Canada - Vancouver Island

Michael - as degenerate as me

A long lost friend from Ireland, Michael Keeley, would join me for three weeks of adventure in Canada and America.
We rendez-voued in a hostel in downtown Vancouver, where two Australian guys, Rob and Colin agreed to drive us on the ferry to Vancouver Island.

The ferry to Vancouver Island

Port Alberny was a place where we heard it was possible to see bears along the river at high tide. Sure enough as we got there, a black bear was strolling along the banks.

We got wind of where we could see even more bears – at a salmon farm.

Port Alberny Bear

Pulling in to Robertson Creek, we see signs posted everywhere saying: CAUTION – Bears on site. With over 100 000 salmon jumping in and out of the lake, it made the perfect picnic spot for our big Black friends.

Caution - Beastly Bears aBound

Being five of us, we decide to brave it into the woods. We came up with a few protocols on what should happen if…….. Stay together, stay still and wait it out, was the consensus.

One of 100 000 salmon

With me leading the pack, we turn a corner and suddenly less than a few meters in front of me I beheld a Black Bear. No one else saw it. I hardly managed to secrete the word: B-E-A, before something happened which we hadn’t heard about or read in textbooks. The thing started to charge towards us – or ME rather, seeing as I’m in front.

A walk in the woods

Not for long! Every instinct in my body said to get the hell away from being the first to be mauled. This involved throwing two people into the ditch to scramble to a safe third place.

In the space of a microsecond a war broke out. In slow motion, it went something like this: I throw Michael to the left where he lands upside down in the ditch. Next I grab Colin and rugby tackle him backwards, also into the ditch. This whole time Michael is holding on to my leg with a grip of: “If I’m going down, Jerry is definitely coming with me”. The other two managed to flee the scene completely.

One minute bears are cute and cudly: the next.........

Somehow the bear managed a last second aversion, during which time three petrified pair of eyes are looking up from the ditch waiting for a mad beast to come around the corner and eat them. As soon as Michael pulls himself together he breaks his stick over me and everyone joins in to calling me a traitor. That I sold my friends to save myself! So what. Anyone would have done the same. Besides, it was not in the “protocol” that a bear would come charging towards anyone.

He cant catch me so he goes for the salmon instead

With most of us scarred for the rest of our lives, we pile back into the car to head west to the Pacific Rim National Park and quaint beach town Tofino where we heard they were hosting their first ever Annual Beer Festival. Some of the trees in the park where so big, it took up to 6 adults to span around it with outstretched arms.

Pacific Rim National Park

It takes 6 to hug a tree

Tofino Beer Festival 2006

A group of international students drive us to the islands capital Victoria. The convoy involved a car full of boys and another full of girls. The 3 hour journey was made exceptionally tolerable with 70 mile per hour quid pro quo exchanges of boobs for bums out the car window.

Lasting as long as it did, the game took inevitably violating turns, which meant that eye contact was impossible when we finally said goodbye.

The convoy

The island is a famous place for going whale watching. Though many different types of whales come through these waters, there was only one kind Michael and I were interested in. Orcas. That’s Killer Whales to you.

Dressed up for whale watching

As 5 or so Orcas are exhibiting themselves at arms length from our Zodiac, our guide puts an instrument in the water which allows us to hear their echo location sounds. One whale looked directly into my eyes. Cruising back to shore with the sun setting before us, a bald eagle is perched on a log: our guide tells us we were the luckiest group he had taken out. I should hope so. It took me the whole of the night before to come to terms with parting with the 60 dollars!!!

A killer whale splashes its tail

The Orca

Our hostel in Victoria faces a nightclub we frequented every night. One night I didn’t even manage to get the ten meters across the street before I find myself once again in cuffs and headed for the Royal Mounted Canadian Police Station.

House of Parliament - where laws are passed about people like me

This time I was wholly innocent, as I later deducted they were only filling a quota of arrests, in the hope they would find drugs on me. I was released the next morning without charge.

Optical illusion - its actually the worlds tallest totem pole at 39m

Taking the ferry back from Vancouver Island we see some mountains which form part of the Olympic Mountain range. They belong to an entirely different part of the world. A first for Michael, we were on our way to AMERICA.

Along the pacific coasts of north America: 2 guys skinny dipping