Summary of time:
· Victoria – capital of British Columbia
· Fort Rudd & Fisgard Lighthouse.
· Whale Watching
Handy hints –
§ Good maps and information about campsites
§ Good camera for the views
§ Take time to stop and enjoy the places where you are
Vancouver Island at some points is almost closer to the USA than to mainland Canada, but it is part of British Columbia, in fact the big “city” in Vancouver is Victoria, which actually is the State Capital of British Columbia. The majority of people who live on Vancouver Island live in the south eastern area of the Island, which is where you find Victoria. Victoria is the most English of Canadian cities, and this is helped by seeing London Red Double Decker buses as the hop on/off tour buses.
The island boasts a myriad of things to be able to do, for all sorts of activities on water (sailing, fishing, whale watching, kayaking.....), and land, there are plenty of places where you can go walking, with mountains and forests to explore, as well as seeing smaller communities, and first nations along the way.
There is a lot of great architecture to see in Victoria, and no big skyscrapers, but there are several parks and big areas for recreational purposes.
Victoria was colonised in 1843 when James Douglas, on behalf of Hudson’s Bay Company, set up Fort Victoria as a fur-trading post, although it was originally the home of Salish Indians. The Island was declared part of the crown colony of Britain in 1849. In 1866 it merged with the mainland to form British Columbia, but then the decision was whether they would join the USA with their links to Washington and Oregon or to be part of the new Dominion of Canada. In 1871 BC voted to be part of Canada as Ottawa had committed to build a railroad link East-West, and Victoria was declared the capital of BC.
The inner harbour of Victoria is at its heart, which is also the airport – using seaplanes as the way to fly in/out or around the country (NB there is an international airport north of Victoria nr Sidney) – and the ferry terminal for boats from USA and mainland Canada, as well as marina, commercial port, and coast guards but the naval base is a bit further around the coast.
A few blocks away is the start of Highway 1, which you can follow for 8,000km and you will find yourself in Newfoundland. On the route on the Island it heads north to Nanaimo, from where you will catch the ferry to Horseshoe bay to the NW of Vancouver, where you pick up the road again.
Arriving at Victoria, we had to pass through Customs and Immigration, and i felt sorry for the guy, as he was asking us all questions, but getting 3 different answers. He got a bit confused. As dad and i were returning to the USA he didn’t remove our visas from the passports, but he did from mum as she was leaving from Vancouver to return home. With dad and i he then asked us how long we were stopping and our plans, and we were both going to be in Canada for different lengths of time.
To his customs questions, we all gave the same answers, yes our alcohol in the van was less than 24 cans and 2 bottles of wine, and no we didn’t have any of the fruits we weren’t allowed to bring or firewood, and finally no to firearms. We were through with no problems.
We then parked up the RV down by Fisherman’s Wharf, where there are places to buy fresh fish, for yourself or sardines to feed the seal, and also you can see the floating homes. Some of the floating homes are to let, it certainly would be a different place to stop. Whilst here we saw a mum seal and her pup, and a few people bought sardines which the held out and the mum jumped up to get them, that is unless the gull swept in to get it first.
We then followed the Marine Broadway round to the Inner Harbour, passing the Parliament Buildings, and to the information centre, where we stocked up on information about places to see and stay. After a small wander around, it was time to get the RV (because the meter would have run out) and find a place to park up and have lunch. We took the little ferry boat back to fisherman’s wharf, and then made our way to Beacon Hill Park, and found parking that gave us a view across the strait looking at Olympic National Park.
Dad had his afternoon nap, whilst mum and i sorted through information, and working out where we would be when, and what could be done in that time. It was a relaxing afternoon in the sunshine, and from the beach we collected some driftwood for firewood.
We replenished our supplies at the supermarket, then headed off to Mt Douglas Park, which had a road to the top from where you could get great views of Victoria and much further afield. The road was not really suitable for the RV but we made it up and back down again no worries. We then headed north to camp for the night. What was strange about the maps, was they didn’t show all the little roads on them, but also with Vancouver Island being much smaller, our sense (or i should say my sense) of distance the map was showing was not really proportionate to the distance, i kept thinking everything would be further than it actually was (previous maps had been for a whole state in US!). There is only 26 km between Victoria and Sidney and we weren’t even going that far! Victoria to Port Hardy, which is at the top, is only 502km (314miles).
Turning off Highway 17, we saw fields of farmland, and the main crop seemed to be pumpkins. We found the first site we had details for but left there as we didn’t feel we wanted to stop there, but had a better feeling about the other site we had details for. Our feelings were right, but no place to have a campfire. After dinner, we went for a walk to the beach and saw the sun set.
