We should have listened to the children (seen in a window in my Seattle neighborhood).

Update #6: Seattle!   View a map!

Along the inside passage.

So I did make it onto the ferry out of Prince Rupert after all ... and as I hoped, I had a lovely 24-hour trip through the inside passage (R). The weather was okay, and there was wildlife to view - whales and porpoises kept us company! The ferry was pretty modern with good food in the cafeteria and satellite TV in the lounge (would've been handy for watching a critical Red Sox/Yankees game, had the game not been rained out). Made a couple of stops on the way to Port Hardy, including a midnight call on the tiny fishing village of Klemtu; the every-other-week ferry is the big event in this community of 400, and practically the entire town turned out - many to come aboard & purchase lottery tickets, illegal to sell in town, from the ferry gift shop. What's life like in a remote place like this, inaccessible by any road? I guy I met on the ferry, who lived in a similar village for 2 years, told me he built a lot of model cars ... When night fell I laid out my sleeping bag & pad in the ferry's forward lounge along most of the other passengers, just like a big floating sleepover.

Damn, what a waste of time! Went all the way to Alaska looking for bears, and it turns out there are all I want to see on nearby Vancouver Island! Near Port Alice, B.C.

We pulled into Port Hardy late the following morning (Sat 10/16), and my exploration of Vancouver Island began. I'd like to say I wandered with an open mind & spirit ... but there was baseball games to think of. I poked around Port Hardy a bit (decent little port & tourist town, but quiet post season). Then I paid a visit to hamlet of Coal Harbor, named for the 19th-century coal industry that came & immediately failed and not for the whaling industry that thrived for decades. Now it's a quiet fishing town. A kindly lady in a powder-blue jogging suit walking an enormous doberman tried to Save me. Okay, gametime coming up. I backtracked to the main highway & headed south towards the town of Port McNeill, hopeful I'd find a TV tuned in to the appropriate channel (I have benefitted from the NHL strike; with no hockey to watch folks turned to baseball - and most became instant Red Sox fans!) I missed the first pitch as it turns out, but for a good cause: There was a big ol' black bear, the first I'd seen since the day I entered the Yukon, quietly eating her lunch by the side of the highway! (Grass?? Since when do bears eat grass?) And how, you ask, do I know she was a she? I guessed by the two li'l cubs that emerged from the woods to dine by her side. Hung out for about 15 minutes clicking away, then moved on (5 minutes down the road I picked up a hitcher, a mildly drunk middle-aged First-Nations* guy by the name of Chaz who told me that while he was waiting he saw the same black bears - and a cougar). In town I found Guy's Pub, where I used the pay phone to made a reservation at the SunSpirit Hostel in nearby Alert Bay, and then ordered up a beer and a burger and watched the Red Sox get pummelled by the Yankees. Luckily, Alert Bay is on a small Island between Vancouver Island & mainland Canada, making it necessary for me to leave the bar to catch a ferry before the Yanks scored the last of their 19 runs. Oi. I ferried across the sound on a dark night indeed and found my way to the hostel and hit the hay.    *Canadian for "Native American."

A kayaker plies the waters of Alert Bay, B.C.

Ecological Park, Alert Bay, B.C. Curiously, didn't see any wildlife at all in this promising marsh.

Alert Bay is the only town on tiny Cormorant Island, claiming easy access to boating and wildlife, and bills itself as the "Home of the Killer Whale" — guess how many I saw? (Answer: none.)

New totem poles are still being crafted; why a naked guy is leaning against a giant halibut in the burial ground is anybody's guess. Alert Bay, B.C.

But even this far south I was too late for organized tourist activities — and anyway, by this time I was feeling that old momentum tugging me towards Seattle — so I satisfied myself with a stroll to town along the rocky beach (above), a drive around the island (that didn't take long), a visit to the Kwakwaka’wakw Bighouse (like a grange, but with an enormous totem pole out front), then to Ecological Park (R) for a series of short but surprisingly pretty hikes, including the "Big Tree" hike (not quite sequoia-big, but impressive nonetheless). Oops, sunset already. Yeah, yeah, pretty, right - gotta hustle back to the hostel & stake out the TV before the manager & her hyperactive dog dial up some lame movie ... Got there first & settled in to watch the game; good thing I had snacks as it took the Sox 12 epic innings to win the game & stave off elimination.

Pulp mill in Port Alice, B.C. Sadly, less than a week after taking this I learned that this mill, a vital cog in the north island's economy, closed due to the rising Canadian dollar.

Moving right along, I drove onto the 9:45 ferry the next morning (Mon 10/19) with another full plate: Find the cool north-island cave formations I'd read about, then find a place to watch the next game (oh, and bed down for the night). The easy part was finding my way to the village of Port Alice, which has pretty much nothing except a small boat dock, a smelly pulp mill (R) — and access to northern Vancouver Island's extensive system of logging roads, where cool magical caves lurk. TRAVEL TIP: When negotiating unfamiliar logging roads in search of magical caves, do not rely on a digital photo of an inaccurate tourist map viewed on your camera's 1½-inch screen for navigation. Ah, well, at least I had a full tank of gas; I needed a goodly portion of it to work my way deep into the network, then find my way out again - and back to the same pub in Port McNeill where I had watched the game two nights before. Today's epic was even more epic - 14 innings and another dramatic win! - meaning that by the time I got out of there (after 9 p.m.!) I still had a two-hour drive south to my next hostel of choice in Cumberland. Lucky for me, yet another hostel manager was kind enough to wait up for my arrival.

Cumberland, located at about the island's halfway point, is a mountain-biking mecca, and the dude-friendly Riding Fool* hostel caters mostly to cyclists and snowboarders - in season. In October, and in the pouring rain, the only folks there were a handful of itinerant workers and one baseball fan who, this time, wasn't going anywhere as long as there was a hotel with a sports-friendly lounge across the street. (Sox win again! Game 7 tomorrow!)    *One nice ammenity: In the dorm they offered a big bucket full of ear plugs! Essential gear for hosteling ...

Do sea lions pay to go on human-watching expeditions? In the waters off Tofino, B.C.

Small First-Nations village on an island near Tofino (as viewed from the dock at Hot Spring Bay). 10/21.

Apparently, Sea Monkeys are part of a balanced diet in Victoria, B.C. Don't ask why the rooster is on roller skates — fast food, maybe? 10/23.

Homestretch! Departed Tofino on the morning of 10/22, headed back to the main highway, dropped Yonathon at the ferry terminal at Nanaimo (no reason to ever go there 'cept the ferries and the famous Nanaimo bars), then south to Victoria! So close to home now I skipped the sightseeing, and instead (after a night in the rowdy Ocean Island hostel) I looked up Daniel & Catherine, who were staying at a little place called the Selkirk Guest House. My last full day in Canada was spent cruising the river behind the guest house with Daniel in their tippy plastic kayak (YES! I finally got in a kayak!!), some exciting grocery shopping — and finally, parked in front of the television with beer & Chinese food (R) explaining the finer points of the designater hitter rule to my British friends as we watched Game 1 of the World Series.

Sunday 10/24, 9:00 a.m. Pancakes (courtesy of Daniel), 20-minute drive to Sidney, a couple hours across Puget sound (man, these islands are beautiful - why'd I waste time going to Alaska when there's so much to explore right here???) to the town of Anacortes in - fanfare, please - Washington State (!), an hour and a half down the highway ... and a very, very long nap.*
*After the ball game, natch.

Left: Unabomber/Guy who sits next to you on the bus. Right: "He was a quiet fellow, kept to himself, a loner ..."