A while back, when we were still at home, I had offered to give Short Pants my pocket knife – if he could depress the locking mechanism to safely close the blade. It was a fairly sturdy knife, so unfortunately his hands weren’t strong enough. I have other non-locking blades, but I wouldn’t use those myself, much less give them to a neophyte. I told him that we would find him a smaller knife that he was strong enough to use.

I have been reminded of that promise pretty much every day on this trip. Every town we rolled into, Short Pants has remarked laconically, “Well, this looks like a good place to get a knife.” Geez, I get it already.

Finally, in Jasper, we passed by an outdoor store and they had knives on display and we had time to shop. When we came out of that store, Short Pants was the very proud owner of a brand new, blaze orange, Buck folding knife.

Since then, every stick has been carefully assessed for its potential as a whittling stick and I am amassing a collection of carefully crafted pointed twigs, presented to me with great solemnity. I, obviously unaware of the nuances of woodcraft, am instructed as to the most appropriate use of the pointed sticks. Sound are arrows, while others are more suited to more pedestrian use as pencils. I have yet to broach the issue of graphite.

Baby Girl was previously incognisant of knives, but since her brother had one, and wa having fun with it, she wanted one too. So, when we were climbing Castle Mountain, to motivate her efforts, I showed her my knife and told her that it was my favourite and that she could have it when we reached the top. I think the bribe was probably unnecessary because she climbed quite well, but I made good anyway. She clipped it to her waistband in a studied casual sort of way that said, ‘No big deal. OMG, look at this!’

Unfortunately, my favourite knife, now Baby Girl’s never made it to the bottom of the mountain. Somewhere between the top and bottom of the trail it must have fallen from her waistband. She obviously felt terrible when we discovered it missing, about halfway down, because she offered to go back up to look for it. Instead, I let Those Johnston Kids and Alison continue down while I ran back up to look for the knife. I ran back to our last rest stop with no sign of the knife, but I did find Short Pants’ buff where he had dropped it. 

I wasn’t upset that she lost the knife. It reminded me of my grandfather’s pocket watch. My mother have it to me when I was 10, with strict instructions to take good care of it because it was an heirloom. It was a beautiful silver pocketwatch, with a soft patina where it was worn. I loved it and carried it everywhere. Then I left it on the subway and it was gone forever. I still feel guilty about that watch.

I told Baby Girl that we would get new knives together when the opportunity arises.

It was the last day of the month, a Friday, and the first day of a long weekend. I had forgotten all of that. Long vacations play hell with my sense of time. The kids and Alison had breakfast while I started packing up. We had planned a hike up Castle Mountain on the 31st and I wanted to get started before we lost too much daylight.

We dropped the trailer off at the Douglas Fir Resort, where we had reservations for that night, then drove out along the old parkway to the Castle Mountain trail head. The sign says Rockbound Lake, but that’s just the name of the lake on the trail up Castle Mountain.

We started up. Baby Girl faded quickly, once she realised that our day was going to be a long walk uphill. She wanted to see snow, but maybe not that bad. We had a great argument, agreed not to talk to each other, then made up. I offered to give her my favourite knife. After that things were mostly okay, although she was adamant that she was not climbing to the summit.

We stopped a couple of times on the way up to Rockbound, for rest and drinks. Once we reached the lake, under the looming wall of the Castle Mountain bowl, we stopped for a picnic lunch. Baby Girl said it looked like a fairy tale lake and I had to agree. The sun shining on the remarkable turquoise water was amazing.

We continued our climb up and over the wall to the second, smaller lake. Alison had gone off to explore a rock fall on the other side of the lake so I took the opportunity to go skinny dipping in the really frigid waters of the lake. I’ll be honest, I didn’t last long. It seemed like a better idea in my head.

I found some marmots in the rock field near the trail on the way out and beckoned the team over to see. There were at least a couple of adults, and one small juvenile. I like marmots. They’re cool because they’re grumpy.

As a wise parent, I had saved a litre of Coca-Cola for the hike back down. When Those Johnston Kids started to groan about the distance still to go, I fed them snacks and generous swigs of soda. This was noteworthy because they don’t get soda – ever. They did not stop talking for about 30 minutes straight while Alison and I nodded politely and led them down the mountain. When the caffeine buzz waned, I gave them the other half of the bottle and that was enough to get them back to the parking lot. This is why you shouldn’t give your kids soda on a regular basis. They’ll develop resistance and it won’t work when you need it to.

Those Johnston Kids were pretty well exhausted by the time we got back to the car. The hike had taken about 6.5 hours, and we’d climbed 750 metres over about 5 kilometres. That’s a lot for wee ones.

