1995 Vancouver Island Trip
Thursday, July 27
Day 7:
Telegraph Cove, Port Hardy & Winter Harbor
We travelled north on Highway 29. Drove through Sayward, a
boring logging town stopped at Telegraph Cove. We parked in a large, muddy parking
lot full of large trucks, RV's and cars big enough to tow boats. All of these
vehicles were caked with mud like ours. Telegraph Cove is a village consisting
of a general store (containing everything a fisherman ever wanted as well as
a cafe) and a boardwalk with lots of small buildings currently used for residences,
rental cabins, shops and art galleries. Each building had a plaque explaining
its history. Most of these buildings had been built somewhere else and barged
in. One had fallen off on its journey. One plaque told the story of a dog fighting
off a cougar under the pilings. They were able to kill the cougar by throwing
rocks at it--by then it was buried in rocks. The dog survived. However they
couldn't collect the bounty on the cougar because they had not gotten a license
first.
We
left Telegraph Cove and drove north stopping at Port McNeill and Port Hardy--both
fairly large towns for this part of the country. At this point the nice paved
Highway 19 ended and a gravel road took its place. We stopped at a campsite
on Nahwitte Lake. We would have stayed had it been later in the day. We went
through Holberg. There was suppose to be something in the area known as the
Elephant Crossing Boardwalk, but we never did figure out what it was. We stopped
at Ronning's Garden, where we took a walk in the
rain. This is a large over-grown garden in the forest. The original owner had
cleared several acres of virgin forest, around 1910, with the goal of planting
the seeds of hundreds of trees, bushes and flowers from all over the world.
Many of the plants still had labels identifying their name and origin. A small
group of people are trying to restore the garden. It looks like they have done
a lot of work, but have lot more to do. It was peaceful and quiet as there was
no noise at all except for the wind blowing thru the trees. Clearing all of
this land had to have taken years worth of effort. This is a nice place to visit
and maybe have a picnic. Unfortunately it was drizzly while we were here but
it was worth the walk.
We
continued east to the entrance to Cape
Scott Provincial Park, which one can only enter by hiking. This is the most
northern point one can drive to on Vancouver Island. Harsh weather conditions
(up to 200 inches of rain a year and 100 mile an hour winds), thick brush and
boggy terrain have kept this area pretty isolated. Over the years a few groups
have tried to settle here, but none have stayed very long. We made it to Winter
Harbor, our final destination of the day. Of course it was raining.We ate dinner
at their one and only restaurant located in a moble trailer. No VISA! No exchange
on U.S. money! Later we went to their one and only store. At least they accepted
VISA, $25 minimum, which wasn't hard to reach. Dale bought a T-shirt and a few
other supplies. A 6-pack of Pepsi was $6. We stayed at the one and only campground
in town. We got the last of the 8 or 9 sites this campground had. The sites
were pretty small and not very private. It rained all night. Drove 250 miles
today. 1250 total