Off to Alaska

I'm up too early, again. Can't seem to sleep more than six hours. And I haven't been able to take naps, because of all the interviews and driving. Hopefully, I'll be able to rest up a bit on the ferry.

I'll be sorry to leave Prince Rupert. I've met some great people here, and I would love to come back some day.

I did an interview with Shaun Thomas at The Northern Connector the night I arrived here on Thursday and a live interview on CBC with Russell Bowers a little after 6:30 yesterday morning. Then I met with C. J. Volney of Northwest This Week at the Cowpaccino coffee house in Cow Bay. We were joined at the table by a woman who had heard me on the radio and was very interested in what I was doing. She had just come down from the high Arctic and said that the Inuit there are having a lot of trouble hunting now, because they can't trust the ice.

A little later in the morning I visited Rainforest Books, and the owner Gordon Blumhagen took some of the Sierra Club material I've been carrying in my car, including postcards for Gordon Campbell, the Premier of BC. They show a photo of what Vancouver will look like in the very near future, with much of it flooded.

While I was chatting with him, Jennifer Rice with World Wildlife Fund came in with her two pups, a collie/husky cross and....a white german shepherd. I melted. I went back with her to her office and recorded my own interview with her. She and other members of the community are studying the eel grass in the waters of Prince Rupert so they will have some base data to look at before the superport here is built. Yes, I mean superport.

This sleepy little village is about to be totally transformed, with a proposed pipeline from the East and I imagine, a four-lane highway along the beautiful Skeena River. I hate to think about it. Of course, with the lumber mill here closed, people are looking for jobs, so the superport is something that we'll just have to accept.

Let's hope, this time, that the developers will be careful to preserve the natural beauty of this place. It's pretty special.

I should mention that yesterday afternoon, I met with James Vassallo of the Prince Rupert Daily News. He had done a wonderful story about my trip on June 30th, and he gave me some copies of that newspaper. We met at Tim Horton's, which, as it turns out has a great tuna fish sandwich. Nice to know. Need that protein.

Speaking of food, I wisely, I think. skipped the hotel restaurant and went across the street to a Vietnamese spot, not expecting much. Well, they had Pho on the menu, all sorts of kinds, and I was in heaven. A recovering American (very handsome, I might add) joined me and we struck up a good conversation. He keeps his boat in Sidney in the wintertime, so I hope that he and his partner, who is Chilean, will come to visit me later this year. He almost grabbed my check, but of course I wouldn't let him. His name is Doug. Don't know his last name.

It's time to pack up. I'm looking out the window at the harbour, and it looks like it's blowing a gale. This will make getting all my stuff back in the car really challenging.

Hope to be back on line soon....