Is about our adventures in Alberta.

And can be found here.

We couldn’t make it onto the early ferry today, so we had more time in Victoria. That was nice because yesterday it was too hot to go out, so we didn’t do much. They have a great collection of totems near the waterfront.

Unfortunately, the majority were unidentified by artist or tribe.

Is it OK to call native art cute?

Fierce.

A mortuary totem. The body would actually be encased up there.

Eagle.

Our friend Dan is famous as the guy who makes the moron shirts. This guy in Canada swiped his concept!

This guy paid $30 Canadian for the shirt, he said.

If our schedule is correct, we have now returned to U.S. soil via Port Angeles or are in the process of crossing right this minute. And let me say, it is good to be home!

 We had an issue in Alberta that I haven’t mentioned, involving a Canadian who thought he could call public campgrounds private and shoo us pesky U.S. citizens out of there. That happened on our second day there, and I’m still boiling mad about it. Granted, I don’t like it either when people show up and Refugio  Beach or Figueroa Mountain, my local parks, and act like they own the place. But we didn’t do that, and to have this guy lie to us with such audacity was really unprecedented.

As soon as we drove in, he walked up and checked our license plate to see where we were from. Then he told us that the campground, “was private, and had been reserved by his friends for the weekend.” Total baloney. We left anyway because we didn’t want to stay somewhere we weren’t wanted. But it was still a creepy thing to go through.

This was my sixth trip to Canada and the only time I felt more unwelcome as an American was the time the Quebecians tried to steal my little brother’s kidney. (Long story for another time. They failed.) Anyway. End rant.

May be a long time, if ever, that I return to this island. Though it was awfully hot, there was still much beauty.

Early sunset at Tofino.

Buoys on barbed wire.

Roots.

Early morning at the Tofino harbor.

Mossy tree midisland.

Wharves.

Eagle in Victoria.

St. Andrews Cathedral in Victoria.

Might be more constructive than a light blue line?

Probably not, since common logic says the town would be shielded by the Channel Islands by any major Pacific wave. But, it never hurts to be prepared..

Replica tower.

The campground where we’re staying calls itself the Fort Victoria RV park. Today on my run I learned that just down the street from here was where early ships coming to the island would stop to get fresh water. There are beautiful but not overly pretentious homes along the West Victoria inlet.

The painting downtown that we saw last night looks pretty similar to the replica “fort” they put up here at the park. Points for accuracy.

Old Fort.

According to Wikipedia: “Fort Victoria was a fur trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the headquarters of HBC operations in British Columbia. The fort was the beginnings of a settlement that eventually grew into the modern Victoria, British Columbia, the capital city of British Columbia.

The headquarters of HBC operations on the Pacific slope of the Rockies at the time of Victoria’s founding was Fort Vancouver, on the lower Columbia River, but it had struggled for years to turn a profit; its location was difficult to defend, inaccessible to ships and too far from the lucrative furs in New Caledonia. The signing of the Oregon Treaty settled the matter of Fort Vancouver’s further suitability. The company sent James Douglas to build a fort some distance north on Vancouver Island and made him its Chief Factor.”

Chief Factor. Now there’s a title.

View from Level 18 of the Chateau Victoria.

Old Fort Victoria.

Painted whale.

We're still trying to interpret this one. Are those cattail reeds or flying jalapeno peppers?

The Mosaic, an amazing building front.

Marmot mural. I need to find out more about this. Is the marmot extinct or merely in danger of becoming so?

On the waterfront.

Coming back on the bus we could see the regional government building (which has a rotunda like the U.S. Capitol) completely lit up with white lights. It was really beautiful.

Here’s my SAT analogy for today. Vancouver is to (blank) as Victoria is to (blank).

The choices are:

a. London, Paris

b. Los Angeles, Catalina

c. San Francisco, Paris

d. Los Angeles, Santa Barbara

If you used the SAT way of reasoning to solve it, it should be London, Paris, because they are both large cosmopolitan cities separated by a body of water. There’s a case for LA, Catalina because for this to really work, both cities should be part of the same state. If you used Leah logic, the answer is San Francisco, Paris, because those are the two cities that seem analogous to Vancouver and Victoria to me experientially.  Erik once knew someone from Victoria who thought Victoria was like Santa Barbara. But we can’t figure out that comparison at all. Maybe I’m stretching with this. It’s kind of late and we were on the bus for awhile.

To this poor lamb, which I misidentified as a goat in an earlier post. Good shear! I can’t believe nobody pointed out the mistake.

Baa-ram-ewe!

The farm dogs are desperate to try to herd this sheep, even though it is already penned.