When we checked in at the Douglas Fir 30 minutes later, however, the exhausted children found the energy to go to the waterslide and climb half a dozen flights of stairs repeatedly – with me in tow. I had to drag them back to the room for dinner.

They were mollified by staying up late to watch the The Fantastic Four movie (the old bad one) on Teletoon. Hypnotised, rather, because they get television as often as they get soda. This is why you shouldn’t let your kids watch television. It works whether you want it to or not.

July 30 was a shower day. We try to space them out so as not to waste our protective layer of dirt. Post-shower we drove south from Whistlers Campground in Jasper. Our goal was the Athabaska Glacier, but we made multiple stops along the way to feed Alison’s photo-taking monkey.

One neat stop was just on the side of the highway. The Athabaska River must normally run higher because there was only a narrow channel of water left there, in a shallow bed of stones that was a couple of hundred metres across. Craggy mountains rose on every side of the broad flat valley. We looked for geodes, but didn’t find any, a consequence equally blamed on the geology of the area and our complete ignorance of what a geode actually looks like.

We also pulled up at the Tangle Creek waterfall, where tourists like us were clustered like water fleas. At least Those Johnston Kids, Alison, and I climbed up to the highest fall for our photo ops. We’re not lazy.

We finally reach the Athabaska Glacier around 3 PM. There’s a guided bus tour there that drives out onto the ice and drops you off for 15 minutes on a groomed patch to take pictures. We didn’t want to pay $55 each for the tour, half-price for kids, so we hiked down. When I was here some 20 years ago, tourists could hike out onto the toe of the glacier, following a marked safe path. I figured we could just do that.

The hike down was great fun, especially for Short Pants who eschewed the trail to go ‘cross-country’. The air was so wonderfully clear that distances were deceiving. The hike was a lot longer than it had looked initially and we got to ford a couple of meltwater streams. When we finally got to the bottom, we were fisappointed to find that we couldn’t actually walk on the glacier on our own. The only way to get on the ice was to take the pricey bus, or hire a guide. I don’t even know where we would have found a guide. We took some pics and just headed back to the car.

Short Pants and I went ‘cross-country’again, taking the most direct route across the moraine. We alternately pretended that we were crossing a trackless desert, or Mars.

Hiking can take a lot out of you, especially when you’re small, so we stopped at The Crossing for ice cream and drinks. The Crossing is a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere, halfway between where you’ve come from and where you’re going. I think the only reason it’s there is to act as a life support system for the gas pump. It probably grew up out of the people that ran out of gas right about there.

Still further south, we started looking for someplace to stay for the night. We asked at Nun Ti Jah Lodge only to be turned away; they were fully booked. That would have been an interesting stay because Mama often talks about the time she worked there. She’s never said exactly what she did there. I just assumed it was some sort of high-end cat house.

Neither was there any space at the campgrounds in Lake Louise. I didn’t get that, because there really isn’t much there besides the lake itself. We did stay to have dinner in the old railway station. The meal was more expensive than the food was worth, but the environment was interesting.

We continued south all the way to Banff on search of a campsite. For a hugely popular national park area, the Banff-Lake Louise area has a pitiful number of campgrounds. We checked out the Castle Mountain campground, but it was full too, so on we went. We finally found room at the Tunnel Mountain Village II campground in Banff. Campground is a misnomer. Village II is the RV life unadulterated. It’s just a grid of paved roads with picnic tables and electrical sockets alongside the parallel parking spots they call campsites.

While i prepared dinner, Those Johnston Kids play in the dark, on the strip of grass between ‘streets’ in the Village. It was some kind of ninja game that required dark clothing. I could hear them rustling around like night beasts, unafraid and free, my own little porcupines.

We packed up wet again.

Stopped at the Mount Robson info centre, and discovered that there was a trail head nearby. I needed exercise, so spur of the moment, we decided to hike to Kinney Lake, 5km each way. Those Johnston Kids started out slow, with many comments on how long it was going to take, how long we had been hiking, what was their longest hike ever, how long you could survive in the wilderness without food or WiFi, et cetera. The river we were hiking along was a fantastic kilometres-long whitewater run, coloured a brilliant chalky blue the entire length. There was a killer log jam at the top, and one impassable waterfall that I saw along the way, but the rest from Kinney down to the parking lot looked doable. It would be horrendously fun, albeit horrifically dangerous. If you were to blow it, the river would scour your face off on the shallow rocky bottom while carrying your remains out to the Fraser River.

We turned around at Kinney Lake, but stopped there to enjoy a picnic that also happily lightened my pack. The kids’ spirits picked up after the picnic at Kinney Lake, especially Baby Girl’s. Food and half a papa bear gummie worked wonders. And maybe also going downhill.

