Days 35- 42 Southbound towards home

Sat Sept 15 - Fri Sept 21 Meziadin Lake to Prince Rupert

The past week has sped past and this morning we are sitting in the sun on the deck of the Northern Expedition as we pull out of Prince Rupert heading south to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island.

Fields full of sandhill cranes, then they all take off noisy chaos.

Our quick and chilly trip south left us with extra time to dally along the Skeena River, so we spent two days with old friends Rodolfo and Marianne on their ranch in Smithers.  It's a gorgeous bit of BC: rich farmland scattered beneath snowy peaks, and we can see why they love it.  We spent hours watching the thousands of sandhill cranes who transit this valley each year, trailing across the sky in long squaking skeins.  Their voices are rough and gravelly, like some broken ancient machine, and they carry on long arguments amongst themselves as they wheel and soar above us.

Loaded log truck on bridge over the Nass river.

West of Smithers the mountains drop down into deep river valleys left by long ago glaciers.  The Bulkley, Skeena and the Nass are still icy, blue and clear, and in better days were filled with returning salmon.  With runs significantly down, there's no fishing this season, but the scenery is still captivating.  We doddle westward.






But the truck has been acting up this week, and suddenly en route to the Nass valley and Nisga'a Memorial Lava Bed Park it makes ominous engine sounds, surprisingly similar to the grating of the cranes.  We turn back to Terrace, and the noise disappears.  The Ford dealership won't even look at it for two days, so we press on to Prince Rupert on the coast, hoping we'll catch our ferry at the end of the week.  If we miss it, we've got a week to wait for the next one.

Prince Rupert harbour in sunshine.

Luck is with us, for a change.  The truck seems fine, and Prince Rupert is bathed in sunshine when we arrive.  We spend two days hiking and basking in September sunshine, an almost unheard of blessing on this wet, foggy coastline.  The sushi is even better than we remember and we pronounce it worth the entire trip!

Sunset from the Prince Rupert dock.

Ferry morning comes and the truck starts reluctantly when we leave the campground.  At the ferry terminal we turn off the engine at the toll booth.  Fatal move.  It won't start.  We get a boost to move into the loading queue and then another half an hour later to drive onto the boat.  We'll obviously need another tomorrow morning when we dock, and then we'll have to deal with our dead battery problem.

So, here we sit in the sunshine, safely aboard and heading south.  We might as well enjoy the ride, because there's nothing else to be done until we arrive in Port Hardy.  It's a gorgeous trip, and there will be eagles and whales to watch, beautiful scenery, passing ships, and the tantalizing possibility of sea otters and kermode bears.  Tomorrow is another day.

The inside passage - a peaceful interlude after a stormy trip.