Packing It Up

Jackie and I with a Vancouver Backdrop.

After talking to friends and family about the adventurous year ahead of us, Jackie and a few others encouraged me to blog about our experiences in Kingcome Inlet, British Columbia.  So, I am going to give it a shot and hopefully it will be entertaining for you. Jackie is the new primary teacher at the village school in this remote, first nations community. I will be joining her for the year to hold down the fort and hopefully take up a few new hobbies. It will be a year filled with different adventures and plenty of solitude with my sweety.

This entry starts in Vancouver.  We flew in from Toronto after an amazing few weeks of visiting and meeting each others family and friends. It was a great, non-stop time in Southern Ontario that left both Jackie and I quite exhausted. We spent two days in Vancouver prepping, shopping and packing for 4 months in a remote location. While in Kingcome, we will be able to order and fly in groceries, but we wanted to be prepared as the cost of that is exponentially higher. Between Costco, Superstore and Canadian Tire, we have never seen so much of our money invested into groceries and goods. It is difficult to shop for 4 months, so like the two of us enjoy doing, we just winged it and filled up cart after cart of dry and canned goods. Packing both of our vehicles was quite the task, but we managed quite nicely and made things somewhat comfortable for Atticus, our 18 month old Husky/Choco Lab cross.

Jackie and Atticus in front of a fully-loaded "Shelby".

So...on our way. We arrived at Horseshoe Bay terminal and caught our scheduled ferry ride to Nanaimo. It was a late boat and our goal was to get to Campbell River for the night. We found ourselves rolling in at about 1 AM. I was leading the way, putting along in Shelby, my ’89 VW Vanagon. On the outskirts of town, I did not see the herd of elk that were crossing the road until the very last moment. It startled me and I was able to swerve out of the way, but ended up clipping one of the hinds (female elk). My heart dropped and Jackie and I both pulled over. The poor elk was sitting in the middle of the road with her head up and whelping in obvious shock and pain. We thought the worst.  Knowing how my good friend Rick had to deal with a similar situation with a moose, not even a month ago, my guts were going crazy. I did not want to have to use my buck-knife. My mind was racing. Then, with a sudden shimmer and lift, the hind was back on her feet and trotting down the ditch. She definitely had lost some of the hop in her step, but she seemed to be doing quite alright. I am not sure what type of omen this was for us, but it definitely gave me a scare.

We set out early the next morning to arrive in Port McNeill for our chartered water taxi. We got into town a few hours early and had some time to sort out some last minute purchases and arrange for storage of our vehicles. After talking with a few characters in town about the destination of our new home, it was apparent to us that Kingcome was quite the mysterious place. Jackie and I are about to enter into one of the oldest settlements on our continent. It is speculated that the site of Kingcome has been inhabited for over 2000 years and has a storied history that we will learn more about each and every day. I look forward to sharing our experiences with you.

Leaving Port McNeill with our chartered Water Taxi.