August 18

We made our day trip to Prince Rupert today. The day began very overcast with low clouds and rain that mostly obscured the view of the mountains but later in the day the weather cleared up and we had some pretty views of the mountains in the fading daylight on the way back to camp. We first stopped at a First Nations store to view their totem poles, crafts and many other items on display. A native lady named Carol added much to our knowledge of the culture and history of native peoples. The highway follows the Skeena River nearly all the way to Prince Rupert. Before going into Prince Rupert we drove to Port Edward and on to the North Pacific Historic Fishing Village where we toured the village and salmon cannery. All buildings and the boardwalk connecting them were set on pilings along the waterfront. Some of the buildings had been made into museums to display fishing artifacts with their associated history as well as the people’s history of that era. Buildings included small huts to house the workers, houses for various fishing operations and cannery officials as well as their offices and a general store. The tour guide explained and demonstrated to a certain extent how the original production line was run totally manually and then repeated this for the mechanized line that replaced all manual operations which was quite interesting. In Prince Rupert we did pretty much a self guided tour and had dinner. We looked through the visitor’s center, visited a small but beautiful sunken garden, the seaplane base, the waterfront area where we watched men unloading live Dungeness crabs and just did a general look-see around town. Prince Rupert is a sizeable seaport city of about fifteen thousand and was quite clean and appealing with decent shopping and amenities. Native peoples’ influence and presence is very prominent all around this area as has been the case over much of our trip. Mom: “You all know me very well and I am ready to get back home. How does it go? Something like, No More Waterfalls!!!!!!!!!!!! I need my grandkids to love. Hugs and kisses are on the way. You boys better run.”