More Days Out

After last winter spent in the Arctic, the weather here in Vancouver seems almost tropical to us. Today, December 28, it's -29C, with ice crystals, in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut where we were last year on this date. Here in Vancouver it's +4C and sunny. I don't think it's gone below 0C, during daylight hours, since we've been here and we haven't even got our winter coats out yet. It's funny to see the locals all bundled up with heavy coats, scarves, gloves and toques and we're in light jackets with zippers wide open because we're too hot! Of course, the sea is not frozen either and we're enjoying long walks along the seafront on fine days. Here is a scene that if I didn't tell you it was December, you may think it was July. It was taken at Lighthouse Park, in West Vancouver.

There were many other fine views on our walk that day.

As I've mentioned before, there is a Sea Wall promenade along the shore in front of our apartment building in West Vancouver. It's great, but, is really the poor cousin to the more famous Sea Wall around Stanley Park in downtown Vancouver. On another fine December day, we took the circular 10k walk that went right around the perimeter of Stanley Park and back to our bus that takes us over the Lion's Gate bridge to North and West Vancouver.

The morning started a little fresh and there was snow on the mountain tops as can be seen behind the interesting view of the sculpture 'Girl in a Wetsuit'.

The day warmed up as we walked along. There were a few inviting, sandy beaches along the route.

We were interested to see (and hear) many Black Oystercatchers in the shallows. A new species for us as they only exist on the west coast of Canada.

We left the Sea Wall at Denman Street, where this fun art installation resides, and finished up the day with a late lunch at a Malaysian restaurant on Denman, the Banana Leaf. What a great day out!

Another day out was a very quick overnight visit to Victoria, on Vancouver Island. The ferry trip over was 'interesting' as we were in a 45 knot gale! The wind was pinning us to the dock and the ferry had to bounce and scrape itself along the dock to get to open water. Glad we weren't in Gjoa. The whipped spume and wave tops blown flat brought back memories of past voyages in our own boat. We took a circuitous route across to keep the bow as close to the wind as possible. The motion was barely noticeable although there were a few hard knocks from wave strikes. I was trying hard not to think about engine failure as we enjoyed a lunch onboard. For the ferry captains, it's probably just another day at the office as these ferries are a lifeline, run year-round and are rarely cancelled. Once in the lee of Vancouver Island it all settled down and it was fine which is probably what the captain was counting on.

Victoria, especially its Parliament building, was lit up for Christmas and was very welcoming.

We've been to Victoria before. The reason for this visit was that we wanted to visit friends we'd met in London in 2012 when we both overwintered at St. Katharine's Dock. They also transited the NWP (in 2013, a 10,000 mile journey in one season!), so, we were looking forward to trading ice stories with them. As their boat is right in the central harbour, across from the grand old Empress hotel, we decided to splurge and take advantage of a special B&B rate being offered there. There weren't many guests in the hotel. Actually, half the hotel was closed off and covered in scaffolding as there was a large renovation going on. It didn't dampen the experience though. The hotel was beautifully decorated for Christmas and somehow we ended up in one of the only two turret rooms in the hotel. It felt like a suite as the turret was just large enough to hold the round bed and the sitting area and luxury bathroom were separate. Breakfast was taken in the grand dining room which just oozed history, it felt very special.

We plan to return to Vancouver Island in the spring for a lengthier visit.

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Out and About around Vancouver

We've been comfortably ensconced in our Vancouver winter quarters for about six weeks now and are enjoying our stay very much, especially our ocean views. From our apartment we particularly enjoy watching the working boats, like this little beachcomber tug towing a log.

At ground level, the sea wall just outside our door also offers fine vistas. This one shows a huge flock of goldeneye ducks enjoying the calm conditions.

Next to our building is a 'Happy Rock', first one I've ever seen! Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but, it always brings a smile anyway. In case you can't read it, the words on the sign are 'HAPPY ROCK Just pat me to be happy'.

We're also enjoying many excursions. Our first pilgrimage was to visit the Vancouver Maritime Museum. It was a little disappointing with not much to look at, but, the primary purpose for our visit was there in all its restored glory and made up for the general lack of displays.  The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) St. Roch, first Canadian boat to transit the North West Passage (she actually did it both ways) was fascinating to see 'in the flesh'. There were also a few displays of Maud (Amundsen's ship) artifacts which resonated with us as well.

