Alert Bay I: Arrival

After a fun afternoon exploring Telegraph Cove we headed back to the 19 and on towards Port McNeil where we got the 40 minute ferry ride across to Alert Bay. It is an important fishing community and has been the traditional home to the ‘Namgis First Nation for thousands of years. It was named by Captain G H Richards of the Royal Navy in 1860 after HMS Alert, a screw corvette serving on the Pacific station at the time. We stayed in a small cabin right on the water’s edge with stunning sunset views back towards the mainland, and a deck where we could watch the fishing boats and whale watching boats coming in and spot herons and cormorants.

We had booked a whale trip for the Monday, but meanwhile had the whole island to explore. The weather wasn’t all that great – lots of fog and mist – but there was still a lot to see and do. Even spending a couple of hours photographing the beach for flotsam and jetsam was huge fun. We had great baked oysters with spinach and parmesan for dinner on Saturday although finding somewhere to dine on the Sunday was rather more challenging. The boat trip was brilliant even though it was so foggy that we could barely make out the pod of orcas we were following plus they were so quick leaping out of the water that most of our photos showed absolutely nothing at worst and the tip of a fin at best! But listening to them communicating with each other was the best.

Welcome

Telegraph Cove

On our first visit to Vancouver Island, way back in 2005, we moved northwards after spending a week in the Comox Valley area to spend a few days in Alert Bay, a small settlement on the Cormorant Island which lies off the northeast corner of the Island in the Inside Passage, a 40 minute ferry ride from Port McNeil. (See the map on the Victoria 1 post). Our main reason for going there was to go on a boat trip to look for killer whales (Orcas – the lovely black and white ones).

Before we reached Port McNeil though we decided to branch off at the Nimpkish Lake to the small community of Telegraph Cove which is about 130 miles northwest of Campbell River. Historic Telegraph Cove is British Columbia’s last boardwalk community. It grew out of a one-room station at the northern terminus of the Campbell River telegraph line in 1911 into a chum salmon saltery and later a small sawmill. It hasn’t changed much over the years. Its history is well-remembered and the homes reflect the original era. The sawmill closed in the mid 1980s and the only future seemed in tourism. Today its economy is primarily based on tourism with its proximity to the Robson Bight ecological reserve.

Whale watching, grizzly bear viewing excursions and kayaking are popular activities on the Johnstone Strait and Knight Inlet and most of the cabins on the picturesque boardwalk are holiday rentals or tourist shops and cafés. The Johnstone Strait and Broughton Archipelago are home to a bounty of nature’s magnificence including humpback whales, Steller sea lions, dolphins, porpoises, bald eagles and so much more. The sheltered cove and the chance to see a pod of killer whales have attracted many people to this delightful boardwalk village.

When we visited we encountered the Telegraph Cove Road Improvement project and had an interesting drive on gravel and unpaved diversions past logging yards and sawmills to reach the unique boardwalk resort. Now you will be pleased to hear it is a wide, realigned and paved road all the way. Although I actually quite liked the adventure of “off-roading”.

So here are a few pictures of Telegraph Cove and I will follow with a few posts about Alert Bay as it really is a gem of a find.

Telegraph Cove

The Butchart Gardens

Although we didn’t visit the Butchart Gardens on this trip, it would be remiss of me not to mention it as it is possibly the most spectacular floral display on the continent. It began as a limestone quarry in 1904 established by Robert and Jennie Butchart. They created a family home nearby with sweetpeas and rose bushes. As Mr. Butchart exhausted the limestone deposits his wife began to create a sunken garden in the abandoned quarry and went on to develop other areas such as the Italianate, Japanese and Rose gardens. Successive generations of the family have cared for the gardens which attract  a million people annually. Continue reading The Butchart Gardens

The Saanich Peninsula

Our final day on the island and we awoke to rain – the first we had encountered during this trip and a forecast of worse to come. Well we’d done quite a lot – again – and not enough – again – so today would be a “quiet day”. We had contemplated a visit to the world-famous Butchart Garden, a must see if you have not been there and like gardens of course. Instead we decided on the little known Abkhazi Garden in Oak Bay, which has been designed around the glaciated rocky slopes and magnificent Garry oaks. Continue reading The Saanich Peninsula

Victoria IV: Arts and Crafts

Cutting back through the park we arrived at Fairfield and Cook Street Village. Fairfield is a picturesque neighbourhood with tree-lined streets and you can take a self-guided walking tour which describes some of the buildings of interest along the route. Housing styles typical to the area are Edwardian Vernacular Arts & Crafts (1904 – 1914) British Arts & Crafts (1905 – 1930), Foursquare (1900 – 1920) and Californian Bungalow (1900 – 1929). Needless to say this occupied a good deal of our day, though we found time to browse in a couple of second-hand book stores (always a dangerous pastime) and have a bowl of soup in a cute retro American Diner complete with pictures of Betty Boop. Continue reading Victoria IV: Arts and Crafts