We were back in the car by late afternoon and drove southeast to Jasper National Park. We were able to squeeze into Whistlers Campground, with electricity and everything. The otherwise full campground was only able to accommodate us because we were staying for just one night.

The campground was large and packed, with tents and trailers nestled between the lodge poles pines. It was still nice though, and quieter than some smaller campgrounds we’ve been to.

I made a vegetable and tofu curry with rice for dinner, while Alison played Uno with Those Johnston Kids. And – drum roll – we had our first campfire in a week and a half. Marshmallows were sacrificed to commemorate the occasion.

Somehow, and the details are unclear, all of us managed to stay up until 1 AM. I blame it on the time change. We lost an hour crossing break into Alberta.

The Pinegrove RV Resort and Campground was sparsely populated but well-kept. The bathrooms were wonderfully clean, the lots well-treed, and there was even a small playground. It was also cheap. It cost us $32 for a powered site, which is a site with a plug. That’s less than what we’ve been paying for unserviced provincial park sites.

On the other hand, it’s nestled cozily between a highway and a freight railway line, and neither of those shut down at night. I slept like a baby. I generally wake a couple of hours before Those Johnston Kids and wait for them to stir. That morning though, I slept until almost 9. I think it was the combination of white noise from the highway and the familiar rumble of freight trains reminding me of the GO line that runs through our backyard at home.

Breakfast was pancakes again, with apricot-blueberry compote made from the apricots the kids had picked the day before. Pancakes are becoming a staple food.

We had no particular plan for the day except to get to Mount Robson Provincial Park, about 3 hours north. We threw ourselves at the mercy of fate. There was little choice as Alison, our titular navigator, was still working out the nuances of the role. We became leaves upon the wind.

There was no sense throwing ourselves at Fate unprovisioned, so we stopped for really good ice cream cones at a roadside stand in Barriere. The very nice man at the counter served a generous single scoop in a waffle cone for only $3.50. I recommend the Sea Salt Caramel flavour highly.

Highway 5, north of Kamloops did not seem to offer much in the way of distractions. We found nothing to draw us off the road until we reached Clearwater. There, a large colourful billboard promised white water rafting adventure so we followed the arrow on the sign into town. 20 minutes and more than $300 later, we were bumping our way upriver in the back of a passenger van towing a large yellow raft. With us on the trip was a pleasant Dutch family on vacation from Europe. Their three children ranged from 9 to 13 years old. Even with the language barrier, the kids found ways to amuse each other. I liked that.

The first couple of rapids were deemed too big for kids under 10, so the adults and older kids were dropped in the river first. We pulled over to pick up the youngsters after the rough stuff. I thought that Those Johnston Kids would have been fine, but I can understand that the rafting outfit has safety protocols of its own. Everyone had a great time regardless.

About halfway through the trip, we pulled over to hike up the steep side of the river canyon. A 10 minute walk up through the woods led us to a tall waterfall dramatically spilling over a cliff into a pool below. Our guide demonstrated how to carefully make our way out onto the rocks beneath the pounding water and leap into the pool. Naturally, we followed.

Naturally, the water was heart-stoppingly cold. I don’t know if that’s a word, but seriously, I just stopped feeling anything for a few beats while my body had a ‘WTF?’ moment. I’m pretty sure my body hates me now. We’re not talking anyway.

The adults were all content with one jump into the water that was one cold night away from being a rink, but the kids of both families ran around for seconds, then thirds. Despite their purple lips and uncontrollable shivering, they would have jumped until hypothermia set in if the time hadn’t come to head back down to the river.

We were served a snack of powdered lemon drink, potato chips, chocolate chip cookies and candy. That’s what happens when you let 20 year old guides pack the picnic. The children stood shoulder to shoulder around the bounty laid out for us and steadily shovelled the junk into their increasingly manic faces. “I see you don’t feed your kids either,” I remarked to the Dutch mother. “Oh no, never,” she replied wryly.

The second half of the trip had a few small rapids, but the feature activity was swimming. We were allowed to jump off the raft to float down the river in the powerful current. Those Johnston Kids barely waited for the signal to go before they were in the chilly water. I joined them as quickly as I could. It wasn’t quite as cold as the pool under the waterfall, but still bracing. I felt like I was 10 years old again.

The guides, who didn’t introduce themselves as far as I recall, were great with the kids, who were a majority in our party. The raft guide was quite patient with the gaggle of children turning his boat into a floating bouncy castle, and with the limited propulsion provided by only 4 adults. The kayak safety guide engaged the kids a lot and even gave them rides on the bow and stern of his kayak.

