Port Alice: A Photo Essay

Recently my wife and myself made a trip to Port Alice to visit my daughter who was there for a month on a medical rotation.  Port Alice is on the north end of Vancouver Island. On a map it is at kind of a triangle you can draw between Port Hardy and Port McNeill, being a 40-minute drive from both towns, and is located at the south end of Neroutsos Inlet, which is fed by Quatsino Sound.  We had never been to Port Alice, so we figured this was a great excuse to make a return trip of the Island and visit Victoria, Alert Bay and Cape Scott Provincial Park and hike out to San Josef Bay.

The trip started with an over-night stop in Victoria. My wife was at a half day conference so I was left to fend for myself in the morning, and first order of the day was to get some coffee and a pastry.  The hotel café was quite busy so I started walking to search for an alternative. I am so glad I did as I found Nourish kitchen and café. I had seen it before but I thought it was strictly vegan / vegetarian, but as they describe it, they offer “vegetable forward” menu so there is a selection of different food types offered. First order of the day, cappuccino, which was delicious. Next, I decided to take a chance on the “Golden Benny”.  As a confirmed hollandaise snob, it would be a bit of a gamble, especially since it was cashew hollandaise, but it also came with sweet potatoes, kale, mushrooms and greens, so I knew there was something I would like. To my surprise it was not only good it was fantastic. Everything was seasoned well and cooked perfectly and the cashew hollandaise was delicious. The before and after pictures speak for themselves.

After retuning to the hotel, to meet my wife we packed up, checked out and spent the afternoon walking around the city, with a visit to the Parliament buildings. We were hoping to have lunch there but they were booked up. Next time we will make reservations. It was getting to be late afternoon and we were hungry and a bit disappointed we did not get our Parliamentary lunch, and many restaurants were already closing. We went back to Nourish for a late brunch. After that great breakfast, I know we could not go wrong. I will not bore you with more food details but it was delicious.

Now it was time to make it up the coast for a couple nights of camping. April is a bit early for me to go camping but we decided to go for a bit of adventure and to save paying for a hotel. We made our way up the coast to Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park. We did not make reservations because “no one camps this time of year” and online there were still of lots of spots available.  But when we arrived, we were proven wrong, and after driving around the campsite six or seven times and not finding an unoccupied spot to we gave up and headed up to Miracle beach. Lucky for us there were lots of spots available, the downside was that the sun was going down and we wanted to set up the tent before it got dark, that meant making dinner in the dark as a tradeoff.  The next day and a half was spent exploring the beach and the trails around the campsite.

The trek to Port Alice

We decided to meet up with our daughter in Campbell River to pick up some delicious sourdough bread from the Sourdough Whisperer and a tasty flight and lunch at Beach Fire Brewing. That was enough of the “big city life” as we headed further north to Port Alice with its population of 739 people.  The drive was pretty smooth with a few vistas along the way, but the weather was turning so we did not make any stops except for gas in Port McNeill.

Soon after Port McNeill, you come to the Highway 30 turnoff to Port Alice now renamed the Frigon Road (after one of the early settlers). So, when you come to Port Alice you can officially say “you drove the Frigon Road”.  It is a nice drive, winding in some areas, hilly in others but most importantly like most roads up here, these roads are shared with logging trucks so you have to be aware of that, especially coming around corners. Port Alice is a pleasant village but the real reason people come here is either to retire or get close to nature. Bears, wolves and cougars are around as well as bald eagles, ravens, turkey vultures, and when we were there, there must have been a robin convention as I have never seen so many robins in one spot. Seals, sealions, whales and orcas travel up and down the Neroutsos Inlet in search of food. There were no whales when we were there as it was too early in the year. But that was okay as were there to see our daughter and the sea otters – or was it the sea otters and our daughter? Apparently, Port Alice is the sea otter capital of Canada, at least that is what the Port Alice tourist office website states.

Once you get to north island the weather is a bit different than the south. Clouds and rain come and go quickly with the winds that come off the Pacific and down the inlets. The temperature is also much colder than the south, like in Victoria, but you just have to prepare for it. Dress warm, have layers, you know the spiel. It is also advised, by some of the more “mature” residents, as we witnessed, if you are going to go out for a walk take a large walking stick, apparently to fend off the wolves or cougars. I assume, younger residents expect to out-run their predators.  All in all, Port Alice is a quaint village and we found it most friendly, and welcoming. It doesn’t have that old town charm as they moved the village up the road in 1965 after a series of landslides in 1927 and 1935 struck the old town site.  Port Alice has all the amenities you need, a grocery store, coffee shop, and pizza restaurant and a small take away pop up restaurant selling fish and chips, burgers and more right beside the dock. What more could you need.

Besides the sea otter tour that we are to go on, Port Alice was a convenient place for us to explore further afield on the daytrips we planned to Alert Bay and Cape Scott Provincial Park.  First on the list was Alert Bay. It is located on Cormorant Island and is a short ferry ride from Port McNeill harbor. Alert Bay was formerly a thriving fishing village but all that remains now of the fish saltery then cannery is a few abandoned buildings on the waterfront. The main interest for us was the U’mista Cultural Centre which is run by the ‘Namgis First Nation of the Kwakwaka’wakw, as well we wanted to explore a bit of the island.  This was not our first time to the Cultural Center but they have rotating exhibits so there is always something interesting to see and learn about, besides the beautiful permanent collection.