We'd had to give Haines, Alaska and its bald eagle festival a miss in our rush to beat the snow on our road trip to Vancouver. We were very disappointed and so, it was a delight to find that the bald eagles also congregate at Harrison Mills, just a short drive from Vancouver. We didn't want to rush our visit so went for an overnight trip in the van. We booked onto a mini-jetboat tour that was excellent.

The jetboat was well able to hold station against the ferocious river flow and take us through very shallow waters to get us close (but not too close) to the eagles. There were hundreds resting on the river flats and feasting on salmon. They were in the trees and soaring on the thermals above us (note to self: don't look up in awe at eagles flying close overhead, one particularly low-flying eagle let loose with a rather large deposit that covered both of us. We had to wade in and wash off in the nearby stream).

There were many serious-looking lens and tripod-toting tourists about. After looking at our disappointing photos, zoom envy has now taken hold and it looks like camera replacement is on the horizon. Whatever we get, it won't be as gargantuan as this lens. This man's partner had an even larger lens and they both had to wear special chest harnesses to carry the weight of them.

The best our zoom could do is this. Hardly inspiring, but, maybe you can get the idea, the eagles were a truly wonderful sight.

Almost as good as seeing the eagles was visiting the farm animals at the farm B&B we'd chosen for the night, Blackberry Lane farm, near Agassiz BC.

In addition to the cows and goats we found in the barn, there was a resident barn cat who wasn't allowed in the house. His Blackberry Lane Institution Wanted poster clearly informed guests to watch out for his sneaky behaviour!

A walk around the resort town of Harrison Hot Springs, deserted in November, completed a delightful outing.

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Vancouver - our winter home

After arriving in Vancouver, we hit the ground running to find an apartment for our winter stay. It's the first time in over five years that we'll be living on land instead of water (or ice! as we did during last winter's Arctic sojourn) and we wanted to get settled quickly. A quick overview tour of Vancouver and its neighborhoods, along with a focused list of 'must-haves' enabled us to quickly narrow down the list of candidates and we found a suitable place in two days flat.

Vancouver, taken from Lonsdale Quay on the North Shore.

As befits two sailors, our must-have list included being as close to the water as possible and an unobstructed, south-facing view of ship movements in Vancouver Harbour. Our search landed us in West Vancouver, to a seaside village known as Dundarave. Dundarave looks south over Howe Sound to Stanley Park and east to the Lion's Gate bridge. The shoreline is fronted by the West Vancouver sea wall, a great place for strolling along to the adjacent village of Ambleside. It's a ridiculously expensive place to live with the average house price over $2 million. I don't think we could afford to live here permanently, but, with a slight increase in our rent budget, it will be affordable for the short term and it will be fun to live like the '1%', for a little while at least.

We are on the ninth floor of a building which is about 200 ft. from the water's edge. We can hear the waves crashing over the seawall, all while being snug, warm and not having to worry about the anchor dragging, or, the ice shifting.

View of the seawall, Lion's Gate Bridge and Stanley Park from our ninth floor solarium.

Our south-facing view across Howe Sound, there are always ships here waiting to get unloaded in the Port.

The north view behind us to the Mountains and three ski areas within an hour!

Dundarave is so convenient, One bus and $1.75 takes us across the Lion's Gate bridge to a very walkable downtown Vancouver, or, to Stanley Park, in just a few minutes. The seawall and Dundarave beach are steps from our front door. The village high street with coffee shops and a great supermarket are a block away. Two blocks away is a community centre with a very large pool, fitness classes and an ice rink. At the end of the seawall is the Park Royal shopping centre with a Whole Foods market, a giant Asian supermarket (Osaka) and many other fine shops and restaurants. We couldn't have found a better place and are very much looking forward to our time here. We'll be here until April.

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Homer to Vancouver

The road trip from Homer, Alaska to Vancouver, BC took longer than anticipated. The daylight hours were short and road conditions were not great. We managed to stay ahead of the worst of the snow through Alaska, but, our luck ran out in Yukon and we had snow covered roads through the Territory and well into northern BC. We'd been wondering whether the winter tires we'd installed earlier, in Whitehorse, would be a waste of money, but, we were very grateful to have them...

These were typical highway conditions southbound through Yukon. Luckily, we didn't see much traffic.

Reports of more impending snow coming behind us spurred us on and we drove continuously through the daylight hours. Temperatures were also dropping. We awoke to -18C and heavy snow cover in Watson Lake, Yukon. It was crisp! We weren't sure how comfortable the van would be as it isn't insulated, but, surprisingly it was fine. Its little propane furnace, along with winter weight goose down duvets, kept us reasonably comfortable.

