Prince Rupert - Just for the Halibut

  Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada
Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Wake of Our Ferry

We awoke before dawn (which is hard when the sun comes up at 5am!) and drove aboard the ferry for our 15 hour voyage up the Inside Passage to Prince Rupert, British Columbia.   Along the way, we saw Grey and Humpback whales (with one breaching completely out of the water!) as well as a school of feeding porpoises and a black bear on the shoreline.   We sailed by the mist covered mountains rising dramatically out of the sea and watched as the snow line dropped lower and lower on the hillsides as we travelled north.  Arriving late, we checked right into the Anchor Inn and got up early the next morning to search for Aili's family.  Unfortunately, there was no cell phone reception even though Rupert is the second largest city on the BC mainland coast (population 15,000), so we resorted to driving by the docks along the local canning factories and fish companies.  Aili knew her Dad dropped off his catch at Aero Fish Company just down the road in Port Edward but after walking the docks with no sign of the Jody Sue (Dad's halibut boat), we returned to the docks around Rupert.  
 

The Jody Sue

On our third try, we saw him standing on the floating dock alongside his boat and went aboard to say hello.   Aili's Dad has been out fishing for just over a month with her brother, Timm, and Timm's girlfriend, Steph.  They had dropped their catch off yesterday and said that it's been a really slow start to the season.   We boarded the boat and tagged along as he motored up the coast back to Port Ed to fill the hold

Ahoy!

with ice and load some bait fish.  After the lengthy process, we returned to Rupert on the boat, watching as the passing cruise ships loomed overhead and porpoises played in our wake.  With fishing slow, the trips have been taking longer, up to 10 to 12 days since it

First Mate

doesn't make sense to return until the hold's full.  Unfortunately that doesn't fit well with our schedule so we had to pass on the fishing adventure this time (much to Aili's relief - she says she's done it a few too many times already!).  Still, it was fun just taking the boat around the tiny islands between the harbors on our round trip to ice-up.   Back in town, we had a nice dinner with the family then waved goodbye as they went back aboard the boat for their next trip.  Back on land, we checked into the Black Rooster hostel for a couple nights so we could explore the town.  
 

Old Cannery

Aili put herself through college fishing halibut with her dad and has been to Rupert many times.  Each time was on a fishing trip so other than the local restaurants, grocery stores and fish companies, she hasn't seen much else of the area.  Honestly, there isn't much else, but we walked along the wharf and around the little downtown area (spotting a bald eagle in his tree right next to a coffee shop) and then drove

Stocked with Cans

out toward Port Ed to an old cannery town restored into a local museum.  The recently opened (or re-opened) site was pretty cool and showed the history of fishing and how the old canning operations worked in the early 1900's.  Also on display was a brief history of the fish packing industry and the United Fisherman and Allied Workers Union (of which Aili's dad was vice president for a while).   We stopped by a fresh fish market to by some local catch and cooked it up for dinner with a bottle of wine and some veggies then set our alarms for a 4:30 a.m. wake up to catch the ferry up to Juneau, Alaska.