Canada Day week is always a good opportunity to go out on adventure to explore a new part of Canada. So it was in 2019 that found Alexandre and I travelling west from Prince George on Highway 16 to Prince Rupert on Canada Day week. This trip was pretty amazing, it is an all day drive to cover the 700km from Prince George through some spectacular scenery, I’ll cover that portion of the adventure in a different post.
This was a re-do of sorts of a trip we had made on Via Rail in 2014 that was an unmitigated disaster, we did not see much of Prince Rupert on that trip, except in the dark and for less than 8 hours, most of which was spent sleeping. More on this at the bottom where I get into some detail on rail access to the Port of Prince Rupert.
On this adventure we did shoot some film, although this was a trip for the digital cameras, I was a little burnt out from processing about 50 rolls of film from the Redwoods adventure we went on in May 2019. This post and the following post on the North Pacific Cannery feature photos shot on the Nikon digital SLRs.
The Pacific Northwest Coast is home to The Tsimshian first nations people, their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia and far southern Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert in British Columbia, and Alaska's Annette Islands. Prince Rupert is a city of about 12000 people located on Tsimshian traditional territory. Prince Rupert was incorporated in 1910 and is the transportation hub of BC's North Coast, which relies on the fishing industry, the port, and tourism for its survival.
Downtown Prince Rupert has some great character, we arrived later in the day thinking we could grab a motel for a couple of days to base our adventure out of… Well that was a little short sighted, early July it seems is peak salmon fishing season and all of the inns were full. Fortunately, the Moby Dick hotel had a room for us we quickly snapped up, I really didn’t want to drive the hour to Terrace at 7pm. It’s it’s a pretty nice place, but don’t expect to bring your cooler into the room, no coolers allowed. The room keys are punch cards, I have never seen anything like them before, all of this adds to the character of the place, which I think may have been new in the 1970s? The hotel insist the tourist fishermen use coolers to store their catch and they are kept in a special cooler downstairs, I’m sure there is a story there, but for this trip we just followed the rules. Great place to stay!
We spent some time at Cow Bay, a great little shopping area, with a sport fishery harbour and some excellent seafood restaurants, and a little time exploring the many Totems of the Tsimshian people located within the city. What follows is a little background of Prince Rupert which culminates in the reason not to ever travel to Prince Rupert on Via Rail at the end. This place is definitely worth the all day drive from Prince George.
Prince Rupert was founded in 1910 and was chosen as the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTP) western terminus by Charles Melville Hays, president of the GTP, who was also notable for being the Titanic when it went down off of Newfoundland in 1912. He did not return from that trip.
The GTP purchased the 14,000-acre First Nations reserve, and received a 10,000-acre grant from the BC government. Prince Rupert was named after Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the first Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Prince Rupert has an oceanic climate and is located in a temperate rainforest. Sometimes known as “The City of Rainbows" it is Canada's wettest city, with about 2,500 millimetres of annual precipitation, mainly rainfall although is can snow on occasion. 240 days per year receive at least some measurable precipitation, and there are only about 100 days of sunshine every year. A lot of those days occur in the summertime, which was ideal for our trip. I have been to Prince Rupert 3 times in my life, I have never seen it rain there, although I pass this off as good luck as opposed to doubting the fact that it does rain there.
Prince Rupert possesses the deepest ice-free natural harbour in North America, and the 3rd deepest natural harbour in the world. In addition to the port facilities, both BC Ferries and the Alaska Marine Highway operate ferries which call at Prince Rupert, with destinations in the Alaska Panhandle, the Haida Gwaii, and isolated communities along the central coast to the south.
Prince Rupert harbour is also home to a booming tourism fishing industry and is the starting point for many wildlife viewing trips including whales, eagles, salmon and grizzly bears.
All of which brings us to the railroad access to Prince Rupert I noted at the beginning. CN Rail has a mainline that runs to Prince Rupert from Valemount, British Columbia. At Valemount, the Prince Rupert mainline joins the CN mainline from Vancouver, this is primarily a freight route, although three times a week week Via Rail connects Prince Rupert with Prince George and Jasper. I've done this trip and don't recommend it, freight trains have priority on this route so delays are frequent and long. The day we traveled from Prince George to Prince Rupert we were supposed to arrive shortley after 6pm which would allow enough time to have a little look around Prince Rupert, nope, we didn't arrive until 11pm and had to be back at the train for 8am. No dinner, and very little sleep in the rather pricey hotel room. There was no chance to explore the gem of a city that is Prince Rupert. Just say no to Via rail regardless of the promises they make. Seriously.
If you ever get the chance to go to Prince Rupert, go do it, it is an amazing little city on the West Coast with friendly people and great tourism opportunities. I'll be going back when I can.
Enjoy!
Dean.