So we had a good time and one more thing is crossed off the bucket list.

The drive north to Mount Robson was punctuated by rain, on and off. In contrast to the lower greener mountains on the coast side, in the interior the mountains were big enough to shrug off the mantle of pines and thrust bare rocky shoulders into the sky. The setting sun shone off the snow and ice that capped the sharp peaks.

We saw a small black bear amble across the road some distance in front of us, but Alison had literally all of our cameras in her bag and couldn’t get one out and focussed in time.

We drove up a hillside into the woods near Mount Robson, following signs for a ranch with RV camping. I thought it might make for an interesting stay. The switchback led to a hand-painted No Vacancy sign on a driveway that looked like it led to a hillbilly encampment, but the road continued up, so we followed it further. We came to some sort of rail maintenance yard, with a great pile of scrap metal pieces. I may have kept a couple of souvenirs that weigh almost as much as me. Maybe.

We reviewed the GoPro video I had managed to capture of our rafting trip before the battery died. As we tucked in, a light rain began to fall that continued steadily through the night.

The Retasket Motel and RV park turned out to be pretty good. Our site had power and water, and was a few sites away from anybody else. The bathroom – just one for everybody – was clean and weirdly communal. The one room held a single sink, two toilets, two showers, and no interior walls, curtains, stalls or dividers. I wouldn’t want to use it with anyone else but family. We looked the door whenever we went in.

Waking up in the mountains on the 27th, with the sere cliffs surrounding Lilloet offering spectacular vistas in every direction was invigorating. It was a gorgeous day. We laid out our belongings, wet from two days of rain in Golden Ears Provincial Park, in the morning sun. It was necessary, but I always feel so trashy with our things lying all around our trailer. I willed the sun to be hotter.

Those Johnston Kids found an apricot tree with lots of fruit next to our campsite. I offered to make a compote if they wanted to pick some and remove the pits. Excited, they picked a heaping bowlful and shortly thereafter presented me with the pitted mound of fresh fruit. I boiled them with brown sugar, honey and cinnamon until they were soft, and served them with pancakes and ripe plantains. We eat okay.

We wanted to go trail riding, but didn’t know of any ranches. Pulled into the Historic Hat Creek Ranch, north-east of Lilloet on the presumption that a ranch has horses. This one was a preservation of some original ranch buildings and a roadhouse, staffed with people in period dress. They usually had trail rides, we were told, but not this season. Rather than drive around looking for a trail ride and maybe not finding one, we decided to stay and check it out.

There was not so much interesting that I could see. We spent a long time searching for little polished stones in the ‘panning’ area and then took a stagecoach to the native village recreation. That wasn’t bad. Our young native guide was a bit too contemporary, but knowledgeable and I enjoyed our conversation with him. Afterwards, we toured the roadhouse. It reminded me of my grandfather Bill’s house. The scent of old wallpaper and the creaking of wooden floorboards were evocative for me. Back out in the sun, Those Johnston Kids went for ice cream with Alison while I looked for more coloured rocks. It’s mindless I know, but I could do that all day.

We headed south to Kamloops next. We needed to wash Those Johnston Kids’ sleeping bags which had become noticeably gamy smelling. Alison has a fancy new camera and insisted that we stop several times for photo ops. How will we remember if we don’t lsee with our digital eyes?

We found a laundromat in Kamloops, but the skeletal woman there wouldn’t let us wash because she was closing in 45 minutes. She gave us directions to another laundry across town, where the really scuzzy people go. There was a crazy looking homeless man, Carl I think, in the next laundry, doing people’s laundry for a fee. Apparently he washed clothes, just not his own, which were stiff and dirty. He had intimate knowledge of the machines and helped me start the finicky washer. He even knew which year’s coins would be rejected by the change machine. Carl’s long unbrushed hair and gone to dreadlocks, including one that looked like a paddle and seemed to weigh his head down on that side. He wore the tattered remains of sneakers, so ragged they were without soles. The scraps of cloth, black and shiny with street dirt, covered no more than his toes and he kicked them in front of himself like slippers. They couldn’t even be called slippers, though, because they simple didn’t cover any appreciable portion of his foot. Most of his bare foot was on the ground. It seemed like a lot of work to kick around the shoe tatters. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t wash his own clothes or get some kind of footwear, but didn’t. He was pleasant enough when chatting, but clearly listened to some internal voice. I noticed him writing something in pen on a notepad, and stole a peek when he was busy with his laundry contracts. The page was dense with the microscopic writing no more than a millimetre or two high, and he added notes according to some design I didn’t see, filling in random white space on the page with tiny scrawl. Again I wanted to ask, but refrained.

