We woke up in the rain on the 25th, but at least we didn’t have to pack up. Mama was leaving us, sadly, as her vacation was at an end, but we were staying on another night at Golden Ears Provincial Park.

We skipped breakfast in favour of a quick getaway. We did take time to shower though. At Golden Ears Provincial Park (GEPP), the showers are free, but free in the men’s shower equals 4 seconds. Short Pants and I had to push the shower button every 4 seconds to restart it. It was warm, but maddening. In the women’s shower, free equals no time at all. Mama and Baby Girl had to hold the button down to get water. They tag-teamed.

Driving out of the mountains and into the city was enough to shake the rain. From the highway on the way in, we could see the grey sodden clouds hanging low over the mountains, Golden Ears park, and our stuff.

We got Mama to the airport, just in time. She and I were dreading the inevitably tearful goodbyes, but she was in such a hurry to make her flight when we dropped her off that it was like tearing a bandage off quick. In the rush, Those Johnston Kids don’t seem to realize immediately that Mama was on her way home. I also quickly changed the subject to breakfast, which appealed to their starving sensibilities.

We found our way to an IHOP close to the airport. As soon as we walked in we were greeted in a strangely friendly way, bordering on the intimate. I would have written it off as just a hostess thing, but our waiter was similarly obsequious. And the manager when he stopped to ask how our IHOP ‘experience’ was going. It was … unsettling. I suspect IHOP may be a Scientology sub-franchise. Nobody explicitly asked me about my happiness level, but it was coming.

Our massive bag of laundry demanded attention, so that was our next stop, as long as we were in town. We found a laundromat in a not-too-terrible neighbourhood and spent 2 hours washing, drying, and folding. Clean socks are the bomb.

With food in our bellies and clean clothes on our back, we went next to the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park. We parked the car in the Aquarium lot and were drawn by the musical sounds of some sort of festival or party going on in an adjacent grassy area. Those Johnston Kids wanted to check it out before going into the Aquarium – you always have to think in terms of bouncy castle potential – so went over to investigate. We were just about into the thick of it when I noticed all the rainbow flags and very tight t-shirts. “Oh well, not for us,” I dissembled, and steered the kids back up the hill. On our way, I had to explain ‘gay’, ‘pride’, and prejudice against someone’s orientation. Those Johnston Kids understood it all pretty well but didn’t get why someone would be prejudiced against gay people. Beats me.

The Vancouver Aquarium is pretty damn cool! It’s also much bigger than I remembered. Although it was a weekend, we weren’t bothered too much by crowds, perhaps because we went to the outdoor exhibits rather than the underground aquariums. We saw a false killer whale, a dolphin, many sea otters (holy cow, they’re big!), three belugas, and some porpoises. We spent so much time with the marine mammals that we didn’t even get to the eponymous aquariums before closing time, which was surprisingly early at 6 PM. Had I known it closed so early, I would have waited to bring us until the next day in order to do the whole place for reals. I should have checked the times.

With some time to kill before picking up, we wandered into Stanley Park. I find Vancouver unsavoury in parts, and crowded everywhere, but it nonetheless exists on the doorstep of beauty. Stanley Park is one of the beautiful places that Vancouver is blessed to enjoy. Not coincidentally, the area of Stanley Park was home to a several native villages that were eradicated by the coming of Europeans. There are signs about, unashamedly letting you know that you are walking on the places of the people that were here before you. There are also totem poles and a gift shop. Our use as native guides has waned, but we still serve proudly as tourist attractions. I may even try my hand at crafts.

We picked up our guest camper Alison at the airport around 8:30. She was joining us for a week long transit of the Rockies and was leaving from Calgary. We Johnstons were in the mood for dinner in a restaurant,  but Alison was beat. In deference to our guest we made the hour long drive back to GEPP instead. As we drove up into the wooded coastal mountains, the rain started again. So this is what they mean by rain forest. Yay.

Back at camp, I made pasta with tomato and artichoke sauce and we sacked out.

Our charter fishing adventure ran later than expected. After we got back to the dock, Matt cleaned our fish in full view of the public at a cleaning station on the pier. Every tourist that passed by had to take a picture of the Fish, while every salt had to pause and whistle, “Nice spring. Where’d you catch that?” For a brief while, we were celebrities of the Tofino fishing world and it was glorious. We had power, money, women at our beck and call. Well, all of that except the first three, but it felt good. We also arranged, I hope, to have our catch filleted and sent home, but we’ll see if it shows up.

Since we left town so late, we spent the night of the 23rd at the Wya Point Resort, mid way between Tofino and Ucluelet. Naturally we arrived in the dark. When we woke on the 24th we found ourselves in a small RV campground, with very large lots. There was a small cafe/store at the other end of vast parking lot. We stopped in and purchased excellent pastries. There was a playground but it was just two swings of questionable safety. Their organic garden was also sorely missing a gardener. It was not very busy on the RV side, but there was more to the resort on the other side of the road. They looked busy over there, where the lodgings and restaurant were situated. It was just a rest stop for us, but it was clean and had a good feel to it. Maybe because it was native run. I’d like to see more businesses like that, and fewer craft shops selling dream catchers.