Next morning, we headed south and west for The Butchart Gardens, which was something mum wanted to see. We missed the turning, or i should say there weren’t any signposts for the turning, because if you were coming from the north you would have turned off further north than the road we had come from, and the turnoff from the south didn’t allow us to turn off onto it. We navigated around by another road, when dad saw a house under-construction, and stopped to talk to the builders about the way their houses are built. Dad went with mum into the gardens, whilst i gave them some space and stopped in the RV – i didn’t fancy walking around gardens in the drizzle. It was then time for lunch.
Sometimes it’s hard when you’ve 3 adults who have different ideas and interests, and trying to accommodate them all into the plans. Heading back to Victoria we booked ourselves into an RV site for 2 nights, before going off and seeing Fort Rudd and Fisgard Lighthouse (you will remember from previous blogs that i have grown a fascination with lighthouses).
Fisgard is nationally significant as Canada’s first west coast lighthouse, and in 2010 will be celebrating its 150th anniversary, so it was undergoing some reconstruction in preparation for this, and meant that you could see it only from a distance.
The Fort from 1878 till 1956 was an artillery base, guarding Victoria and the nearby naval base. At one time it was part of the worldwide chain of defences for the British Empire!
It was interesting to go around the site and see the artillery sites, and learn about the changes that happened because of new technologies and new threats. It has an Upper Battery and Lower Battery that were built in 1895-97, and in 1900 a third Battery was built so that small fast torpedo boats would not slip under the guns of the other two.
There were several Searchlights that were part of the defense system, some of them were camouflaged as “fisherman’s huts”, and others were different.
There was also the usual military requirements, quarters, canteen, officer’s quarters, guardhouse, magazine stores (underground of course), and fitters’ shop – so they could do all their own repairs.
It was interesting learning about the involvement of the people here during WWII.
We left as the park was closing so time to park up, but not before dad had booked for him and i to go whale watching the next day in the morning.....and mum was looking forward to wandering around the shops for a couple of hours. Once again there was no campfire facilities.
We had to be ready to be collected by 9am, and mum was going to catch the bus into town, so we left the RV behind, everything didn’t have to be packed away so it didn’t move as we drove!
As the minibus that was collecting us would not be full, mum got a lift down to town with us, and we parted ways. Dad and i were the only ones who were booked to go on the boat, so they offered us to go on the afternoon boat, or a zodiac (speed boat – we would be provided with waterproof suit for this!). We thought we would go on the zodiac, but we had just missed the last two seats, so changed our plans and decided to go for the afternoon boat.
We met mum, and visited a couple of places, before dad left us girls to visit the fabric shops etc. Dad and i met at the appointed time back at the office, and were told we had made a wise choice as one of the pods of Orca’s was moving towards us, and feeding so we were likely to see them.
The sun was shining, but we had our jackets as it would be cold out there. It was about a 45 min journey out to the San Juan Islands (in USA), we could see Mt Baker the highest mountain in Washington in the distance. As we approached the area of the other boats we saw the Orca’s. They were quite spread out, which meant that we could be away from other boats and still see Orca’s.
This pod (J Pod) was one of three pods that was resident in this area, at other times in the year, other types may be seen. J Pod had 24 for members (1 pod had 40+, and 1 i think 18), but what was special about this pod was that it had the oldest male of the 3 pods (Ruffles who was born in the 1940’s) and the oldest female of the 3 pods (Grandma, Ruffles’ mum, who was born in 1911).
The captain found her spot and switched the engine off. By law we have to keep 100m away from the Orca’s but if you are stationary and they come towards you that’s ok. We could see them coming up out of the water, and splashing some distance away, even with a zoom on the camera it still looked a long distance. The pod were feeding and moving, so we moved with them and stopped again.
We were fortunate as the Captain but down the mic in the water and we could hear them. But then came our special time, Ruffles came within 30m of the boat, before disappearing. He then returned with his mum, and both came really close. When they went underwater, you had no idea where they would come up next, at one point i thought they might even go under the boat, but they didn’t. It was special to see such magnificent mammals in their natural environment, so close.
We were out there for an hour before heading back, which brought another experience, looking out from the back of the boat, we watched a pod of porpoise ride the bow waves, for a while. Also we saw a group of seals enjoying the sun on the rocks.
The whole trip was 3 hours, and was worth it for the time we spent watching the whales. Sometimes, you have to travel a bit further, and you may not see as many of the whales, or all the boats are crowding in a small area, but we were fortunate, we were some distance from the other boats, it was like there were a couple of Orca’s for each of us in our own space.
We got back as the clock chimed 5pm, we had left when it was striking 2pm! So it was then time to find the bus stop and catch the bus back to mum, for dinner, and to warm up a bit. There had been a breeze out in the Strait.
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