Osoyoos to Prince Rupert

Written Monday, May 30, 2016

I’m in Prince Rupert in northwest B.C., variously known as the halibut capital of the world and also the B.C.’s rain capital. It’s raining right now, as it has been on and off since I arrived yesterday.

I’m on the first leg of a two-week journey to northern B.C., the Yukon and hopefully, time permitting, into a bit of Alaska.

Most of this is in territory I’ve never been to, though I did once hitchhike up and down the Alaska Highway as a teenager in 1971. A few things have probably changed since then.

On Saturday, I drove a long day from Osoyoos to Vanderhoof, stopping only occasionally to stretch my legs, grab a bite from my cooler, get gas or visit a pit toilet at a roadside pull-off.

There was some beautiful scenery in the B.C. Interior, but these are places I can get to more easily or that I’ve been before, so I just drove straight through. It alternated between sunshine, clouds, rain, back to sunshine and even a dose of hail, that formed small drifts beside the road.

I wasn’t keen on the idea of sleeping in a wet tent in the rain, even though I had planned to camp the first night, so I booked a cheap motel, sight unseen, on Booking.com.

Glen’s Motor Hotel was built over a liquor store and it took a while to find the motel entrance. It was a little rough around the edges. The television in my room was an old circa 1980 Citizen and the room’s décor was of the same rough vintage. Much was worn down and there was little or no upgrading. I think the sheets were clean though, and it beat a wet tent in the rain.

Vanderhoof’s claim to fame is that it is the geographical centre of B.C. Given that geographers don’t agree on how to calculate the geographical centre, this may be open to debate. At least it’s more modest than Toronto’s claim to be the centre of the universe.

My camera’s GPS showed it was right on the 54^th parallel. Since Osoyoos is just above the 49^th and the B.C. Yukon border is the 60^th, I’ve got a lot of driving through wilderness yet to do.

Sunday was a long drive to Prince Rupert, but I made several stops at places of interest. It rained most of the day, but every now and then the sun peaked through a bit.

At Moricetown the Bulkley River tumbles through a narrow rocky canyon. It’s a popular fishing spot for local First Nations, but no one was fishing when I stopped. It’s a little early for the salmon migration.

At Hazelton, I stopped to see the ‘Ksan Historical Village, a reconstructed group of longhouses, totem poles and First Nations artifacts built in the 1970s. With only a trickle of visitors stopping that day, I had a guide to myself.

Unlike some other aboriginal peoples who were nomadic and may have been in a constant search of food, the salmon migration brought a rich bounty. So the people built permanent villages with well-built wooden structures. They smoked salmon to eat for the rest of the year, and also had abundant moose, so there was obviously time to develop a rich and beautiful culture and arts.

While the totem poles at this reconstructed village were new, I later drove out to Kispiox, a First Nations community just to the north where there was a cluster of old totem poles, some more than a century old. Many were reinforced to keep them from falling.

Around Hazelton too the snowcapped mountains were tall and beautiful. The drive from here to the coast was quite spectacular as the highway followed the Skeena River. With continuous rain and the mountains draped in cloud, I had to use some imagination to appreciate its full beauty.

I’m in a budget motel in Prince Rupert, but it’s quite a few notches up from Glen’s in Vanderhoof. I’m here for three nights.

Of course, just for the halibut, I had a wonderful halibut steak for dinner. Then I checked out the boats moored at Cow Bay as the sun set around 10 p.m. and it finally got dark much later.