A pandemic isn’t a great time to be overlanding, but if that’s where you find yourself, you could do worse than be overlanding a place like Canada. We spent a chunk of the autumn around Vancouver Island where it was (relatively) easy to stay safe from the dratted ‘rona virus…

Good News/Bad News

So we’ve been over eight months in Canada now, but definitely not ‘stuck’. Nope. Okay… the border to USA is still closed, so we can’t swan south to the warmth of Arizona. But ‘stuck’ implies some kind of ‘get me outta here’ desperation to escape. That’s not us. We like being in Canada. Right now, with overlanders all over the world being genuinely ‘stuck’ (either stuck in their vehicles in places they don’t want to be, or stuck in their home countries worrying about when they can get back to their vehicles) we are happy, not to mention extremely lucky, to be still out here.

But that’s not to say 2020 hasn’t been a bit of a Good News/Bad News Rollercoaster for us. In case you hadn’t noticed, the ‘rona virus pandemic is well into its second major phase in the northern hemisphere. That’s a bad thing. But our good news is that Canada just happens to be in one of the safest places in the world to wait out the pandemic, with loads to explore and (mostly) the freedom for us to continue overlanding. Bad news: winter is coming, and winters are harsh in Canada. Good news: our truck is well set-up for harsh winter conditions, the Rockies in winter are spectacular and we love skiing.

So to the extent that we can make a ‘Grand Plan’ for an uncertain pandemic winter… some skiing and seeing the amazing frozen waterfalls of the Rockies would be it (a plan made in full expectation that it will, at some undetermined stage, be relegated to the historic status of ‘Plan A’).

Waiting for Ski-O’clock

But first, let’s go back a few weeks to early October. There we were… quietly enjoying the fabulously long summer in beautiful Canmore, Alberta… hiking, kayaking and eating café lunches on sunny patios, when suddenly… wallop! In mid-October a huge dump of snow descended, together with a minus oh-my-god degrees on the thermometer.  The winter malarkey had arrived uninvited and with indecent haste. The change took us a bit by surprise. It was cold and snowy, but still several weeks before the ski resorts open for our anticipated season of snow-fun. Hmmmm… we don’t want to hang around clearing snow off Cuthbert’s solar panels every morning in bitter cold.

Clearing the snow of the solar panels… it arrived with indecent haste to Alberta in October!

So we decided to head down to Vancouver Island – Canada’s ‘Sunshine State’. Okay, okay… it’s not quite a Floridian climate. But it does have the longest summers and mildest climate in Canada. And it’s a beautiful island too, so off we go to hang out at the seaside until it’s ski-o’clock.         

Sunshine Coast

First, we have to get to Vancouver for the island ferry. We took a zig-zag route from Canmore, Alberta through British Columbia, stopping off in numerous fab places (favourites… Nelson and Revelstoke) before reaching Kelowna/Big White to (re)visit our lovely friends there. Then we hit the Pacific coast.

Last time we passed through Vancouver City was back in March on our original entry to Canada. Covid hadn’t quite caught on there at that time; the city was open but shrouded in crappy weather. Seven months later… it’s still shrouded in crappy weather. And an additional unattractive feature this time, is the concentration of ‘rona virus cases. Like most major cities in the world, Vancouver’s Covid stats aren’t exactly enticing the tourists in right now.

The coastline north of Vancouver was faring better in the Covid stakes and is meant to be nice, so we headed there instead. This little stretch opposite Vancouver Island is known as the Sunshine Coast and guess what? It does what it says on the tin… the sun actually did shine!! Ahhhh! Sunny, blue skies and a good ten degrees warmer than back inland!

Exploring Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast

Although the Sunshine Coast is actually on the mainland of Canada, it’s inaccessible by land and the communities are served by series of ferries.  We had a great time alternating between ferries, the ‘main’ roads and the rough forestry dirt-tracks to explore the beaches, beautiful mountain lakes and cute fishing villages. When we reached the end of the road and could drive no further, we took another ferry from Powell River at the northern end of the Sunshine Coast over to Comox, Vancouver Island.

Island Life

Back in March we did a short trip out to see Vancouver Island, but in our (doomed) haste rushing north to reach the Arctic Ocean before the Northwest Territories ice-bridges melted, we restricted our explorations to the south of the Island. This time on our return, we tackled the north of the Island and soon realised there’s just a wee hint of rivalry between north and south 😉.

Out-of-season… deserted and beautiful coast and beaches of Vancouver Island

The north end of Vancouver Island is noticeably more remote and far less populated than the south. And it’s often subject to different weather systems. I’ll spare you the dull blow-by-blow itinerary of our north-end circuit, but the piccies tell the story of how beautiful and wild it is up there. A stand-out jaunt is a long scramble over rainforest roots, climbing over fallen trees and squelching through ankle deep mud to reach the remote and wild Raft Cove beach. Oh… and the bear watching in Zeballos was beary special too. What with there being so many salmon in the rivers at the moment, the bears are out there huntin’ and fishin’ to fill their tummies for winter.  

‘Rona Restrictions – here we go again…

After touring the north, we wandered gradually in a southerly direction back down the Island and stayed a while with our overlanding friends Lance, Clare and the super-cute boys Gus and Nate. We had a plan to investigate a few places in the south of the island that we hadn’t reached last time we were here. But before we could get down there, our old friend the ‘rona virus was starting to do his ‘thing’. Again. The so called ‘second wave’ is now spreading more widely across BC, not just in the cities 🙁.

Scroll through the bears and bald eagles of Zeballos, Vancouver Island

Back in October the Provincial Government put out warnings about restricting Thanksgiving and Halloween shenanigans, but did anybody listen??? 🤔 Into November… and guess what??? Cases sky-rocketed. Even on the Island, where cases had so far been relatively low, the count was careering rapidly in an undesirable direction. This could, of course, be the upshot of said shenanigans. Others blame it on the recent influx of ‘snowbird’ retirees from all over Canada who can’t get to Sunnyville, USA this year. Who knows??? The RV Parks on the Island are indeed chocca-bloc with the monster-sized snowbird motorhomes, but these probably aren’t the super-spreaders.

Whatever… the numbers are up big-time for some reason. So now the whole Province of BC has new restrictions: mandatory masking, reducing social groups, and a ‘travel advisory’ asking people not to do any unnecessary travel around. Bugger. No overlandy-touristy-stuff for a while then 😒

What next?  

So what next??? It’s pointless making plans in these times. We can’t tour around and see the sights, so we want to get to an area to spend the new ‘restricted period’.  So we’re off to ski.  The resorts are allowed to open with strict regulations on masking-up and so on and seem very safe. It would be great to know how long this latest ‘rona virus wave is going to last. Anyone out there got a crystal ball??? A vaccine is now on its way, so there is light at the end of the tunnel… somewhere.

Like the rest of the world, it’s frustrating to have restrictions in Canada, but we remain chuffed and grateful that we can still be here living the #homeiswhereyouparkit life. From our media reading of other countries, it seems that lock-downs and restrictions are the new de rigeur trend around much of the world right now. So we’re no worse off here in Canada than we would be elsewhere. In fact, even with the restrictions, we still can’t think of anywhere we’d rather be. Thank you, Canada. Just for being so damned awesome and providing a winter ski season we can look forward to!