Queen Charlotte City to Prince Rupert

We pulled into Queen Charlotte City just as Monday was turning into Tuesday. Paul docked the ship for the night, so we were able to spend one more night on board. And got to interview him and Johnny before heading onto land in the morning. It was a strange feeling, climbing up the ladder to the dock, the sun still low in the sky, the village still sleeping. (Don't let the name fool you, Queen Charlotte City is very small - it was actually incorporated as the "Village of Queen Charlotte" last year, but QCC just sticks.) We watched the boat pull away,then headed up to the main street.

Just off the dock, there was a small convenience store. Just up from that, there were two cafes across the street from each other, where most people seemed to be grabbing their morning coffees. Further up, a pub on the left (still closed) and on the right the fishing and tackle and general store. We kept going to the highway (two lane road that travels most of the island) and headed along it to the hostel. We probably looked drunk, cause we still had our sealegs, and the ground seemed to be teetertottering back and forth.

We got settled and decided to take it easy - checked out the local supermarket, bought some lunch, went back to the hostel, slept a bit. Being on the water for that long had been really tiring, and that first day was kinda a write off. But we met two women, one from Germany, the other from Japan but currently living in Vancouver, who were also staying at the hostel and we had a barbeque with them that night. They'd been WWOOFing on a local farm for the past couple of weeks or so. WWOOF is Willing Workers on Organic Farms, or World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Basically if you want to travel and work, you can volunteer on an organic farm, and you get meals and accommodation in return. And the cultural exchange - chance to meet people in the local area, chance to "live" in the local area for a while. Check out the Canadian website: http://www.wwoof.ca/canada/homecanada.html

The next day we got our butts into gear and did some interviews in QCC and then hitchhiked to Skidigate and got a couple of interviews there. Yeah, I swore I'd never hitchhike again, but Skidigate is fairly close, within a couple hours' walk, and as there is no bus service, everyone hitchhikes. So we were quite successful. Maybe mainly cause we'd already met the guy, so he offered us a lift, and he was a minister, but our other hitchhiking attempts were also successful.

Anyway, Skidigate was really pretty. We popped into the pub, interviewed the bartender, and then met with one of Noelle's friends for a bit. She took us down to the main beach, where there was a Longhouse, which houses the Haida language school. I really wanted to get some interviews in the Haida native language, but it just didn't work out this time around. Maybe if I could head up there in the fall . . . it's not that far away.

Anyway, this morning we got going early and headed down to the coffee shops. There's a really nice outdoor area in front of The Purple Onion Deli, and we interviewed a bunch of the customers over coffee and sandwiches.

And now we're on the ferry heading back to Prince Rupert. It's a bit strange looking out over the Hecate Straight, having spent so much time in it in the fishing boat, and now plowing through it in (relatively) no time. Everything is relative.