The weather improved the further south we went. Once we were well into BC, conditions reverted to autumn with colourful leaves and no snow.

Stunning water colour near Lillooet BC, hard to believe it' really looks like this!

Mountain lake near Lillooet BC

Looking at this picture reminds me of the beautiful pine fragrance that was along this footpath, near Lillooet BC

From autumn-like conditions in the middle of BC we then entered the rain forest area near Vancouver with its brilliantly coloured moss and lichens along with green grass, fully-leafed trees, flowers and balmy temperatures around +13C. It took about a week until we finally arrived in Vancouver. We'd seen all four seasons in one week of road travel!

The final part of the drive, down BC Highway 99 from Cache Creek, through Lillooet, Whistler and Vancouver, was also the most scenic of all the miles we traveled this year. This stretch of the 'Sea-to-Sky' highway is absolutely magnificent. Unfortunately, we were unable to take pictures as there were very few places to pull over (and I was hanging onto the seat for dear life). The road is narrow, twisty and in many places drops hundreds of metres, without any guard rails, to the floor of steep Fraser River gorges. It's not for the faint of heart. It runs first through desert-like Cariboo country, then the Coast Mountains and eventually you end up along the Pacific shoreline with an easy run down to Vancouver. A spectacular finale to a very long road trip.

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Dawson City to Homer

The drive from Dawson City, Yukon to Homer, Alaska was a treat. The northerly route we'd planned to take via Tok, Alaska was not possible as the Top-of-the-World Highway and its border crossing was closed for the season (on September 20 already). This meant we had to retrace our steps a bit and travel through Whitehorse. We remembered Whitehorse as a rather sleepy place that I think still had dirt streets on our last visit many years ago when we arrived by railroad. What a difference today. It's a wonderful little town with all the services you could want. Unlike other northern towns, such as Yellowknife, whose downtown is tired, rough around the edges and displays its social problems on every streetcorner, Whitehorse impressed us as clean, full of new businesses, young people and bursting with promise. Pride of ownership and community spirit was evident everywhere. We stayed a couple of nights and enjoyed our visit very much. About 70% of the entire Yukon population lives in Whitehorse. It's a little jewel surrounded by accessible wilderness.

While in Whitehorse, we also took the opportunity to install four new winter tires. This unexpected cost wasn't in the plan, but, the snow was coming right behind us and there were many mountain passes we'd have to cross on the way south with potentially treacherous driving conditions. We also learned that chains, or, snow tires are mandatory on BC highways from October 1, so, we would be breaking the law without them. We didn't want to just throw away our still-good summer tires and were in a quandary about what to do with them. Another example of great small town service was that the shop would store our summer tires for us and we can pick them up for reinstallation on our way north next spring!

Once on the road again, we passed through stunning mountain scenery. Actually, I stopped taking photographs as there were just too many wonderful vistas at every bend in the road. As you can see from the photos below, the unbelievable weather continued, just look at those clear blue skies, we could only wonder, how long can it possibly last?

Thompson Pass - on the way to Seward, AK. The poles are for snowplow orientation during heavy winter snowfalls.

Leftmost photo is Kluane National Park, rightmost is Thompson Pass,

Sea otters are very endearing creatures.  We'd never seen one before coming to Alaska. They lay mostly on their backs. Once in a while they'll roll over and dive to the bottom to pick up a fresh crab which they then audibly crunch with long rodent-like teeth.

Exit Glacier, Seward Alaska.  It was an easy walk to the glacier snout, but, the weather was no longer ideal.

Mile 0 of the historic Iditarod Trail, Seward. Alaska. In our posting about Nome, you may recall seeing the photo of the end of the Iditarod Trail sled dog race held every year.

We're now back in Homer finishing up Gjoa's winterization and collecting a few things prior to heading south. Homer is a great little town also. At first, we didn't like its totally decentralized structure, but, now that we have a vehicle it's much easier to get around. The scenery is spectacular. Kachemak Bay is currently full of whales. You can go to the end of the Spit and see humpbacks, minkes and even orcas blowing and breaching. It's actually kind of late for the whales to be here, nobody knows why they're still around this year, but, we're enjoying them while we can. It's been another few days of wonderful weather and we got our bikes out for a tour along the Spit's paved bike path.

We recently saw an interesting bumper sticker on a car that brought a laugh:

"Homer, AK, a quaint fishing town with a Subaru problem."

It's true! The first thing we noticed about Homer is that every second car is a Subaru Outback. Haven't a clue why...

