The time has come for our last article in Canada. Indeed, after more than three months on the road from Montreal, including one month in Alaska and two months exploring the Canadian Rockies and the Yukon, it’s time to move on to the next chapter of our Pan-American road trip: the United States! But before that, we’re off to explore one last Canadian stop: a road trip on Vancouver Island. To get there, we put Jeepy on a ferry from Horseshoe Bay, near Vancouver, to Nanaimo.
Saturday, August 27, 2022
Our Vancouver Island road trip starts at Little Qualicum Falls Provincial Park. A short 30-minute walk takes us along a canyon with crystal-clear water.
But what really makes Vancouver Island famous are its vast, ancient rainforests. The most well-known is Cathedral Grove. We wander along the wooden walkways, amazed by the towering trees reaching ever higher to soak up the sun. Everything is damp, cold, and covered in moss. The atmosphere is heavy. The trees here are around 300 years old, and the oldest, tallest, and thickest of them all is over 800 years old, 76 meters high (250 ft.) and 9 meters around (30 ft.). That means it was already over 300 years old when Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492!
Vancouver Island’s rainforests are home to cougars, bears, wolves… and apparently, a monkey! 😁
After a quick stop at Hole in the Wall, we have a sunny picnic by Sproat Lake.
Then we head west toward Tofino. It’s a super popular spot, and we arrive on a Saturday in August, so yeah, it’s packed. Wild camping is strictly forbidden, and the campgrounds are insanely expensive. No way we’re paying $50 for a patch of woods with no services. So we head down a forest road and find a quiet spot deep in the woods for the night. Dinner at 6 p.m., and by 7, with night falling, we retreat to the Jeep to watch a show.
Sunday, August 28
Big day ahead! We’re on the road by 7:30 a.m., exploring Tofino’s surroundings and visiting Pacific Rim National Park, our last Canadian national park! The day is a mix of misty rainforest walks, stunning views of the Pacific, and long stretches of beach.
We see our first Pacific beach. And wow! Surfers, huge waves, the tide coming in, endless sand, shells, driftwood, and the ocean stretching to infinity. Here, we face the real Pacific Ocean. It is as we imagined it: cold, gray, vast, unwelcoming.
As the day goes on, the vibe changes completely. The sun burns off the fog, the water turns deep blue, more people arrive. It suddenly feels way more inviting. For swimming, we’ll wait for countries a bit further south 😀 But for now, we enjoy a picnic with our toes in the sand and a nap in the sun, lulled by the sound of the waves.
Later in the afternoon, we leave this part of the island looking for a nice place to camp. After an hour of driving, we find a riverside spot. By the time we finish cooking and eating, we end the evening in the dark. A noise behind the trees, in the darkness, bushes rustling… that’s all it takes to make us pack up in record time and dive into the Jeep to take refuge! These woods are seriously quite spooky 😅
Monday, August 29
This morning, we’re swimming! It’s 8 a.m., the sky’s gray, but the river’s crystal-clear calls to us. I stand on a rock, ready to dive. The water is very cold freezing. Rémi gets the camera ready and counts to three… Nope! Too cold! Take two. He counts again… I just can’t do it! Fine. Rémi takes my spot. I count to… Too late, he’s already jumped 😂 A refreshing dip that feels great.
After a pretty uneventful drive, except for a few goats on a rooftop, we reach an old railway trestle bridge. It’s a very beautiful wooden structure.
Tuesday, August 30
We leave early to visit Big Lonely Doug, Canada’s second-largest Douglas fir. It’s the only tree left standing after a clear-cut in 2011. Because it was especially tall and majestic, it was spared, and now towers alone over a devastated landscape.
Our Vancouver Island road trip continues south toward Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. It’s super hot, so we decide to stop at the beach for a swim! We bring gwimsuits, towels, and a picnic, and we follow a little path down to a sandy and pebbly beach. The place is stunning. We eat, sunbathe, read, nap in the sun… Swimming? Not really. We manage to dip our legs in, but the water is ice cold. Still, it’s refreshing enough!
Wednesday, August 31
Victoria! The capital of British Columbia is a beautiful city. The weather is nice and warm as we stroll through the downtown and harbor, discovering this human-scale city. Chinatown, shopping streets, Parliament, floating houses. Everything is very cute!
We stroll around until 5 p.m., when we have to head to the port, ferry time! But first, a mandatory stop at the American border. We get a brand-new visa 😎 Here we come, USA! At 7:30 p.m., we board the ferry. The sunset over the city is absolutely stunning. We share the crossing with Carine and Adelin, two French travelers living in Victoria who are about to start a five-week road trip in the U.S. It was great hanging out, have a fantastic trip! P.S. We’re seriously jealous of your mattress 😄
This marks the end of a 16-week journey that started in Montreal, Quebec, took us through Ontario and the Great Lakes, then into the central provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, before reaching Alberta. We absolutely loved Alberta and its iconic national parks and breathtaking landscapes. But Alberta was just the beginning.
From there, we headed north to reach the Yukon. What can we say? We fell in love with this province and its wild nature. It’s where we experienced one of the greatest adventures of our lives (so far): the Dempster Highway, which took us beyond the Arctic Circle and all the way to the Arctic Ocean. A dream come true. After an unforgettable time in Alaska, we concluded up our Canadian adventure in our final province: beautiful British Columbia. Since leaving Montreal, we have driven over 20,000 kilometers (12500 miles)!
It’s time to close this chapter and open a new one, one that promises countless more surprises and adventures: The United States of America, starting with Washington State and the Olympic Peninsula… But first, customs. We arrive in Port Angeles at night, where the customs agent makes us empty our fridge… He takes our tomatoes, bell peppers, grapes, onion, eggs, peaches, mushrooms… Oh wait, he catches up to us and says we can actually keep the mushrooms. And the onion too. The rest? “Not good.” With a thank-you for our honesty, he waves us through. Here we go: more than four months of road-tripping through the U.S. ahead!
