Today was BC Day. Until this weekend, we were completely unaware of this holiday, but the folks in British Columbia take this opportunity to celebrate their history and culture seriously. There aren’t any parade or fireworks, but all kinds of places close for a three day weekend. This was also our BC Day when we drove from one side of Vancouver Island to the other and a bit of all sides of life in this province.
We began our day in Tofino. Much as we liked our condo there, we were irritated by a 10:00 am checkout and a list of things to do when we left that rivaled the work assignments in any youth hostel. We packed the car and started out of town. As we were leaving, we decided to give the dogs one last shot at the Pacific beaches. So we stopped again at Chesterman Beach, the larger of the “town” beaches. The sand all along this coast is both very soft and very firm. John was fascinated by the way people can ride bikes up and down the beach. We never had a chance to do that. Maybe another time….
I am pretty proficient with the “chuck it” now, and I really gave Eli and workout chasing that ball.
We also found a cool little sea cave a bit down the beach. John, of course, immediately that I pose. Edie seemed to find this whole thing weird. Eli was busy thinking about his ball.
We left Tofino and drove to Ucluelet, Tofino’s more working class sister town 30 kilometers south. It was even less charming than we expected, and even though we were ready for lunch, we decided to push on. We stopped at the tourist information booth on the highway and asked Paddy, the young man at the counter, where we could take the dogs. He suggested going to Kennedy Lake, about six kilometers inland. We bought some overpriced sandwiches from a nearby store and headed there for a picnic.
The fog, even in August, only clings to the beach and you don’t have to go far inland to find sun. Kennedy Lake is the place where the local go for warm water and probably to escape the tourists. The beach was not quite as soft as the sand on Chesterman, but the water was pleasant and the sun a glorious change from two days of solid fog. Eli again had a great time chasing his ball. He was not supposed to be off-leash here as it the Lake is still part of Pacific Rim National Park, but when the ranger arrived we were packing up and they were not running around.
We again took the winding road from the coast through the interior. John drove this time, so we took less time than we had when I drove. We were ready to stop for some coffee in Port Alberni, but discovered that most stores seemed closed for BC Day. The guidebooks did not have much coverage of Port Alberni, an old lumber town where there are still several paper mills, but one suggested climbing the clock tower on the wharf. Port Alberni is at the head of a long fjord that goes all the way to the ocean at Ucluelet. The view was nice, but nothing extraordinary.
Returning to the main Nanaimo-Victoria highway, we headed toward the Cowichan Valley and the town of Duncan where I had made hotel reservations for the night. Along the way, John discovered that Canadians can do dumb roadside attractions almost as well as Californians can. While not quite as wonderful as the dinosaurs at Cabazon, this gnome is pretty great.
All the guidebooks recommend Duncan, though they are somewhat vague about what exactly you should do and see there. It calls itself “The City of Totems” and indeed there are about 40 totem poles scattered throughout the downtown area and a pathway of painted feet to lead you from one to another.
Had we come to Duncan on another day we might have liked it better. But they take BC Day very seriously in Duncan and not a single shop or restaurant was open. Most had, in fact, been closed for the entire weekend as well. I don’t usually quote John Denver, but this song did come to mind:
Saturday night in Toledo, Ohio is like being nowhere at all.
All through the day how the hours rush by, you sit in the park and you watch the grass die.
Ah, but after the sunset, the dusk and the twilight, when shadows of night start to fall.
They roll back the sidewalk precisely at ten and people who live there are not seen again.
Rather than returning to our hotel room by the highway – which we weren’t thrilled with either – we decided to explore the area. And I am glad we did because we found the pretty little town of Cowichan Bay just down the road a bit. There is a small harbor there and a lot of shops and restaurants in old buildings on the water’s edge. John was fascinated by this unusual use for a surfboard he saw there.
There was also quite a lovely sunset.
We had a lovely, if overpriced, meal at a nice restaurant there. John liked the visual presentation of his crab though he had the toughest time getting some of the meat out of those legs.
This is our last night in Canada. Tomorrow, we catch the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles. We will leave with great memories. As the Quebec license plates proclaim, “Je me souviens”, “I remember”. And so we will.