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Fort Simpson to Dawson City

Many years ago we were caught by 'The Spell of the Yukon'. It wasn't gold that drew us as in Robert Service's poem of the same name, but, the amazing history of that gold rush of 1898 and how it opened up Canada's North.

From Robert Service's poem, the Spell of the Yukon, as seen on the side of a building in Dawson City.

Back then, we traveled to Yukon by government ferry, sleeping on deck, up the Inside Passage to Skagway and then hiked the thirty-three miles from Dyea to Lake Bennett with tent and sleeping bags on our back.

Yes, we climbed over the summit as shown in this famous photo. It wasn't as thickly snow-covered when we did it, but, that probably made it harder because we had to climb over slippery, car-sized boulders and steep scree to get to the top. At least we only had to do it once. The fortune hunters had to do it many times to carry their supplies over the top.

It was so long ago that you didn't need to have a reservation and a permit like you do now. There was no road through the White Pass then either. We picked up the narrow gauge railway at Lake Bennett and rode it into Whitehorse. Due to work commitments we had to fly out from there. It always felt like unfinished business that we didn't get to do the entire trip to Dawson City. In the interim period, the dream was kept alive with our very own dog sled and Alaskan Malamutes named 'Klondike' and 'Grey Cloud'. Now, finally, we were determined to finish the entire Trail of '98 and see Dawson city for ourselves.

This time we were doing the trip in comparative luxury with our camper van. We chose to drive the less-traveled roads, one of which was the Robert Campbell Highway from Watson lake to Carmacks. There was so little traffic that we only saw one other car in two and a half hours of driving! It was single lane in places and mostly gravel and mud. We thought we'd see lots of wildlife, but, were disappointed, our vehicle was probably making too much noise.

Driving into Dawson City, we were immediately taken with the ambience. The whole town is a National Historic Site and strict regulations have kept the buildings in the style of the period.

Some of the buildings are still in their original condition, these two are badly tilted due to permafrost issues.

And some of the buildings are beautifully restored, this is the Palace Grand Theatre.

This is the building that has the 'Spell of the Yukon' painted on the outside wall.

Although most attractions were closed 'two weeks ago' and a lot of the town was actually boarded up for the winter, we still enjoyed walking around and visiting sites both in and out of town.

We drove out to the site of the original gold claim on Bonanza Creek and to see this Dredge, what an incredible machine, wooden-hulled, it basically moved itself along on a self-dug pond, digging up gravel at the front, running it through a sluice box inside to extract the gold and spitting out gravel in huge worm-like castings out the back. The landscape has basically been destroyed with these huge casting trails still intact.

We drove up to the Midnight Dome overlooking the town and the Yukon River. Note the snow cover and the beautiful mountain view in the background.

View of Dawson City and the Yukon River from the Midnight Dome which overlooks the town.

It was great to see Pierre Berton's childhood home where he lived until the age of twelve. Unfortunately, it's not open to the public. It was interesting to find out that Berton had a dog, also named 'Grey Cloud', just like ours.

A riverboat being restored.

Yukon River ferry crossing.

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Yellowknife to Fort Simpson

We picked up the van in Yellowknife and as all the campgrounds were closed 'two weeks ago' we decided to 'boondock' (in sailing we'd call it 'gunkholing', in RV-speak it's called 'boondocking') for the first night. We drove out about twenty-five miles along the Ingraham Trail and found a quiet spot overlooking a lake. All was well and we enjoyed this beautiful sunset.

Boondocking along the Ingraham Trail - Yellowknife, NT

After the sun set, it then got very dark and we were surprised when a van pulled into the lot in front of us and quickly switched off their headlights. A few people got out, they lit up cigarettes and hung around beside the van. We couldn't figure out why they would be here and were getting a little nervous when they kept hanging around. It got more mysterious when suddenly a few of them tiptoed by our van and headed down to the beach. As they went by we heard whispering, in Japanese! It was a tour group looking for the Aurora Borealis and they'd been driven out to this remote spot for a prime view. Guess they were as surprised as us to find the spot occupied. They spent an hour or two by the water, we identified their location by the little red lights shining brightly from each camera phone. It was a fairly cloudy evening and I doubt they saw anything and they left after a few hours. Yellowknife and environs really push Aurora tours. We often wonder how many tourists actually get to see the Aurora as it's really a matter of luck and being in the right place at the right time.