Leaving Kamloops with clean, sweet smelling sleeping bags, we stopped again, again,and  again, for gas, Tim Hortons, and groceries. ‘A few things’ at the Superstore turned into six bags and the scarce empty space in our car was filled with foodstuffs, not unlike how the white space on Carl’s page was filled with minute blue ink observations. Perhaps he was writing a manifesto against consumerism.

It had been a long day on the road, and Those Johnston Kids couldn’t hold on for the last 30 minute ride to the randomly chosen campground, Pinegrove Campground and RV Park. It was full dark when I roused the proprietor to secure a spot. Eschewing the typical campground map with our site circled, he personally lead us to our powered campsite in a golf cart. This was a full-service operation. I was impressed. I have decided that if I ever own a horse I will name it ‘Golf Cart’.

Those Johnston Kids roused just long enough to brush their teeth and fall into plush clean sleeping bags. They were asleep in moments and looked like angels.

The next morning, Sunday the 26th, we packed up in the rain. Everything got wet, including stuff that had something managed to stay merely damp after two days of rain. Ironically, campfires were still banned. I expect they’re waiting until the fire pits are literally puddles and we have to burn our logs down to the water line and no further.

We drove into town, from clouds and rain into sunshine and heat. We decided to check out the Telus World of Science. It was free, after all, with our Ontario Science Centre membership. The crowded parking lot was a frank impossibility with the trailer. There were Smart cars cruising the lanes jonesing for a few square metres of empty space. Instead, we parked a few blocks away on a side street. That was not advised, as we were to discover.

The World of Science on a weekend was Madness. Utter Chaos. Every horizontal surface was smeared with a thick layer of children. I have to confess that I don’t really like children, besides my own, all that much. Even they get on my nerves a lot of the time. I think I expect children to just be scaled down adults. Kid logic confuses me and the lack of social niceties in them drives me insane. I cannot explain why I thought it was a good idea to go to a science centre on a weekend.

Still, the World of Science had lots of good hands-on stuff for the kids. I spent a good 20 minutes talking shop with the gardener out in the demonstration garden, for example, and picked up some good ideas. We did pay a bit extra to see the IMAX dinosaur film. It turned out to be a badly-animated dinosaur movie narrated by Michael Douglas, of all people. I hearkened back to whatshisname, Harry Potter’s sidekick, narrating the astronomy flick at Science North in Sudbury. What’s with all the once-A-listers narrating science centre films? Is it the minimum wage equivalent for famous actors? Those Johnston Kids seemed engaged, but I fell asleep and woke with a start from a dream. I had imagined that I was driving and a large flesh-eating theropod had lumbered into the road. I had jerked the wheel to avoid it and woken myself up. I compared notes with Alison after the show to see what I had missed, but she had fallen asleep too. We stayed until all of our feet were numb and it was well past are planned departure time. That was okay though, because I don’t like to interrupt a good time, in much the same way that I don’t like to wake people that are sleeping.

Did I mention that entrance to the World of Science is free with your Ontario Science Centre Membership? You’re a member by now, aren’t you?

We shuffled back to the car. From a block away I could see that something was wrong. The hazard lights on the car were flashing, in the way they will when someone tries to open the doors when the alarm has been engaged. We rushed up with some trepidation, dreading finding a pool of glass beneath a broken window, our valuables stolen. Luckily, the car was intact and nothing appeared to be missing. Or so we thought. After carefully checking the inside of the car and finding everything undisturbed, I realized that our bikes were missing from the rear rack. Some reprobate had stolen Baby Girl’s and my bikes. Short Pants’ bike was still safe in the trailer. In our hurry to get to the World of Science, I had neglected to put a cable lock on the bikes, not that I think it would have made much difference.

It was annoying to have our bikes stolen, but not overmuch. They were just things, after all. I guess whoever took them needed them, or cash, more than we did. I don’t expect they’ll get much for my beat up mountain bike without a seat, or Baby Girl’s kid-size mountain bike from Canadian Tire. Stupid poor people. Always wanting to eat and stuff.

We got on the road, a bit lighter and wiser from our visit to Vancouver. It was way too late already and we wanted to stay in Lilloet that night.

Dinner was flaccid fish and chips from some roadside fish house with a rude counter person and a greatly overrated reputation for fish and chips. Big Daddy’s in Tofino was way better.

We did make Lilloet after dark (sigh) and crawled around town looking for a place to stay. We finally found a motel with RV parking up on the side of a hill overlooking town. It was probably a great view in daylight, but we just wanted some sleep.

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.