As we drove east from Tofino, we passed through the Cathedral Grove, a stand of giant redwoods wound through with viewing trails. Until you’ve seen giant redwoods in the flesh wood, it’s difficult to appreciate the true size of the trees. Even walking among them, I found myself overwhelmed. I kept looking up to try and put them into a manageable context. They are the largest living things that have ever existed on this planet. Yes, even bigger than blue whales. And we cut them down to make planks. We walked among the sweet smelling trees on trails muffled by fallen pine needles.

It was chilly and overcast, so we did not swim in the freezing green glass water of the Beaver River on our way across the Island. We did visit the town of Coombs again though, with our first stop being the World Parrot Refuge. It is as it sounds, a refuge for previously owned parrots. Whether the birds were rescued or donated, the Refuge pledges to never sell or give away birds that come to them. The housing for the birds is warehouse space, divided into galleries based on some bird logic. Each gallery seems to hold birds of a similar type. The floors are concrete, for cleaning I imagine, and the walls are lined with cages, although they are all open. The birds can fly, walk or climb freely through their galleries. It’s no jungle, but there are lots of playthings for the birds everywhere.

They gave us earplugs for the noise when we entered, warning us that the birds in concert were cacaphonous. The earplugs were both useful and not, because the birds had a nasty habit of perching on our shoulders to pull out the colourful earplugs. We were also warned not to wear jewelry of any kind, as that would also draw unwanted attention from the feathery thieves. They also peck, nip, bite, and sometimes stalk guests. It’s a wonder, really, that they let anybody in without signing a waiver.

Parrots are amazingly social creatures. In the wild, they spend their days talking to each other non-stop. It’s not surprising then, that they are so easy to socialize with humans. When there are no other birds around, their human family becomes their flock, and they crave human attention and feedback. It was immediately obvious which birds had had good owners that interacted with their birds frequently and positively, and which birds had had bad owners.

The birds with good owners were calm and tractable, and wanted to be talked to and petted. They wanted to be near people. It was actually more than a little pitiful. The policy of the place notwithstanding, some of the birds would have been happier with full-time human companions again, rather than the transitory attention of tourists. There was one cockatoo that would walk up to anybody that cooed at it, sit on the person’s foot, and rub it’s head on the person’s leg. It was very endearing how it presented itself to be scratch. It would almost fall over as it tried to look cute.

In another gallery, a small cockatoo sat on my shoulder as soon as I entered and refused to leave. It enjoyed being petted and clung to my shirt front to nuzzle my chin. When it came time for us to go, it tried to burrow under my shirt collar, obviously reluctant to let go. I considered smuggling it out and had we been closer to home would have tried it too. I like birds.

They weren’t all sweeties though. In the cockatoo room there was a posse of Walkers that would slowly but inexorably surround you. They moved slowly and appeared completely non-threatening, but as soon as they got close enough, they would bite your ankles! Short Pants was fooled by the zombie horde, and took a good nip that left a mark. The rest of us took care after that not to get surrounded. Those would be some of those birds with bad owners. They’ve gone slightly bonkers.

Even worse, in yet another gallery, several cockatoos were behind frost fencing for the protection of the public apparently. They would hang on the fence and reach through plaintively with their black claws extended as if begging for alms. Once anything came in reach however, they would drag it right into their sharp beaks. One got a hold on my sweater cuff and bit a hole through the sleeve. One of the volunteers had to come pry the creature’s beak open to free me, else I would have had to cut off the sleeve or leave it behind. Buzzard.

They finally threw us out of the Refuge at closing time. We could have stayed for a lot longer though. Before leaving Coombs we stopped in at the Emporium again for fresh fruit and ice cream. I had fruit, Mama and Those Johnston Kids had ice cream. All the treats were exceptionally good though.

From there we drove to Nanaimo to catch the ferry to North Vancouver. We had to wait for the next boat because Friday evenings are busy as the islanders head to the mainland for the weekend. The ferry was followed a very long drive into and through Vancouver to Golden Ears Provincial Park. In the dark. In the rain.

Because that’s the way we roll.

We went fishing yesterday.

Our half day fishing charter was scheduled to leave at 2 PM, with our guide Matt, aboard the Right Hook. Matt was not one of the guides that we were told we would have originally. I suspect that the first-string guides balked at taking out a family with young kids, so they called up Matt. He was great though and answered the questions of Those Johnston Kids patiently.

The cruise out to the fishing spot on the open Pacific was fun. I suppose regular fisher people don’t get excited about that part, but for us it was a bonus. We looked for whales but didn’t see any. Yet. It was a treat just being out on the water. The coast from a couple of kilometres distance looks wild and unspoilt, and inspired in me rueful fantasies of returning the land to the way it was.

