San Josef Bay, Cape Scott National Park

We have travelled many of the backroads of BC, usually in our Jeep YJ or Dakota pick up truck, but this time we used our Sebring Convertible.


(probably winter, 2006)

We purchased the BC Ferries SailPass, unlimited ferry Pass for the northern Gulf Islands and decided to drive onto as many islands as we could. There were some restrictions but basically you flashed your pass and were allowed onto how many ferries you wanted to travel on within 8 days, sort of unlimited if you used it right and managed to read the fine print. It also included the fare from the mainland to Vancouver Island and your pass started counting down the first day it is used.



Our job was to use as many BC Ferries we could. We started at 6am and headed for Horseshoe Bay for the Ferry to the sunshine Coast, Sechelt then another ferry over to Powell River then Ferry to Comox and up to Campbell River to stay for the night. It took the whole of the next day to travel north to Port Hardy, near the tip of Vancouver Island. Of course we stopped everywhere, Telegraph Cove, Beaver Cove, the Cable Cafe at Seward and any side road we could see which included the dirt road to Ripple Rock.



Port Hardy is the southern terminus for the BC Ferries route on the inside passage to Prince Rupert. (We did take that ferry before it sunk, but that is a story for another time). On the nights that the ferry leaves Port Hardy, accommodations are hard to find. We tried all the hotels (not many there) and were out of luck, we didn't know what to do so we purchased a BBQ chicken and headed for the beach to have a simple dinner and ponder what to do. We eventually found a B&B, we were lucky. We drove around and found a sign pointing the way. Remember this was 2004, so no iPhones or WiFi back then. We had to use the paper GPS

The next day we headed to San Josepf Bay on a two hour gravel road to the most beautiful white sand beach we had ever seen. On the trail from the parking lot we had a bear encounter. Being city slickers we didn't know what to do. I came around the corner on the trail and saw a bear sitting in the middle of the trail about 12 feet ahead staring at me. I started to walk backwards talking loud to myself and backed off about a block or so. The bear climbed up a tree and was looking down at us.

Eventually we made our way to the beach area. Back then I was a novice at doing video and the only editing was just cutting and trimming with a VCR using the PLAY & RECORD buttons. I tried to enhance the video a bit by adding some text, so here it is in glorious miniDV splendour



Ferries took us to: Sunshine Coast, Vancouver Island, Malcolm Island, Alert Bay, Quadra Island, Denman Island, Hornby Island and back to the Mainland