In September/early October 2018 we visited British Columbia, Canada. The first week we toured around Vancouver Island, enjoying the fine weather, the landscape including the old growth forest and its impressive trees and the great food at Spinnakers Restaurant/Hotel in Victoria. The last few days we wandered around Vancouver itself, with its impressive high-rises and ever busy city center. Pictures from Vancouver/Island are under the "Landscape and People" heading.
The main part of our trip, however, was with the good ship "Passing Cloud" (https://outershores.ca/) on a roundtrip from First Nations town Bella Bella - a little more than an hour flying north of Vancouver - through the Great Bear Rainforest area. A fjord landscape, larger than all of Holland and mostly pristine wilderness. The area is protected, with only some First Nations settlements. The fjords can be surprisingly deep (200-500 meters), dropping down almost vertically from the banks, allowing the (abundant) whales to dive deep very close to the boat. As this was the salmon migration season, we went looking for bears, seals and eagles, waiting for the salmon to arrive. It has been a dry summer, with little water in the rivers and a slow salmon year, so wildlife could have been more numerous, but still we did see Grizzly and Black bears, hundreds of Bald Eagles and Sea Lions and - unrelated to the salmon migration - a great number of Humpback Whales.
With no internet or cellphone connection for 10 days, we were able to concentrate on photography, supported by Outer Shores expert James and our friends on this tour; Becky, Phil, Ellen and Jack - all photographers. Captain Russell and first Mate Dan guided us handsomely through the fjords and bays and chef Erin delighted us with her exquisite meals. A truly wonderful trip - one of our very best.
P