Matt set the engines to idle when we arrived and quickly rigged a rod with flasher and lure. He dropped it to 97 feet. I think it was American equipment. I was just thankful it wasn’t in fathoms. He hadn’t even finished rigging the second rod when we got a hit. He dropped the second rod unfinished and grabbing the first, showed me how to reel it in. I played the fish a bit and within 5 minutes of starting, we had a 16 pound Chinook salmon in the hatch. I quickly pulled in a couple more, then another, but Mama kept losing her fish. She lost 5 or 6 in a row, which the guide said was just bad luck, but I don’t think that she made the right observances. The sea gods are notoriously ill-tempered and it serves everybody poorly to forget.

Fishing, we discovered, is amusing and good for the soul, although our guide did most of the work. The lad laboured like a young titan, rigging and setting lines. When things got busy on deck, I oftentimes took the helm, steering our course straight into the wind. Mama, after losing several fish, and landing only one small one, finally pulled in a keeper of respectable size.

After a few hours at sea, we had lost a few more fish to bad luck or lax ritual observance, and then we had a long lull in hits. We had 6 fish in the box and we didn’t think we’d get more. Our voyage had almost come to it’s end. Then the wind started to blow and Mama got a bite.

The guide jumped on the line and pulled hard. When Mama was ready, he passed her the rod. It was a whale of a fish and it ran out 20 metres of line in seconds. Mama reeled frantically, but the fish took it right back. It refused to approach the ship, and she could only drag it a few feet towards us at a time. After minutes of struggle, her arms started to flag, so the guide took over for a bit. He gave the rod a good pull and reeled in metres of slack. Then Mama took over again and wrestled the beast closer. For a moment, it broke the surface, lunging skyward. The head alone was huge and steely looking, as if a Soviet submarine had erupted from the deep. It twisted once in the air, surf breaking over the massive flanks of the creature in slow rolling waves. The splash as it descended tossed the boat like a toy in surf. Mama was thrown to her knees, but she gripped the rod with the mania of a starving chihuahua on a pork chop. The children screamed and our guide’s face turned white. He muttered something inaudible and crossed himself quickly. I grabbed him by his tattered hemp shirt and demanded to know what he had said. Behind us Mama gasped and growled, her strength waning while the monster’s only grew.

“For the love of god man!” I screamed at the peasant shiphand, “what is it? What have you awakened?” He shuddered and his eyes rolled so wildly the whites were visible.

“I didn’t believe the stories,” he cried, “but it’s him, the one they told tales about! It cannot be captured! No man has ever hooked The Mountain and lived!”

“You fool! You’ll kill us all!” I shrieked and cast him from me. Those Johnston Kids were wailing a dirge, certain that their short adventurous years were at an end. Mama’s lips were set in a thin violent line, and her entire body shook with the strain, but she held the rod still. It was bent double, curled into an impossibly small arc, and the line hummed with tension as the two implacable foes contested, one above the storm-tossed seas, one below.

“Papa,” she managed between gritted teeth. “I can’t hold it. I’m done. Poseidon take me, but the creature has broken my heart.”

“No Mama! Fight on!” I protested. “The monster is played out as well.” It was true. The leviathan was closer to the ship than ever before, and it lurched to the surface. It rolled onto over one massive side, a veritable island of barnacle encrusted flesh, delicious baked or grilled, to glare at us hatefully with an eye like a vast obsidian orb.

“Take it,” Mama commanded me, strength returning to her voice, “take the rod and bring my fish home!” I was aghast, but my instinct to serve won over my abject fear. I leapt to obey. For a moment, as my hands grasped her quivering rod, Mama’s eyes met mine. “This is my fish,” she snarled. I only bowed my head in compliance and accepted the task.

We were all dead regardless. The storm howled about us and Those Johnston Kids prepared for the inevitable by stitching makeshift shrouds about themselves from sailcloth.

I felt the monster’s rage as soon as I had taken the rod. It felt as though my arms would be ripped from their sockets. I staggered against the railing, hoping only for a quick end to this nightmare. There was no outcome I could see accept our untimely end and, for the children’s sake, I prayed that it be quick.

Still, I thought that I must try, and appear bold even if I was to be overcome. I had no hope of reeling such a giant in, but luckily he lunged at our wounded ship, an easy target with only one of her three masts still standing. I reeled in the slack like a rabid monkey on a bicycle, as if begging the great fish to fall upon us. Still closer the monster swam, while I murmured paeans in as many savage argots as I knew.

As it drew nearer, Matt came to his senses, perhaps hoping that a penultimate act of bravery before death might excuse his hubris and cowardice. He threw out the net, 50 fathoms broad, and made of grey hawser, each strand thick as a strong man’s thigh. We could only hope that it would hold. It seemed a spiderweb against the primordial giant that loomed alongside. Those Johnston Kids stood at the rail in their rough-made palls, preparing to cast themselves into the abyss if the ship should be splintered beneath us by our attempt to bring the monster aboard.

