Inside Passage

Suzanne

6 min read

Prince Rupert to Port Hardy through the Great Bear Rainforest on the Northern Expedition ferry travelling around 350 miles is one of the great journeys of the world.

I’ve always wanted to travel the Inside Passage.  I don’t know why, whether it invokes early explorers; whether it is my connection to Canada or whether it is a desire for nature.  This journey has given us that opportunity and it is, quite, frankly the most breathtaking of experiences…far beyond expectations.

The Inside Passage can be a bit fluid.  Technically it seems to be accepted that, in its fullness, it is a series of waterways which weave through the islands on the Pacific Northwest coast of the North American Fjordland and stretches from Skagway in Alaska down to Olympia in Washington State, USA, near to Seattle. 

As a result of often uncertain weather, large tidal range, fast or unpredictable currents, and infrequent safe anchorages, navigating the Inside Passage can be difficult. 

During the Klondike Gold Rush the passage was one of the sea routes from Seattle and California, carrying American prospectors northward.

Today, approximately 36,000 recreational cruising boats utilize portions of the Inside Passage route. The nonprofit Marine Exchange of Alaska plots and follows vessel traffic in the Alaskan section of the Inside Passage. Captain Warren Good has catalogued some 3,641 shipwrecks along the Alaska portion of the Passage. The Underwater Archeological Society of British Columbia conducts periodic Regional Shipwreck Surveys.

Our version of it is the 16 hour plus ferry journey from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy travelling through one of the worlds biggest temperate rainforests - the Great Bear Rainforest.

Those words in themselves evoke something magical and spiritual. The home of barely reachable communities, though it is 6 hours before you see any sign and the home of the majority of the estimated 400 Spirit Bears.

Let’s start at the beginning though.  It is quite hard core and you have to plan carefully.  In the summer the ferry sails once every other day and you have to check in at around 5.30 am and you won’t get to the destination port until about midnight - starting and ending in the dark.   This being rainforest country there is a high chance that visibility is poor and indeed that’s how we started off.  I said planning was key.  

We bought into an outside cabin and, after a hearty breakfast, we got our heads down for 90 minutes during which time the mists cleared and we were given the most beautiful of days with a touch of atmospheric cloud but clear conditions.  I thanked my own personal god!

Mile upon mile of uninterrupted lush pine growth and cloud hugged peaks break into diverse fjords and channels. Not a single wire or telegraph pole.  Very occasionally a small boat from God only knows where.

We pass Douglas Channel up to Hartley Bay and, ultimately, Kitimat after 4.5 hours.  Hartley Bay is the home to the Gitga’at band, part of the  Tsimshian nation, and a major centre for Spirit Bear tourism.  It is here that Tim Irvin and the Gitga’at guide, Marvin Johnson, have become world acclaimed experts at locating and photographing Spirit Bears.  The Douglas Channel is also where humpbacks love to come together and perform their bubble-net feeding routine gulping everything in their paths.

We move down  past Butedale, an old fishing, mining and logging area with the remnants of a cannery still visible.  Here the channel narrows and humpbacks entertain us with breaches and spy hops.   Many many blow holes are seen.   There is a disturbing increase in whales being hit by boats.  In fact, the very boat we are on hit a humpback only two days previously. And I wonder why boats don’t seem to have the equipment to ‘see’ whales in advance.

After about 7 hours we get a glimpse of Klemtu as we skirt Cone Island and the first real signs of life.  A couple of fishing vessels are evidence of life.   Klemtu is home to both the Kitasoo band of the Tsimshians nation and also the Xai’xais from Kynoch Inlet.  It is also a centre for Spirit Bear tourism, with the bears living on the adjacent Princess Royal Island, and hosts the Spirit Bear Lodge

After 8 hours the fjords and narrow channels start to give way to a gentler landscape and open water as we round Lady Douglas Island And the Great Bear Rainforest seems to be less forbidding.

We are 9 hours in and I had brought a book with me assuming you can’t possibly look at this landscape for 16 hours. How wrong I was. I’ll admit some of this is seeing if we can add to our collection of 13 humpbacks so far.

The fjords are gone now, replaced by undulating islets and continual pine as we move into Bella Bella after just under 10 hours. Bella Bella is the first semblance of what we would call civilisation!  it is the home the Heiltsuk band. There are motor cars and a thriving village, although it has had to change with the times like many of the coastal communities.  Today it has become a transport hub for both ferry and air services.  

We stop at Bella Bella for an hour before continuing and soon we pass the majestic Burke Channel which goes all the way up to Bella Coola, which is on our list off places we would like to see. This time, though, it is just a passing acquaintance.

12 hours in and there is sudden influx of humpbacks…some close, most distant blowholes, all on the right hand side heading up the channel.  It is said that humpbacks now travel more readily in groups to protect themselves better from attacks by transient orca.

And soon the sun starts to descend quietly behind the silhouetted mountain shape - all semblance of green pine having turned to grey black - with a luminescent orange glow lighting up the scene And we move past Calvert Island and out into open water on the final way in to Port Hardy.

Our 16 hours is coming to an end and we have experienced one of the great experiences of our lives.  We have rubbed shoulders with a majestic element of nature - the Great Bear Rainforest and that will forever stay with us.


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Categories & Tags
Categories

British Columbia, Prince Rupert, Vancouver Island

Tags

Whales, nature, mountains, ferry, indigenous, Spirit Bear, rainforest

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