BC ferries employees were going to keep people who were uncomfortable with reversing until the end so they have the least amount of reversing to do.  Well. The BC ferry person must have realized Kendra was nervous to reverse because we were the last passenger vehicle loaded onto the ferry (a giant transport truck was the last).

Pro-tip about the Northern Adventure with BC Ferries, they have public showers!  $2 for 10 minutes!! What a steal of a deal.

Fun fact, you are not allowed to sleep in your vehicle, so we had to sleep on the hard floor of the ferry and leave Rupert in the car to fend for himself (don’t worry, they allow passengers access to the car deck every 1 ½- 2 hours depending on the conditions to check on their pets).

Another fun fact- we departed Skidegate (Haida Gwaii ferry terminal) at 10:00 pm and somehow arrived early in Prince Rupert around 4:30 am.

 

July 16^th – Back on the road

For those who are not in the know, Rupert’s original name from the SPCA was Rushbrook, named after the Rushbrook docks where he was found scared and soaking wet ☹ (Fun Fact on paper it was actually Rushmoore because someone somewhere wrote his name incorrectly.)

We always thought that it was odd that people named him after a place that was so traumatic for him so we changed it to Rupert (after Prince Rupert [the location of the docks] because that seemed better 😐)

Kendra thought it would be interesting to take Rupert to Rushbrook to see how he would act.  For the record Paul did not think this was a good idea; however, at 4:45am we took Rupert to Rushbrook and he didn’t act any differently, other than exhausted since we don’t think he slept much on the ferry.

After our early morning walk, we found a place for a nap, after the nap, we were excited to…do laundry…  It was that time in our adventure to sit at a laundromat and clean our stuff, but it gave us a chance to write this blog and start heading north.

We are so excited to be heading north once again on highway 37.  Next stop Hyder Alaska, then the Yukon, and after that Tuktoyaktuk!