At last the fish, perhaps dazed by its own murderous fury, swam blindly into the net. This was our chance. “Pull!” screamed Matt tearfully, “Pull as if my life depended on it!” We pulled. Slowly, inch by creaking centimetre, the thrashing beast was wrestled into the ship. The force of the monster’s struggles tossed our iron cannons like toys, over and through the gunwales, where they sank like cannons made of iron. We armed ourselves with gaffs, batons, and beaver sticks, any weapon we could reach, and descended like a mob upon the fish to deliver the death beating. Time passed imperceptibly as we laboured, pounding the thing into submission. So great was our terror that mere hours later, it was done, and we fell back bloodied and exhausted. The fish lay dead.

And that was how Mama caught a 31 pound salmon on her first fishing trip.

Despite the noisy neighbours, we were up early and went for a morning walk on the beach behind the campground. There were a few groups of hippies sleeping on the beach beneath dirty blankets. For some reason, all the hippies in Tofino this year seem to be Québécois. French can be heard everywhere, but I have trouble with the accent.

After breakfast we went into Tofino. It was barely 10 AM, but our neighbours were already up, in their lawn chairs having a little hair of the dog. We needed to be anywhere but the MacKenzie Beach Resort.  In town, we browsed the shops, spending most of our time in a bookstore.

We wanted something more active so we went looking for a kayak rental and ended up passing by a fishing charter. Just on a whim, we went inside. I really had no idea how much a fishing charter cost but was curious. We agreed that if it wasn’t totally insane we would go fishing. It was totally insane but we went for it anyway. The budget was officially blown.

The charter was for 5 hours, starting at 2 PM, which wasn’t for a couple of hours. We killed time by getting our fishing licences (don’t forget the salmon stamp), and grabbing lunch at an open air fish shack. Big Daddy’s has the best fish and chips in Tofino. While crunching through a delicious lunch, we watched 3 bald eagles cruise over the docks.

Waking up in Goldstream Provincial Park, we are pleasantly surprised. We had passed through a unattractive industrial suburb on our way in, but the park is filled with beautiful big redwoods and feels idyllic.

After breakfast Those Johnston Kids took their bikes and went to find a playground. Mama followed in search of a shower. They found the playground, but Short Pants was drawn to the adjacent mountain bike training loop. It was a small gravel loop filled with humps and banked corners for kids to home their skills. Mountain biking was birthed on the west coast, after all. Moments into his first run, Lake endoed. Apparently Mama had put his handlebars on backwards when setting his bike up that morning. He took some skin off his elbow, but was happy in the playground when I showed up with Band-Aids and tools. He remounted as soon as his bike was fixed and was off like a shot between the trees. No more wipe-outs.

Driving north, the expedition stopped in Ladysmith at Sealegs Kayaking for a kayak rental. Despite refusing to pay $250 for a few hours in Whistler, we easily dropped $80 to kayak for an hour in a couple of tandems. Priorities. It felt great to stretch my paddling muscles and the water was relatively calm and pretty. The kids enjoyed it as well and even paddled when the spirit moved them. I coached them gently. Short Pants took it very seriously and worked on his technique diligently.

I believe that was my first time sea kayaking in the Pacific. I loved paddling in the clear water and seeing the sea life in the shallows. So long Ontario. We are moving to the west coast.

We continued north to Nanaimo, and then west towards Tofino. Along the way we stopped in at at the Coombs Emporium. I’d like to say we were drawn in by the giant pink castle built out front, but really it was the restaurant with live billy goats on its green roof. We bought some cheap but very colourful clothing and browsed the myriad of shops in the area. I also found wild blackberries growing alongside the road and picked a litre to take with us. They were amazingly juicy and sweet. Why doesn’t everybody live here?

We came across a particularly scenic section of the Beaver River where the river ran through a rock massif. At some point in the distant past, the water has been higher and carved channels and pools in the rock. As the main channel wore deeper into the rock, it left behind a marvellously sculpted landscape. The water in the river was crystal clear and shone like green glass. Baby Girl and I would have loved to swim in one of the calmer pools, but the water was like liquid nitrogen. It was chill and cloudy on the 22nd and we decided that swimming would be better saved for a hot day. We would have to pass by again on our way back.

As is becoming typical, we arrived in Tofino around dusk and started looking around for a campsite with little success. Tofino is built at the end of a narrow cape of land and space is tight. When the population swells during high season, accommodations become scarce. We finally squeezed our trailer into a leftover tent site at MacKenzie Beach Resort. Our site was really just a tiny wedge of gravel next to the main entrance. There campground itself was just a gravel lot supporting a few tired looking trees between sites. Cars were parked bumper to bumper everywhere, and the campers were surprisingly noisy. It was more like a music festival parking lot than a campground, including the dirty bathrooms. We were all tired, but our noisy drunken neighbours kept us up until 1 AM, when I finally went out to speak with them. It was by far our worst campsite so far.

We came to a slow start in our comfortable hotel room. Our early day on the 21st turned into a 10 AM emergence into the Whistler Village. We strolled through the Village, by daylight this time, looking for anything interesting. The ‘town’ looks like a quaint alpine village but is really a high-end open air mall. Those Johnston Kids and I immediately gravitated to a rock and gem store, where we found inexpensive pieces that were treasures to us. We are not mall people.

