Pat McGrath and his daughter, Moriah, have taken off on a Great Adventure! The final reports:
Wow, we got lucky. At dinner the first night in Canada at the magnificent Butchart gardens in Victoria, Moriah and I were seated with the only Canadians in the group, our two guides, and a mother/daughter team from Saskatchewan. We soon realized that they were very nice people and that the impending war between the US and Canada was unlikely despite the headlines. In fact, they claimed that a deal between Prime Minister Carney and Trump was very close to completion. Reassuringly, our dinner companions contended that all Canadians were eager to sustain their lifelong affection for their south-of-the-border neighbors after we become their 11th province.
So let’s all hope there’s no chickening out on this rumored deal!
Here’s the marina below our hotel in Brentwood Bay, Victoria.
And here’s a view of the Saanich Inlet from the ferry taking us and our bikes to the morning ride:
On Wednesday we left (huge) Vancouver Island for (tiny) Salt Spring Island. There are only two ways to make the trip: ferry or seaplane. We took the ferry.
While we were biking on Salt Spring Island, we stopped at at a glass maker’s workshop that was literally in the woods. The craftsman has pioneered the re-use of discarded glass and energy efficient furnaces. He has been making fine glass objects for 30 years and sells them to tourists as well as several distributors. His work is unique and completely unindustrializable. In case you’re interested in seeing his work, here’s his website: https://theglassfoundry.com/what-we-do/. Several of the riders, including both me and Moriah, bought items from him. When one of them asked if they could pay to have it shipped to avoid breakage in her luggage, he said yes, but that a 50% tariff had just gone into effect which would have to be paid upon re-entering the US.
So the cost of his products to American customers (virtually all of his customers are American tourists) has increased by 50%. And the purported benefit to American glass artisans is that they may be able to charge more, although their competition certainly doesn’t include him, so they will probably be not affected one way or another. The benefits for American tourists wanting souvenirs of their travels? Not so much. Moriah and I both bought our pieces anyway, and I look forward to showing you mine when I return.
Next stop: Galiano Island.
We ended our biking and hiking tour of the British Columbia islands on Friday. The final exertion was a very steep climb to Bluff’s Park on Galiano Island where we could see our watery route to Vancouver and the wooded islands over which we had walked, ridden—and even kayaked—all week.
Among the sights we leave behind are the Madrone trees, also called Arbutus, which live on the Pacific Coast from BC to Southern California, Their orange red bark peels away to reveal a greenish silver layer underneath. They grow in contorted shapes and bear fruit in autumn. It looks like a show off among its spruce and fir neighbors.
Here we are at our final dinner—with the ferry landing in the background.
A final comment on Canada. The ferries we relied upon to go from place to place moved people and their cars and the trucks that provisioned the remote islands, reliably, frequently, inexpensively. The ferry we took to Vancouver (actually the port is named Tsawwassen—if you can pronounce it) had the capacity for about 50 vehicles, 100 people, a snack bar, including alcohol, a crew of at least a dozen, what must have been a huge diesel engine in a place where automobile gas is ~$5.50US/gallon. The trip takes 55 minutes. The cost per passenger is $ 7 US.