Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada
July 14, 2019
Prince Rupert was a strange one to get to from Stewart. As the crow flies it's only about 120 Km South of Stewart. However as the terrain in between the two towns is mountainous and rugged the road has to loop in land to the East and this takes the driving distance up to 450 Km. With breakfast out of the way and Buddy packed up we headed off back to Meziadin junction and then took the road South from there.
It was another quiet days driving. Driving music was on again, another game of spot the bear was followed by a lot of road works that slowed our pace down. Several hours later we drove into a small town called Kitwanga where we took a break.
Kitwanga was really cool. It's a tiny little town without too much going on but it has one of the best free campsites we have came across so far. There is a small area in town called Centennial park. It was built in 1967 with government funding as part of Canada's centennial year celebrations. Ever since then the locals have looked after it and maintained it to an amazingly high standard. It's the pride and joy of the town. It has several camp spots available to tourists for free, has free firewood with use of an axe and some lovely flower boxes that the local volunteers come out and water every day. It's just a great, well maintained little park that the locals are rightly proud of. We made a mental note to stay here on the way back from Prince Rupert and then headed back off West along Highway 16 towards the coast.
When we reached a larger town called Terrace time was starting to get on a bit so we checked our apps and maps and drove North out of Terrace to a free spot on the shore of lake Kitsumkalum. It was a great spot for the night. A crowd of local kids who had broke up from school for the summer were spending the night camping there as well and they were a canny enough bunch. I think we may have a little bit too much to drink that night as we woke up late with bad heads and all the kids packed up and the site deserted.
A few coffee's and some breakfast later we hit the road again and slowly but surely arrived at Prince Rupert on the West coast. We weren't even sure why we had chosen to go well out of our way to Prince Rupert as it was quite the detour. We had wanted to get to some small coastal towns to try some local seafood and from what we had seen and read Prince Rupert seemed like a decent choice. The West coast of Canada is pretty rugged, with many small islands and the impressive coastal mountain range that lines the mainland coast. It makes accessing places by car on the coast quite tricky as roads in these parts are few and far between. Most of the coastal towns are linked by ferry and as much as we wanted to explore the islands and coast, in particular Haida Gwai, the cost for us to do so was astronomical. For a foot passenger it's not too bad on the ferries, but if you want to take a vehicle you pay by the foot length and when we looked into it it would have cost us well over $1,000 CAD to do just some basic routes on the ferries. We simply couldn't afford it and exploring the coast and islands fully may have to wait for another trip if we ever make it back this way.
Prince Rupert itself seemed canny enough. It's a fairly small town but has a thriving docks for both shipping cargo to the far East and for tourist activities such as whale watching. Unfortunately it's too early in the year for whale watching so that wasn't an option for us.
We enjoyed exploring the old bay area with it's quirky gift shops and abundance of sea food restaurants. This area of town has a nice eclectic feel about it. A mish mash of different brightly coloured wooden shop fronts really catch the eye and there is an abundance of street art on display in this area. We spent a few hours round here before driving a short way out of town to park up in a lay by for the night.
The following day we were up early and headed back into town to sample some of the famous seafood here. We did a lot of reading to find which of the many restaurants and cafes was the pick of the bunch before settling on a place called Dolly's Fish Market. It wasn't the cheapest for sure but it's the first proper sit down meal at a restaurant we've had since arriving in Canada about 11 weeks ago. Safe to say I think we had earned this meal and we ordered some scallop linguine, a fish and chips and a ceasar salad to finish it off. The food at Dolly's was amazing. Ever so fresh. The fish was beautifully battered and light and crisp, and the linguine with scallops was to die for. It was worth every penny and we were glad we had saved our one restaurant meal during Canada for this place.
With our bellies full it was time to leave Prince Rupert and head back in land on highway 16. We briefly stopped off to check out Port Edward on the way but there wasn't much to see so we cracked on all the way back to Kitwanga and it's beautiful free municipal camp site at Centenary park.
Once at Kitwanga we settled in for the night with our free fire wood and a beautiful sunset washed down with a few beers and bourbons. We were visited by one of the locals who has helped maintain the site since it opened in 1967. I don't recall the old fellas name but he was ever so friendly and welcoming. He gave us a great run through of the history of Kitwanaga, how he came to be here and how all the locals chip in to help maintain the site. The site is free to stay at but has a donation box for you to contribute towards it's upkeep if you so desire. Things such as toilet paper, bin bags etc all come out of the locals own pockets unless they receive enough donations to cover the cost and we gladly left $10 in the box when we headed off the next day. If your passing through this area we highly recommend camping here. It's a lovely spot and as always it's nice to get chatting to the locals to find out a bit more about the place and to enjoy their hospitality.