We thought that since we were in Whistler we ought to partake of some of the adventure activities that the town is famous for. We considered mountain biking, zip-lining, white water rafting, horseback riding, ATV riding, the mountaintop cable care, and hiking through the treetops. The cheapest option was the hiking, which would have cost the 4 of us about $130 for 2 hours. The next cheapest activity was about $260, and everything went up from there. After a long period of vacillation, we realized that we weren’t really prepared to get soaked in Whistler and left. Those Johnston Kids were disappointed, but they haven’t yet developed a cost-value organ.

We made hearty promises of further adventures to come, but they remained despondent until we reached Squamish and passed the Sea to Sky Gondola. A quick search online revealed that it was only $95 for a family pass. I u-turned as soon as it was marginally safe and zoomed back down the highway to the attraction. After buying tickets, Those Johnston Kids discovered a nifty playground at the bottom of the gondola. The two bridged structures were built around entire, hollowed out tree trunks with little hobbit doors built into them.  Adults need not apply. I felt like a giant.

We can whole-heartedly recommend the Gondola in Squamish. The ride up, or down, takes about 10 minutes, and the views are spectacular. At the top is a gift shop and a cafe, with a great open air patio overlooking the valley. Get seats near the railing if you can. The mountaintop has a number of easy trails leading to great lookouts. Along the way, interpretive stations tell you about the Indigenous Squamish people, their lifestyle, customs, and the significance of the mountains to them.

When we’ve visited historical sites, most of them have given the history of the place in colonial terms, starting the history with the arrival of Europeans, as if the place had been empty prior to being filled up with white people. I was very impressed that all the information along the trails was all from an Indigenous perspective and not yet another blinkered colonial history.

We hiked the easy trails, but I wanted to try something more challenging as well. I coaxed Those Johnston Kids into trying out the start of a back country trail that went along a ridge and further up the mountain. It was bribery, actually, as I promised them a cinnamon bun from the cafe when we came back down. Mama needed no coaxing, so we climbed up to 1006 metres, then came back down. I find that the kids always complain and need a bit of a nudge to try something more difficult, but are proud of what they achieve in the end.

I tried mightily, but I could not nudge them into skipping the gondola ride back down and hiking the descent instead. Mama and considered sending them down on the gondola on their own, with a note pinned to their jackets, but our better judgement prevailed. We rode the gondola down too. Sigh.

Vancouver is a great town to visit if you’re not driving. In a vehicle, however, the thing I find most striking about it’s traffic system is the really hellacious merges. They merge lanes like they’re trying to stab one road into another. Merges are also short, fast and brutal. Oftentimes, it’s multiple lane merges, where 3 lanes become 1, and other such nonsense. I hate driving in Vancouver. The only saving grace is that the traffic is so bad, that you can’t ever build up enough speed to get into a bad accident. We passed through as quickly as we could on our way to the ferry terminal.

I think ferries are cool, and Those Johnston Kids really seem to like the idea of a ferry, but once aboard the giant Tsawassen ferry, the amazing watercraft and the Pacific ocean were quickly trumped by a games room stocked with blurry, lo-rez games from the 90’s. When we vetoed that expenditure of their souvenir money, they resorted to watching a movie on Mama’s tablet. The ferry should put in a active playground, outside on the upper deck where the smokers huddle, and hang the smokers from a painter’s scaffold off the back of the ship.

It was dark by the time we found a campsite in Goldstream Provincial Park. I always feel stressed when we arrive somewhere late. It makes me feel like I’m a bad parent for not having food and shelter ready before sunset. It must be some sort of atavistic instinct. Those Johnston Kids remind me frequently that there is no bedtime on vacation. That policy has been less vigourously defended since Mama joined our expedition. She looks forward to bedtime and expects the rest of us to do the same.

The only facilities at 10 Mile Lake were outhouses and a water tap on a post that gave water so cold that it could give you blisters. I washed my hair until my head went literally numb, then towelled out the remainder of the lather. Then I shaved with cold water out of a pot, in the mirror of the car. I felt very rustic.

Worst. Shave. Evar. I could have chewed the hair off easier.

Mama and Those Johnston Kids watched my ablutions with some humour and wisely chose to let personal hygiene ride until we reached our next stop and more civilized facilities.

We continued south to Quesnel and stopped for supplies: Tim Horton’s, groceries, and gas. There we strolled along the longest wooden truss bridge in the world. 861 feet, if I recall correctly. 861 Feet, however much that is.

There are some people that believe that there are places in the world that are nodes for energy, and that buildings and other constructions can focus or amplify that energy. I am not one of those people because I have yet to see any evidence for it, or personally experience anything like it. I have noticed that some places just seem to draw crazy people. Places like the world’s longest truss bridge, for example, which at 9 AM on a Monday was already attracting a motley collection of odd characters. I couldn’t see any good reason for the small town’s strangest denizens to gather at that particular spot, but perhaps there are mysterious forces at work, of which we are yet unaware. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the wisdom of the ages was only really accessible to crazy people?

