18 aug.

Flew to Vancouver today. Had a little hiccup at airport security. They pulled my bag aside and insisted I had a knife in there. Well I thought what are they on about? Why would I have a knife in my carryon? And it was the same briefcase I’d be carrying through multiple airports. He kept searching and found nothing. I helpfully suggested it might be my electronic transcribing pen- he scanned that again and no there was still a knife… I was smugly confident knowing there was no knife. Until… he pulled out a white plastic bag and I suddenly remembered buying one of the little boys a pocket knife with his name on it! Oh no! I was all at once embarrassed at having insisted I had no knife and horrified that I was about to lose a great gift I’d bought for one of the boys! “Sammy’s knife!” I exclaimed and the security guy looked at me as I explained what it was.

I was sure it was gone. In Australia you can’t even take nail scissors or knitting needles on a plane.

But no he says that in Canada you can take a knife as long as it’s blade is less than six cm and he measures it against his pinky and says “you know what I’m pretty sure this one is ok” !!!

Well you know, every good Canadian has to have a knife, gun and a fishing rod. Can’t get in-between a boy and his knife he might have figured??

Arrived in Vancouver with sufficient time to catch our ferry to Vancouver Island. Didn’t figure on the huge lines at the airport for car pickup. Keep that in mind if going onwards to the ferry in Vancouver and allow time for it.

Speaking of the ferry we ended up driving on to the wrong ferry which went to a port another hour further north of where we wanted to go! And one of the drs I’m interviewing (and staying with) is waiting for us to arrive for dinner!

Turns out the critical failure point was when the young lady at the ticket booth was so distracted talking to her colleague about her party weekend that when she gave us our ticket she failed to give us our lane number or our dashboard ticket. So we just ended up on the nearest ferry. Thankfully we had a car and our host was understanding of our hour delay.

The doctor lives in a beautiful spot on Victoria Island. His wife was just lovely too and we enjoyed the company of some of his family as they were gathering for his daughters upcoming wedding. Yet he still made time to talk to me and share his experiences as a long standing remote doctor in an Inuit Community. He had some amazing stories to share and he and his wife showed great hospitality.

19 -20 August

Driving through to Victoria from the drs house was beautiful. Lovely forests, deer, and farms growing all kinds of fresh produce, views of the ocean.

One of the drs had become unavailable at short notice leaving a day free so we decided to see what Vancouver island was famous for- killer whales ( orcas)- something I’d wanted to see since I was a kid.

Went out on Eagle Wing tours in an open scarab boat and it was amazing. Our captain was a local and he was the first to spot the pod of transient orcas so we got them to ourselves for a little bit before he had to radio the other boats. It was amazing to watch. Apparently the transients usually just focus on hunting sea mammals and are not particularly playful or social ( I.e. don’t make calls to each other). The captain said we were very lucky to see their unusual behaviour that day because they were playing and breaching and calling to each other which we heard on the hydrophone .

We also saw some humpback whales and Pete the captain told us how it’s only in recent years that humpbacks have made a comeback to this area after decades or whaling depleted the numbers. When he was younger there were no humpbacks or otters.

Now sea otters are making a slow comeback into the area but the sea otter Ollie we saw is still very lonely. In fact he is so lonely he needs to meet his ‘needs’ in a rather gruesome manner. Ollie has been known to kill river otters and small seals to ‘have his way’ with! Ewww….

We also saw loads of sealions and harbour seals. Sealions are massive!

We also saw a beautiful bald eagle.

So alongside the encouraging stories of conservation working for some species we also heard about how the salmon are disappearing which is a key part of the ecosystem here and a main source of food for the resident killer whales who are thought to be starving.

The wharf at Victoria was crowded but beautiful. We saw seals and a river otter just at the wharf.

Near the wharf we enjoyed some delicious fresh salmon although am starting to feel a bit guilty for eating it here with stocks dwindling.

Drove around towards the ferry stopping to pick blackberries that grew abundantly on the roadside. That’s why a food container is one of my must bring items on my travels!

We also stopped at some beautiful beaches and was tempted to swim until Ron reminded me we’d been told the water was 9C. I was drooling over the piles of driftwood on the beach imagining all the crafts I could make if I lived there.

Dropped into Elk Lake on the way through and for our last glimpse of Canadian geese.

Caught the ferry back to Vancouver and even saw whales in the water off the road on way to ferry.

Didn’t see much on way back due to the smoke from the wildfires raging in BC. But we did get on the right ferry!

21 August

We have one day in Vancouver before flying to Anchorage. We did a bit of thrift store cruising as there are a lot here and we wanted to buy a cheap bag to bring home some gifts in. Got the bag and a few cool items for the boys.

Wanted to have a bit of a look at the waterfront but changed our minds when we saw the price of parking. Wasn’t even so much the price but were just really annoyed at the blatant tourist ripoff when street parking was three and a half times higher price in the tourist district as it was two streets back! Quite frankly it didn’t look like there was anything that exciting in the city that we’d be sad about missing it anyway.

But we’re not really interested in cities anyway unless they’re really old or quirky or something.

We wanted some Canadian maple syrup products to take back and it turns out you can get better quality for a better price if you look in the right supermarkets than buying them in souvenir stores.

We had a bit of a look around outskirts of Vancouver and stopped for a walk along the Fraser River. We assumed this was the same Fraser River that we saw up in the mountains that was touted as once being the worlds greatest salmon River but where now authorities were struggling to save the salmon . So we were a bit surprised to find boat after boat putting out drift nets across the entire river pretty much scooping up all the salmon coming up the river from the sea to spawn as now is spawning season. Apparently this is the First Nations fisheries and they are allowed to do this and it’s supposed to be monitored. I don’t know enough about it but something really didn’t seem right about it.

The seals didn’t mind though as they seemed to be stalking the nets ready to eat the fish.

We were also interested to see the logs being floated in the river just like in the ‘lumberjack’ days right in the city although I’m sure they use machines now.