Day 49 -- Completing our ferry ride and heading east in BC after Prince Rupert

Travel   From: Prince Rupert, BC   To: Fraser Lake, BC   Distance: 366 mi (589 km)   Travel time w/brks: 10 hr 29   Distance since start: 9,982 mi (16,051 km)

Tuesday 8/8/2006

I cannot say that I slept very well. During the night the waves picked up and I could feel the boat rock back and forth. I asked one of the crew members and he said the waves were about 4-6ft, which was not that much. Still, you could feel it. It was cool in the cabin during parts of the night. All I had for cover was a jacket. Karl had the same problem, but he had no cover. We ate breakfast and I took a shower. We said good-bye to the family from New York as they got off the ferry in Wrangell, AK. It was overcast there and it did not look that great. They were taking a ferry down to Bellingham, WA, later on. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I went outside a few times since the weather improved a little bit.

The ferry stops in Wrangell, AK

This guy had it even worse than I did: he had to back down the gangway!

By the time we got into Prince Rupert, in British Columbia, the sun was almost shining. We had been parked in a very tight spot on deck and were were one of the first to get off. We're talking inches of clearance. But we got out after some precision steering. Once we had gotten off the boat and cleared Canadian customs, I stopped in one of the staging lanes for outbound traffic so that I could take care of that reimbursement I was due. After a lot of hassle, I only got money back for 2ft (down to 55ft) for the trip from Juneau to Prince Rupert. It is fair to say that the ferry staff in Prince Rupert tried their best, but the "process" was not all that good with the ferry company. Moral of this story: if you are going from Haines to Prince Rupert, undercut your length by a few feet as you buy a ticket. Nobody checks and if they do, worst case seems to be that you have to pay the difference.

When we arrived in Prince Rupert, BC, the sun was shining

The narrow gangway comes down for us to unload

Once I got the money back we hit the road going west. At first, we followed a river or what might seem like an extended coast line. It was quite beautiful. We saw large trees for the first time in a long while. And the trees were covered in Spanish Moss. There were some cute towns along the way out east. We stopped in the town of Terrace, because I spotted a Wal-Mart and I wanted to get some more diesel additives. But they did not have any.

Riding on the highway: for a while the road from Prince Rupert looked like coastline

Then we started getting into real woods and mountains

More nice mountains on our way to Fraser Lake, BC

I had not made a reservation so we were hunting for a place to stay. The hunt consisted of us looking for Provincial Parks by the highway. We found one called Beaumont Provincial Park about 30 miles west of Vanderhoof. It was located by Fraser Lake. The weather was now a bit better, although not very warm. The campground did not have any hookup and the campsites were deep enough for us to get our trailer into most spots. I had hoped for a spot with sunshine, but all of them were taken. We got one in the woods. It was still quite nice. The Park Ranger came by and I bought some wood. He gave us a very good bundle for $5. I could see that much of the wood was from trees that had been affected by the pine beatle infestation.

Campground   Name: Beaumont PP, Fraser Lake, BC   Our hookups: None   WiFi: No   GSM service: No   TV Channels: Don't know   Cost: $14/night   Reservation mode: Drop in

Sites closer to the left (water) had more sunlight but they were all taken when we got in.

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All Pictures (c) 2006 Hamnqvist, Background features the Yukon Sky.