Canada | August 2023 |
From Comox, I originally planned to take the ferry to Powell River/Sunshine Coast then back to the interior of BC. But the fire and smoke situation was so bad in and around the Shuswap, that I decided to head north, up-island. The definitive info source I came across was the Vancouver Island Grand Loop website, which I then followed pretty much verbatim. I wasn't prepared for this trip, particularly without warm clothes, rain gear, and a low-temperature sleeping bag. Quoting Kurt Vonnegut: "Hi-ho!".
Day 1: Comox to Port Alice
I set off from Comox up the old coastal highway to Cambell River (what a great ride), then west to Gold River. From there, I took a Forestry Service Road (FSR) north to Woss. From Woss, I was kind of winging it down FSRs, guided by Google Maps (offline). This was going fairly well until I got past Atluck Lake and the road turned into a goat trail. I thought I was lost and considered turning back! Anyway, I carried on as it was getting late in the day, and thank god the overgrown trail synched to a bigger and better gravel road that I followed onwards to Port Alice. Stayed one night in an overpriced C$40 RV park, was just too tired to look around for alternates or to bush camp.
Day 2: Port Alice to Cape Scott
While I had the Island Grand Loop map to follow, I was a bit vague on the exact route to Hoberg and Cape Scott via Coal Harbour (Google Maps only gave a route via Port Hardy). I asked around a bit, and as usual, no one had the same answer, nor had done the route in recent years. I worked it out that I needed to take Port Hardy Road to CH200 (both FSRs), which would bring me to Coal Harbour - and they did. Overall it was a short 60-minute or so ride, decent roads. From Coal Harbour, I rode on to Holberg, where I stopped at the general store, which was managed by a Vietnamese hospitality student doing his summer internship - very adventurous, as Holberg has a population of about 50 people. I stopped at the Scarlett Ibis pub, touted as the most remote place of its kind on Vancouver Island. Then it was onwards for the 45-minute ride to Cape Scott. When I got there, I was surprised to see the parking lot overflowed with vehicles, there at the northern tip of Vancouver Island (I had some idyllic notion I would be one of few people there...it's so remote....). I set up camp at the awesome San Josef Bay campsite nearby, then hiked the 3.5 km trail to Cape Scott. It's an excellent walk through rainforest (some of the last on Vancouver Island...), to the beach, where about 20 tents were up, people who had hiked in with gear. The perfect sunny day turned into a freezing night and my light summer sleeping bag was not up to the task.
Day 3: San Josef Bay to Nanaimo
This turned out to be a long haul, a good 7 hours of riding, but all good as I was heading to a number of places I had never been to. On the way out of Holberg, I stopped at the Goodspeed Fossil Bed, highly recommended. Then it was a quick blast on a dirt road to Port Hardy, where I had a quick look around. Then on to Port McNeil, which seemed like a very cool little town. Sayward and Kelsey Bay were my next stop, which turned out to be a highlight of the whole trip: people fishing at the pier were reeling in Pink Salmon one after the other, and you could see schools of fish whizzing by, going for lures. As far as fishing goes, this looked like paradise to me. While it was only $10 to rent a rod there, I didn't have a fishing license, so I could just watch the proceedings. Also of note at Sayward was a food truck serving an ass-kicking $10 Poutine - heaven. Quoting Arnold "I will be back" to Sayward one day - assuming salmon are not soon extinct. I rolled on through Cambell River, down the old road to Courtenay, stopped for a quick beer at the excellent Gladstone Brewing, then it was back to my Aunt Lorren's place in Nanaimo, where I ended up staying 2-nights as the was no rush to back to the Shuswap given the fires and smoke.
My route and stops
Click the "window" at top-left on the map for more details.
Ride: 950 km / 16 hrs
Stay:
- Port Alice RV Park $40 / 3/5
- San Jospef Bay campground $10 / 4/5
Observation
While this trip was a fun and exciting first-time ride into a world-famous ecosystem, the sheer scale of logging, and clear-cutting in particular, was gut-wrenching to see first-hand and up close. Whatever intact old-growth forest that still remains on Vancouver Island absolutely needs to be protected.
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