Across the street from the bridge was an historic Hudson’s Bay store, built a century ago or something like that. You’ll forgive me if I didn’t commit the details to memory. Kitty corner to the store was a public bench on which sat a trio of dissolute natives. I was struck by the ugly dichotomy. On this corner, a preserved icon of colonialism. On that corner, the forgotten victims of colonialism, living like peasants on their own land, watching their wealth being consumed by interlopers. BC was never ceded to Canada, so Indigenous people in BC should be the richest population in the country. Instead they face the same difficulties as all Indigenous people across the country.

We went south from Quesnel to the Xatśūll Heritage Village. The tour was interesting. A young woman, in her second year of a pysch degree, patiently walked Those Johnston Kids around the site and answered all of our questions in detail. We found the pit house very cool, literally. It was about 10 degrees cooler inside, than outside. I will have to try to build one of those when we get home, perhaps at Cape Croker. Of course, I’m thinking about how to modernize the design with plumbing, electricity and floorboards, but the design is awesome.

After the tour portion, we were brought to a pavilion where the elder on duty asked us what we thought of the place. We had a good conversation about the challenges of being native in Canada. I have this idea that we’re the elves of the Americas. We’re supposed to be at one with the land and all-familiar with natural lore. I know lots of Indians who couldn’t even start a fire with a match, much less find anything to cook on it. When we get old, we’re supposed to be wise and all-knowing. The elder laughed. “I don’t know anything,” he chuckled, “but they don’t know that.”

Indigenous people are mostly invisible in Canada, to non-natives. Sure, everybody knows we exist, but it sort of theoretical. Like knowing zebras exist, even if you’ve never seen one. Or elves.

I’ve been looking for Indians everywhere we go, and I’m finding it hard to find them. If I can’t find them on purpose, then imagine how unlikely it is that non-natives will interact in positive ways with the First People of Canada. We need to be visible. If more people were aware of us is more than an abstract way, I think we would be less likely to suffer at the hands of government. We would have more weight in Canadian society. I like the Village for that reason, among others. They’ve put themselves out there in a way that’s rare for Indigenous Canadians.

You see, most of us are embarrassed to be Indian. Just about every Indian I know will read that and protest loudly, but it’s true. When we say we’re Indian, we automatically associate ourselves in the eyes of the listener with every stereotype, real or imagined, with every sad soul sleeping in a doorway, with every repeat petty crime offender. We are ashamed of what we have become, even though we know damn well that it wasn’t our fault, that we were preyed upon.

At the same time we are also intensely, wildly, proud of being Indian as well. We speak with the voice of the wind, we speak for the land, we are the children of the Island. Our hands are clean. Say that about your ancestors. We are the fricking elves of North America and that is awesome.

So you see, we’re of two minds and that makes all of us a bit nuts. We’re confused about who we really are and what are actual worth is. That sense of confusion is really what the government wants, because it makes us more compliant. If we ever come to our senses, there will be hell to pay.

It was a very hot day in our non-air-conditioned car, so we stopped for a swim at Three Mile Lake. The water was chilly, but Baby Girl and I didn’t care. We immersed ourselves quickly and swam out to the buoy supporting the swimming area lines, doing everything we could to avoid touching the icky bottom. It was gooey – like, up over your ankles kind of goo. Ew. Short Pants elected to stay in the playground.

A little south of Three Mile Lake, we stopped in at Chasm Provincial Park to see, well, the Chasm. It was quite a big crack and I was impressed. The colours promised by the brochure were probably more vibrant to a geologist’s eye than ours, but it was still nice.

When we stopped for gas shortly after, Mama surprised me with a pouch of tobacco. We now have all four medicines: cedar, sweetgrass, sage and tobacco! We are ready for what may come. Curiously, I can’t stand the smell of cigarettes, but I quite like the smell of raw tobacco.

With the driving, the heat, and the exercise, albeit sporadically, Those Johnston Kids fell asleep hard just as we turned off the Highway 99 south onto Highway 97.  99 is the quickest way to Vancouver from Prince George, but 97 seemed to be more scenic as it passed through Lilloet and Whistler on the way to Vancouver. We were amazed when we entered the truly astounding Fraser River Valley north of Lilloet. The scenery in the hot, dry environment is just incredible. Soaring cliffs, the abyssal river valley, scrub pine and rock. We were awestruck, while the kids snored. We tried to wake them, honest.

We had an interesting pause in Lilloett, where we stopped just to clean the windscreen of insect carcasses. It was getting impossible to see through the carnage with the late afternoon sun shining directly into my eyes. While we cleaned the window, a friendly local stopped to suggest that we stay at Lilloet’s free campground on the other side of the bridge. We weren’t planning to stay in Lilloet, but we thanked him for the thought anyway. He was a Swiss emigre taxidermist who had come to Canada to live the outdoor life. He tried it for a while and realized that it was exceedingly difficult to actually live off the land, so he and his wife compromised and moved to Lilloet. Truth be told, it was pretty rustic. He bragged about it being the hottest and driest place in Canada. Bug and snake free too, owing to the dry climate and impassable Fraser River.

