By Peter Christensen

Op-Ed Commentary

After nearly 17 years we are giving up the North Coast lifestyle and moving back to “the valley” full time.  Oona River, where we lived for the last 12 years, is remote being 25 nautical miles south of Prince Rupert on the south end of Porcher Island and accessible only by boat and bush plane.

It’s quite a change being back at the Radium “Ranchita.” I miss the ocean tides, storms, wildlife, fellow adventurers and challenges of exploring the North and Central Coast, Haida Gwaii and Southern Alaska.  For a while we had an ‘out-station’ near Kelp Passage where we anchored with other travellers, sometimes for a week at a time and enjoyed their good company and stories told around evening campfires ashore.

What can I say? It’s the shits getting old and facing the reality that we need to give up ocean boating adventures! The wilderness of the North and Central Coast of Western Canada is incomparable. We have been very lucky to be able to explore this amazing area at our own pace, to enjoy fresh caught fish and gathered seafood and to have the company of friends. The Oona River cottage is for sale as is our boat, Quintette, an ocean-going sailboat.

Well, we did it! We moved our northern belongings out of Oona River cottage and into a cargo trailer, shipped it by barge and tugboat to Port Edward, prepared Quintette to be left at Port Edward for a month, moved the boat stuff from the trailer into our locker at Port Ed, hooked up the trailer to our pick up, which we leave at Port Ed, and set off for the Upper Columbia Valley…all this in a couple of weeks.

When we got to Houston, 400 km east of Rupert, I discovered the front brakes were over-heating. I phoned two brake and muffler shops and was told we would have to wait two weeks for a fix. After a desperate question, “Is there no other shop?”, one of front desk people suggested I phone Points North Auto. The guy at Points North says he will take a look; we go over to what is a four-wheeler custom shop a ways back in an industrial area. Timber, that’s his name, takes a look and says, “You shouldn’t be driving that vehicle!”

Then he phones around to see if the parts to repair the brakes are available locally. It turns out to be a good thing to be driving a Ford F-150, the most popular pick truck in the world, the parts are available in town.

Timbers says it will be about a grand to fix, says leave the truck, says he starts work at 3 a.m and to call at 9 a.m. next morning.  We phone Fred, a friend who lives about 40 km east at Topley, and he comes and gets us. Fred makes us dinner and we sleep in Fred’s Pleasureway.

Next morning after a great breakfast I phone Timber at 8 and the truck is ready. Fred drives us to Houston. New rotors, calipers and pads on both sides, ends up being $1,250, but that’s about the going rate, labour was only $200.  We settle up, give Timber a jar of canned salmon, and head for Fred’s where we pick up a bunch of bee-keeper stuff and hives that our friend Patricia gave us. Patricia is sadly not with us anymore.  Before she passed she bequeathed Charlotte to us, a full-size four-year-old Poodle who is now our constant companion.  We load the bee keeping stuff and are back on the road heading for McBride by 9:30.

While hauling the cargo trailer the truck “burns” 25 litres per 100K at $2 + a litre of fuel. Each time I fill up, it’s 127 litres, like holy-smokes $250 per fill. Yikes! The traffic is heavy, lots of trucks but we average about 90 km an hour and make good time. Yvonne phones ahead to book a motel or cabin in McBride, where we usually stay, but all the usual places are booked.  Yvonne finally gets us a room at the old McBride Hotel and Tavern down by the CN tracks for a $100 for the night.

There is no front desk so we go into the beer parlour to look for a manager. The beer parlour is a trip down memory lane; there are small round tables covered in pink terry cloth stacked table top to table top and three very senior citizens, a woman and two men sitting at the bar each sipping a long afternoon beer.

I am wearing a new John Deere hat that Fred gave me; they eye the hat and smile. Dogs are welcome and $19 extra. The women checks us in, is very friendly and shows us a room on the second floor facing west.  The carpets are fairly new and the room clean but the place is old, the drywall is cracking and the floors are not level. The room has a window over the bed that opens. As she’s leaving the room the woman says, “Don’t worry about paying extra for the dog, the owner has a dog.”  We settle into the 100-year-old room, it has a good view of the town and lots of fresh air, it is just fine.

After a rest we leave the hotel through the tavern and get a pizza about a block away and are told there is a good breakfast at the old CN station across the road by the tracks. We are long overdue for a shower and head back to our room, fresh air and sleep.

Next morning, we amble over to the restaurant in the vintage CN train station. It’s full of antiques including the proprietors and customers. There are two breakfast choices, No. 5, eggs and bacon on a bagel and No. 6, eggs, bacon and toast. Yvonne orders No.5 and I order No. 6.

The menu says no credit cards: cash or cheques only. There are three older guys spread around at a couple of tables who we get to know over the next hour and a half while breakfast is being prepared. The chef, an elderly gentleman, does not have the notion of fast food fixed in his habits for the preparation of food. We were last to order; he prepares each person’s breakfast, including peeling potatoes and frying them from start to finish before moving on to the potatoes for the next order.

One traveller was from Amarillo, Texas and had driven to McBride in three days, on his way to Anchorage, Alaska.  The other two patrons are from Edmonton, they are riding the two big heavy chromed motorcycles that are parked under the shed roof that sticks out from the hotel over the sidewalk. They have driven from Edmonton to Osoyoos, up to Valmount and are headed back to Edmonton. The one guy does not say much except that his bike has six carburetors’, gets 35 miles per gallon and he is always stopping for fuel because the gas tank is not big enough.

The guy from Texas calls Yvonne “Mam.” Yes Mam, that is right, No Mam! I tell him I have been to the Big Bend country in West Texas, he says he’s never been there. Finally, their breakfasts, number sixes, come and they wolf them down and leave.  We wait and wait… by this time we have been there an hour and a half, have drunk enough coffee to float a 16 foot Lund and are restless to get going.  We eat fast. A young couple comes in as we are leaving, they have five young children and another on the way. Mennonites? We pay cash and get on the road. I hope for the parent’s sake that the kids can get oatmeal.

I always look forward to the next leg of the journey: to Jasper, then down the Jasper/Banff/Kootenay Parkways.

It’s a blue-sky day and the Columbia Icefields are spectacular. We stop at Mosquito Creek and take Charlotte for a short walk. The traffic is slow, so I ask Yvonne to drive; she does better than me when traffic is slow. There is a lot of truck traffic and thousands of tourists. It is a day filled with the anticipation of a completing a journey; we buy gas at Lake Louise, pick up a coffee and donuts and then in a couple more hours are headed up our driveway.

The last kilometre of road off Highway 93 to the ranch gate never fails to get my heart rate up. I get out, open the gate and walk the last bit down to the house. Goodness, the house we built, can it be over 40 years old? Is it possible we have been married 46 years?

The house needs work, it has been neglected the last 17 years, the yard and pastures need to be mowed, windows cleaned and repaired. Everything needs a going over but it is home sweet home.

It’s been a great northern adventure but what a relief to be here! What a relief to be out from behind the wheel and off the road.

Lead image: Peter Christensen with Charlotte, heading to Oona River on the Active Pass. Photo submitted

– Peter Christensen is a Columbia Valley-based writer and poet.

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