| Location: | British Columbia |
He had a point. We’d left Gold River, half way up Vancouver Island, that morning, aiming to find a path through the mountains towards Port Hardy, using logging roads and fire tracks. The previous day, we had seen huge forest fires high above the road to Gold River, helicopters swooping in to ‘fire bomb’ the blaze with huge buckets of fire retardant and water. The morning light had revealed huge palls of smoke, hanging densely in the sky, creating a blanket of low smoke cloud which the sun couldn’t penetrate.
But our route along gravel roads to the settlement of Woss and the tarmac road to Port Hardy, seemed to avoid the forest fires and we’d set off with enthusiasm through the woods, keeping a weather eye open for bears and elks.
Two hours later and our eyes were smarting and chests aching from the acrid light fog of hanging wood smoke. We were glad indeed to reach the main road not too much further on from where the ranger in the Chevy had accosted us.
British Columbia is suffering from huge forest fires this year. Fire warnings abound, road closures are common. So different from the introduction to our first Canadian Province, as our flight descended across the mighty Rocky Mountains and into Vancouver a few days earlier. The sparkling clean city becoming our base for two days of exploration and discovery of the dynamic and optimistic Canadian culture that finds its expression in possibly the most attractive city we have visited.
Trans Canada. Two words that evoke images of vast miles, mountains, plains and native culture. Our mission: to ride our BMW R1200 GSs from Vancouver in the west to St John’s, Newfoundland in the east in four weeks. Just how ambitious an undertaking this is was driven home to me during the flight to Vancouver, when checking map and GPS, I discovered that we had entered Canadian air space less that half way through the flight – our adventure entailed riding more than half way back to London.
Barbara and I were able to collect our bike in less than two hours after we landed. A night of odd sleep patterns were followed by a long walk around Downtown Vancouver, followed by a ‘shakedown’ ride to Grouse Mountain, where a cable car ride lifted us above the stifling heat and humidity of the city. Vancouver is having something of a heat wave, with temperatures not dropping below 28 degrees while we were there.
Nigel Cutting, our riding partner for the journey and a veteran of the GlobeBusters West Africa adventure, joined us the following day. An accommodating Canadian customs officer had let me clear his bike the day Barbara and I had flown in and with British Columbia about to celebrate its birthday and a general holiday close down due the day after Nigel arrived, we were relived that we were able to collect his BMW R1200 GSA from James Cargo’s Vancouver shipping warehouse.
It was time to escape the city. Riding open roads again brought on the wonderful feeling of freedom that can only come from motorcycling and we turned our wheels southwards along clean US style highways towards the ferry that would take us to Salt Spring Island.
Distances and speed limits are marked in kilometres rather than miles, but apart from that, there isn’t a huge amount that differentiates the road-scape from a typical American highway. Huge trucks and oversized V8 powered cars abound, except that vehicles which would stand out on London’s King’s Road and raise the hackles of eco warriors on our side of the ‘pond’ don’t seem at all out of place in Canada, where large mileages are travelled, sometimes on gravel roads and harsh winters predominate.
Salt Spring lies among the Gulf Islands of BC, an area where wine and fruit is grown, summers are warm and winters more kind than elsewhere in the region. We were there to visit a very distant cousin of mine, Noah Clinch, who I had yet to meet face to face, but who, with his wife, had thrown open the doors of hospitality and ensured that a cool beer on a ‘deck’ with outstanding views of Salt Spring, was waiting for us.
This was also where we were joined by the Fricks, our other companions for the journey. Alex and Ann had ridden their BMW GSs from their home in northern California to meet us. A good moment for a seafood dinner washed down with excellent British Columbian wine.
Leaving the warm comforts of Salt Spring the following day was a matter of regret, but the road beckoned and a short ferry ride took us to Vancouver Island and the journey north.
Arriving in Port Hardy two days later, the five of us reflected on the good start our odyssey has been blessed with. Excellent riding and adventure in the wood smoke had already come our way, as had the unusual ‘quirks’ of travelling to new places: for example, Gold River had seemed nothing more than a pile of tatty concrete buildings at the end of a terrific mountainous road, but the evening meal was one of the best we have enjoyed on any trip.
Update from the Trans Canada Adventure Motorcycle Expedition.
I write as we near the end of a day on another ferry. But this has been a rather special ride through the Inside Passage between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert, a journey filed with stunning scenery, mountain vistas and beautiful ‘fjords’ as our ship passed between islands and along vast channels between mountain ranges that seem to almost tumble into the sea.
Prince Rupert lies in the north of BC and almost on the Alaska border. Tomorrow the road leads east and the adventure begins in earnest.
Craig Carey-Clinch
Aboard the ‘Northern Explorer’, Oona River, British Columbia.