It was a crazy, precipitous descent down the other side of the mountains, into Whistler. I kept wondering when the trailer would break free or push us over one of the many, many breathtakingly steep corners. It was really quite odd to be sitting facing downhill for so long, pressing against the steering wheel to stay firmly back in my seat. By the time we reached Whistler, I was dizzy with the smell of burning break pads. The car is falling apart. This trip may be the old girl’s last hurrah.

We arrived just after sunset in Whistler. A quick call about found us a hotel room for a price that wasn’t completely ridiculous – although very nearly, if you ask me. We thankfully stowed our toothbrushes in our comfortable loft and stepped out to stroll through the village after dark. The bars and patios were busy with tourists and the young, seasonal, foreign employees spending their wages. We bought microwave dinners at an all-night quickie mart in the village and retired to our room for mediocre pasta and cartoons.

We had come in too late to swim and the day, July 19th, was looking to be warm again, so the first thing we did after breakfast was grab our fishing rod and swim suits and head to the beach. It was a moraine lake, so the shore was small stones and gravel that sloped steeply down into the water. 2 meters off shore it was over my head. We could see a huge school of fish, likely trout, massing just off shore, literally within a few meters, but they didn’t bite at anything we offered. I cannot fish because I haven’t bothered to pick up a fishing license, but Those Johnston Kids can fish because kids don’t need fishing licenses. I act in a consultative role.

We switched to swimming mode because the first weren’t one our side. The water was brown with tannins, but clear and not too cold to enjoy. The school of fish was largely unperturbed by our floundering, and simply swam around us, generally staying out of our way. They weren’t frightened away in the least, making a mockery of my admonitions to the kids to stay quiet and not throw things in the water while we were fishing, lest we scare the fish away. Fat chance.

We left Tudyah Park after swimming and continued south to Prince George. It was the day of Prince George’s annual Summerfest street fair. It looked like there might be something to do, so we found parking a few blocks away and walked over. Personally, I thought Summerfest could have used a little more fest. There were a number of local food vendors, as well as several lanes of craft and services booths. In an intersection in the middle, they had a stage set up for various musical acts. I didn’t pay close attention, but a couple of them weren’t terrible.

Those Johnston Kids rode an oversized model train and petted young animals in a small petting zoo. That was about the end of things to do. There was a face-painting station, but there were more than a dozen children already waiting, and they were all very much younger than ours. There was also a fishing pond made out of an above-ground pool stocked with extremely well-fed trout. The line for that was even longer than the one for face painting.

It was stinking hot and we had ice cream, so we left. My favourite part of Summerfest was the free tire pressure gauge handed out by the local bank. Now that’s useful.

Prince George, like many of the towns in the BC interior, seems to have an industrial economy. There wasn’t much else to see, so we continued south. We stopped at a ratty little campground in 10 Mile Lake Provincial Park, just north of Quesnel. It looked and felt like a truck stop. Something about it suggested that the majority of guests were business travelers – truckers, energy sector contractors, road crew workers, etc – rather than recreational campers.

We had noticed a lot of cars parked at a bridge just before the campground, and I could see people in the river valley below. With yesterday’s successful detour to Kiskatinaw still in our minds, we decided to check out the spot and see why so many vehicles were parked there.

We found the local watering hole, a sandy shoal in the Cottonwood River, next to the foundations of a derelict rail trestle. Groups of people were coming up out of the valley as we were were hiking down the well-worn trail. Every group had alcohol and some were visibly drunk. Most were native, sadly. The location was really quite beautiful and the river water clean and warm. Unfortunately the locals didn’t have quite the same respect for the beauty of the place and there was a great deal of litter, mostly in the form of empties. We stayed and played for a couple of hours anyway and took a pile of trash with us on the way out. We were just worried that people would think the empties were ours.

We took our time packing up camp, in between rounds of badminton. Our road continued west, and we rolled into Dawson Creek by lunchtime. This was Dawson Creek, British Columbia, not Dawson City, Yukon. Even though I know they’re different, I still expected to find more gold rush references. The names are just too similar. Dawson Creek’s claim to fame is as the start of the scenic Alaska Highway, heading north. We browsed the info centre and then the adjoining art gallery, but weren’t impressed and found nothing further to see in town. Nothing much is going on in DC, you know?

There was a pioneer village in Dawson Creek, but I cannot be dragged into those places, of which there is an example in every colonial settlement that once considered itself the last outpost of civilized people. I’ll say it once, simply: the only pioneers in the Americas were the indigenous people who populated the place 20000 years ago. Everyone else is just a self-deluded colonist. You can’t be a pioneer where people already live.

I took this exact concern to the kids’ school principal, because Baby Girl was learning about ‘pioneers’ in social studies. When I asked BG if she knew what the word ‘pioneer’ meant, she said no. I explained that a pioneer was the first person to do something or go somewhere. Then I asked her who were the first people to live here. “We were!”, she said emphatically. “So the Europeans weren’t really pioneers then, were they?” “No! We were!” And thus a new generation of activists is created.