Across from the parking lot is the site of the former Saint Michael’s residential school. After years of abuse of the children who were forced to attend the school was closed and then demolished on Feb 18, 2015. What remains now is a memorial to those who attended and the lasting effects of the abuse they experienced there. For more information about this school and others visit the witness blanket for a greater understanding and insight into what was experienced by those who attended these schools.

The road to and from Port Alice always provided a vista or two to stop and take photos. Sometimes stopping depended on the weather and other times the traffic whether it was going to be safe to stop or not.

We did manage to get one day of kayaking in when we were in Port Alice. The weather this day was not particularly warm but the wind had died down and it stopped raining. So, we decided to seize the moment. It was very easy to launch the kayaks as there were several spots at the beach and a dock if you preferred.  We chose the beach as it had parking nearby. The scenery is quite rugged and typical for the north island.  We unfortunately did not see a lot of sea life, but a couple seals poked their heads out of the water and a huge sealion was basking on the breakwater, but the highlight was touring around the Frigon Islets. Soon after the wind was starting to pick up and it started to rain so we headed back to shore.

Cape Scott Provincial Park

Our next excursion was to Cape Scott Provincial Park and a planned hike out to San Josef Bay. It is about a two-hour drive to the Cape Scott parking lot from Port Alice, so we wanted to get an early start. It is not the most interesting of drives and much of it on a gravel road which is also an active logging road but the effort is well worth it.  Besides loosing our GPS signal and confusing signage around Holberg we arrived just a bit later that expected. Being mid-week and in April we did not expect to see a lot of people and we didn’t.  Just a couple families traveling in one car and a couple camping at one of the beach side campsites. The hike into San Josef Bay is very easy going and wheel chair accessible. The hike takes an average of about 45 minutes. This is a lovely hike that winds it way down to the beach past huge cedar and Sitka spruce trees, skunk cabbage, mashes, rivers and creeks, but nothing surpasses the view when you get to the beach.  Voted one of the most beautiful beaches in the world it is a stunning reflection of the Westcoast.

It is an immense sandy beach that depending on the weather can be calm or have pounding waves and driving rain. This day we had lucked out, and weather was nice, with just a few clouds in the sky. The walk along the beach was beautiful and at the end of the beach because it was low tide we could access a bit of a grotto with rocky plinths jutting out of the beach.

We ate our packed lunch of sandwiches in the little cove sheltered by the rocky outcrop and thought how lucky are we. After that it was time to return back. Not a lot has changed since we were there last, except improvements were made to the walk in campsites and brand new outhouses which are a very new design and have a foot propelled conveyer belt to take your waste away to a storage tank at the back of the outhouse. Yet one more reason to visit.

The next highlight of the trip was a four-hour wildlife tour with Sea Otter Tours. As I mentioned this was not the season to see whales and orcas but we booked it with the expectation of seeing sea otters. The organizers were very accommodating as it was a bit early in the season and they had to see if they could find a tour guide take us out on the water. We were in luck and we had an 8AM departure, so, arriving at the dock at 7:30 we were suited up with lifejackets and were on our way on time.

It was a cool, misty day typical for this time of year so we shared our time outside the cabin when these was something out to see and photograph and inside the cabin when we needed to warm up a bit. As we left the harbor under the watchful eye and barking of the resident sea lion, we headed south along the Neroutsos inlet to the old site of the town and mill, which is now closed. Then we explored the opposite shore line and headed north passing various eagle nests and low tide deltas where deer and bears sometimes feed, just no bears today.

We also came to a remote cove where a family was homesteading not so long ago (by my standards).   It was amazing to hear how people lived, almost entirely off the land with the resources they had. Our guide was very knowledgeable as he had lived in Port Alice for many years, before moving away. We had to head out further up to Quatsino and Drake Island before we got to see a sea otter.

Then we saw a few more and then a whole colony of sea otters. We had of course stayed a safe distance away and now I wished I brought a longer and sharper lens. Not to mention we were in a small boat so we were rolling back and forth a bit. Sometimes they would pop up closer to the boat to check us out, but mostly they just hung out in the kelp in a sea otter raft or paddled on their backs. We saw a couple pups with their mom and one sea otter smashing a shell on its stomach with a rock. Apparently, sea otters keep a favorite rock in a skin fold under their armpit which they use to breakopen the mollusks and crustaceans they foraged.

It was time to leave our furry friends, the thickest fur of any animal, by the way, and head back to Port Alice. We had a couple stops along the way but mostly bee-lined it back as the wind was picking up. When we got back, we had another fish and chip feast at the dock and quiet evening at the apartment before we had to pack to head back home.

At the beginning of our vacation, as we were just leaving Victoria on our way to Port Alice, we saw that the Royal BC Museum was having the Wildlife Photographer of the year exhibit. There was no time to stop that day as we were already getting a late start. So, we decided that we would make the trek back to Victoria to see the exhibit and get a later ferry home. Even though it was a bit of a challenge, I am glad we did. The work and presentation were amazing; it was great to see the scope of the work from all over the globe from both professionals and students. As well to see the range of cameras that are being used. From the most current mirrorless cameras to older DSLRs that are still producing beautiful images.  We had a few seconds left to say “Hi” to our good friend the wooly mammoth.   Then it was time to say goodbye to Vancouver Island and head home.