Deep into Cougar country

From Cathedral Groves, I had two options: I could head back to Victoria, or I could go north. Since I told Carol-anne I’d be back in a few days, I didn’t want to come back after one. So I went North, taking the ocean side highway and stopping at a few beaches along the way to play with some little crabs, search out sand dollars and pretty much just take my time.

I was going to stop around Campbell River, but didn’t have a map, and the GPS had decided to stop working (sorry John….) I also needed gas. The girl at the counter was very cheerful. I asked if she thought the trip up to Port Hardy (on the north end of the island) was worth the drive. She hemmed and hawed a bit then asked if I like hiking. Since I do, I told her yes. She suggested I go past Port Harvey to Cape Scott Provincial park, and that San Josef Bay had a really good hike. I bought a Vancouver Island Map from her, and went on my way.

I was already tired when I reached Port Hardy. I knew that the Park was about 40 km outside of Port Hardy, what I didn’t know, was that those 40 km were entirely on logging roads. These giant trucks would fly by, on these tiny roads, my only option was to drive as far into the ditch as I could and hope that a truck didn‘t come by in a section of road where the ditch was a drop off the mountain, or into the water.

Also, 40km on paved highway, and 40 km on logging roads are two completely different things (Like swimming in a nice warm pool and swimming in the freezing, wavy ocean…) It might be important to note that although the map was really well laid out with the road names one them, the roads themselves were not labelled and there were many more roads than were on the map, and they all kind of looked the same, and they only occasionally had an arrow pointing towards the park.

It was Forty kilometres of logging; clear-cut land, some replanted, and some older replanted areas. In a maze of roads, I wished my GPS worked. My sense of adventure was leaving me with every near-death passing of a logging truck. At one point a road sign said “be prepared for the unexpected”. I thought to myself “I’m not prepared for this” but the roads were too narrow to even turn around. I was beginning to doubt that there even was a campground at the end of the road.



When I finally found the campground it was pretty barren. There was no front gate and no real buildings except for a couple of outhouses. The overgrown campsites had a old picnic table and a fire pit. What creeped me out the most was that it seemed completely empty. In fact the only sign of recent human activity was a sign on an outhouse warning of a family of bears in the area, and a note from June warning that the male seemed hungry and unafraid of humans!

I drove further down the road and to my relief I saw an older man, his wife and their campervan. I picked a campsite near theirs. Not close enough to see them, the sites are pretty private, but close enough that they would be able to hear my screaming if I was being attacked by the resident bears.

Swarmed by mosquitos when I left the car, I made a quick dinner and burned some of my garbage (less temptation for bears…) and hid in the car to watch a movie. The old couple walked by and looked into my campsite, confused. Maybe they were expecting to see me, or a tent, but I was hiding out in the car. I’m pretty sure they were looking for campsite fees, but they never came to collect.

These are some of the pictures from the San Josef Bay hike, which as predicted was amazing and remote. But I kept Ben on a very short leash after a posted sign warned that an off-leash dog had been killed by a cougar the day before... With my luck Benny would try to befriend the big kitty.

In my next installment, tips on how to avoid getting caught camping for free…. If you consider sleeping in your car camping… which I’m not sure I do. Anyway, stay tuned.