Some bit of tourist literature led us north out of Dawson Creek along the Alaska Highway, to a turn-off which led to the old Alaska Highway route, and a very cool bridge. The Kiskatinaw bridge in Kiskatinaw Provincial Park is entirely made of wood, and also curved along its length. Owing to the curve, the bridge is banked as well, which gives a curious sensation that you’re drifting towards the side and the low guard rail.

Mama is not so good with heights and stayed away from the railing, but I had a look. In the river valley below we could see a couple of groups of picnickers swimming in the murky water. That was enough of an endorsement for us. We grabbed our swim suits and found a precipitous trail beside the bridge down into the valley.

The water was brown with sand, and the temperature wasn’t bad after a minute or two immersed. Someone had hung a rope swing from one of the great girders of the bridge, for swinging and jumping into the water. We wasted no time trying it out. Those Johnston Kids are pretty strong swimmers, so I was confident in lifting them up to ride the swing out and drop into the centre of the river. The current was pretty lazy. After a while, other little kids joined us and I was ‘everyone’s father’ as Mama put it, lifting the small ones up to the rope (with parental permission, of course).

We spent a happy few hours playing with the swing and combing the shores and shoals of the river for interesting rocks. We always come home from trips with kilos of stones. The kids swam until they ran out of energy and body heat, and then we all climbed back up to the car. It was a really great afternoon, and all the better for being a serendipitous find.

Google couldn’t find a route to our intended camp ground, Pine le Moray Provincial Park, so we sort of guessed where we thought it would be, and headed that way. In the end, we missed Pine le Moray entirely. After we realised our mistake we just pulled into the next little campground we came across, Tudyah Provincial Park. It was okay, but the only amenities were outhouses and water from a pump that required actual pumping. The kids thought the pump was fun until I chased them away. There was a real risk that they would have drained the aquifer. Mama says most parks in BC are pretty much the same: super cheap, but no services. We’ll have to find some other strategy to charge our electronic umbilicals, perhaps even the occasional stay in a dreaded RV park.

It continued to rain throughout the night. We used to have some dry pieces of gear, but by the morning of July 17th everything was unpleasantly damp. We only hoped to get clear of the wet weather long enough to dry out.

Our drive continue north-west on Highway 43, through Valley View to Grand Prairie. There we turned north to the small town of Sexsmith, which appealed to me both by nomenclature and the small Sexsmith Blacksmith Shop Museum. It was a ‘Shop Museum’ because they had taken the shop of the popular longtime town blacksmith and preserved it as it was when he retired. It was really only of interest to people that like making things or are into old tools. So, you know, people like me. A helpful young lady suggested that we check out the town museum as well, but that was just a lot of old stuff. Literally. It looked like a garage sale.

Everyone was so patient in letting me look at old, dirty rusty bits of iron, that I bought ice creams on the way out of town.

We arrived at Moonshine Lake Provincial Park around 3 PM, which was relatively early for us. We’re usually doing something, or in transit to do something, during the day, and moving from campsite to campsite in the evening. It was good to arrive with plenty of daylight in front of us for a change, so we could have a look around and I could take my time preparing dinner.

We found the campground to be pretty. It was busy, and obviously a popular spot, but there were lots of trees between the individual sites, so it felt more secluded. You really couldn’t see the people around, except perhaps for your immediate neighbours.

We immediately set out everything wet to dry. That meant almost literally every soft item in our caravan. Raincoats, clothing, towels, sleeping bags, mattresses, pillows, and more, were hung from lines, and spread out on every flat surface. It looked like our trailer had exploded. It also looked more than a little like a trailer park yard. We were only missing more than 1 rusted out car.

The eponymous Moonshine Lake was small and inviting looking, and the beach was great. Unfortunately, the Park advised against swimming due to a blue-green algae bloom. The blue-type produces a toxin that can be harmful to children and adults with weakened constitutions. They said you could try swimming without immersing your head, avoiding the algae, and washing immediately upon exit, but none of those mitigation strategies seemed practical with Those Johnston Kids.They are incorrigible swimmers and could not be trusted to show restraint.

Instead of swimming, we introduced them to the sport and art of badminton. We discovered that our second-hand trailer had come with a 4-person badminton set, so we set it up to take the place of swimming. Badminton is more of a game of finesse than a racquet sport like tennis. You can’t just whale away on the birdie and hope to get lucky. It took no small amount of patience to wait while Those Johnston Kids made something north of 20 attempts to serve while hitting nothing but air. Seriously, they missed every time. Finally I set them to serve to each other for practice, with a promise to play once they could reliably serve over the net.

They practiced diligently and then I had to make good on my promise. At that latitude, the days were bizarrely long. We were still playing badminton in daylight well after 10 PM. I quite like the long days. I don’t sleep much anyway, so it suits me fine. I  could get so much more done with 2 or 3 extra hours of light every day.