Next day we headed out on the highway towards Fort Simpson. We were really hoping we weren't 'two weeks too late' to miss an opportunity to visit Nahanni National Park, another dream destination for us. Fort Simpson is located on an island at the junction of the Mackenzie and Liard Rivers. It was fun taking the car ferry across the Liard and watching the skill of the captain as he docked against the fierce current. 'Docking' isn't really the right word as there is no dock. He basically lined the ferry up sideways to a gravel/sand beach area, slammed sideways into the shore and then pivoted around. Once perpendicular to the shore the engine was revved to hold us in place long enough so that they could drop the ramp and we could drive off.

We made our way directly to Simpson Air to enquire about a floatplane trip into the park. The only access to the South Nahanni is by airplane. They were still open and available and the weather looked great for the next day. With just the two of us, we opted for the cheapest option which was the flyover of Virginia Falls. After we'd booked and settled into our van for the evening, the owner of Simpson Air came by (it's not a big place). He had a third person for tomorrow and would we be interested in the longer trip option where we could land above the falls and do a walking tour for the same price? Would we be interested? Of course!

Virginia Falls, Nahanni National Park. Our floatplane landed on the river above the falls, look closely and you can see the dock at the upper left.

A closer view, the rock in the middle has been named Mason's Rock after Bill Mason (the canoeing icon) who worked for the establishment of the park.

The trusty little Cessna that got us there, note the snow patch. It was a beautiful clear, cold day with fresh snow on the walking trail to the falls.

On the way back.

We also landed on Little Doctor Lake in the park. Our descent took us very low and we flew right through that notch in the cliffs which was exciting. We met up with another Simpson Air plane already there.

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On the road again

Now that Gjoa is safely ashore until probably next May when we relaunch, we won't be writing about sailing travel for a while. Although we won't be sailing, we hope to still do some interesting things over the winter and will continue to post on occasion.

It's been just over two weeks since Gjoa's liftout and we have been on another whirlwind road trip since then. As I wrote earlier in the year, we acquired a camper van in the spring and drove it from Toronto, ON (Ontario) to Yellowknife, NT (Northwest Territories) and left it there while we completed the Northwest Passage by sailboat. The plan was to continue the road trip west in the fall, rendezvous with Gjoa in Homer to pick up a few things and then continue down towards Vancouver for the winter. 

Yellowknife to Homer, via Dawson City (we didn't complete the planned leg to Inuvik)

It's been a fabulous trip so far, except for the recurring theme of the trip which was: we're just two weeks too late. We'd planned to head west mid-September, but, due to losing a week to the crane operator fiasco in Cambridge Bay and a week lost waiting for the tide to haulout in Homer, we didn't get underway until October. We tried to arrange transit from Homer to Whitehorse where we could get a flight to Yellowknife. The bus service stopped running 'two weeks ago'. We then thought maybe we could get a ferry from Homer to Skagway and somehow from there to Whitehorse. The last service was 'two weeks ago'.  We ended up having to fly Homer>Anchorage>Seattle>Calgary>Yellowknife. It was a marathon four-airplane day, but, we got there.

During the drive back to Homer, all the campgrounds, parks, attractions and visitor centres were closed 'two weeks ago'. Luckily, nature was still open and the scenery was truly spectacular. The weather cooperated and we continued to get incredibly sunny, clear and warm days ideal for traveling through the mountains. The fall colour was muted and mostly past its prime (two weeks ago would have been better!), but, it was still very beautiful and probably much more interesting than a summer trip when everything is just green.

Winter weather was never very far behind. Many times we'd leave a place only to learn that snow had arrived the next day. In Dawson City we soon realized we'd have to abandon our plans to drive the Dempster Highway from Dawson City to Inuvik. This was going to be the highlight of the trip, but, common sense prevailed. We had snow while in Dawson City and rivers and lakes were starting to freeze over. The day we'd planned to start the Dempster it was winter driving conditions north of Ft. McPherson and 100 km hour winds through the Richardson Mountains. We had visions of taking the ferry to Inuvik and getting trapped by a partial freezeup. We'd then have to wait about three weeks for the winter ice road to form before we could cross back over. So, we were very disappointed, but, as we were not prepared to drive in such harsh conditions we had to reluctantly give the Dempster a miss. Maybe another time....

The border crossing into Alaska on the Top of the World highway, the highway itself and the Denali highway were also closed 'two weeks ago' which meant we had to drive the long way back from Dawson City to Whitehorse and cross into Alaska there instead. 

In the next couple of posts we'll share some of the incredible sights we've seen along the way so far. We should be back in Homer tomorrow and will be there a couple of weeks before starting out once again for the journey south to Vancouver. 

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