Day 1: An auspicious start

Redmond, WA >> Nanaimo, BC (via Horseshoe Bay ferry) >> Port Hardy, BC
400 miles ridden/10 hours (+2.5-hour ferry crossing)

I had just gotten off the ferry in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and was en route to Port Hardy when the bike ran out of gas.

Admittedly, I have a need for speed. So I was gunning along with the throttle wide open, something you can’t do in America because there are too many places for cops to hide, which apparently isn’t a thing Mounties do. During my thousands of miles in Canada, I never saw one police car. However, I saw state troopers outside of Seattle ticketing morning rush hour commuters as I headed toward the Great White North; I made a left on red at a three-way intersection in Fairbanks because I was tired of waiting for the light to change, and sure enough the only other vehicle in sight turned out to be an Alaska cruiser; and in Maine I got an escort to the New Hampshire border from a Camden cop because that’s the tourist-y part of the state, not where a dirt-covered, loud motorcycle should be barreling down Route 1, apparently.

In Canada, on a clear, sunny day with a sightline to the horizon, my average speed was 85-100mph. I was prepared to use the “I didn’t realize those were kilometers-per-hour” defense, but it turned out I didn’t need it.

So, not exactly conserving fuel, despite the fact that the U.S. dollar was somehow at parity with the Canadian dollar and if I did the metric-to-imperial conversion – in Canada, gasoline is sold by the liter – I would cry. Also, this was the longest tour I’d done, which meant I was carrying more gear on the bike than ever before, so I’m going to assume the extra weight had something to do with it too. Not having a fuel gauge because I’d replaced the Honda’s stock speedometer with an electronic one that lacked this feature, I figured I’d get my usual 120 miles per 3-gallon tank, but on the first day I discovered the Honda’s 1100cc engine would only give me about 100 miles. Good thing I had 5 spare gallons of fuel with me.

That’s right, I was carrying more gas on my luggage rack in a metal jerry can than I could put in my tank. And if I went down, there was a good chance I’d catch on fire. As a Quebecer would say: C’est la vie!

I should also mention that just before the engine started sputtering and I flipped open the reserve, a bird on a kamikaze mission flew into me head-on. The trip was off to a great start! There was an impact at my armpit – the Shadow doesn’t have a windscreen after all – and then an explosion of feathers. And up to this point, I used to think wiping bugs off my jacket at the end of the day was gross. Oh, the road has so much to teach me…

And while the gloves, helmet, pants, and jacket have vents for airflow, when you’re waiting behind five cars at the Canadian border for an hour in 100-degree weather – thank you, Canadian heat wave! – you start to know how an air-cooled engine feels. And despite hoping for warmth and sunshine before leaving Boston, I was now praying for cooler weather. Naturally, this would come back to haunt me… As the saying goes: “Be careful what you wish for.”

Despite leaving Redmond, WA, at 9.30a, driving in circles through and around downtown Vancouver turned what should have been a 3.5-hour trip to the ferry into a 5.5-hour one. In fact, I was lucky to catch the 3:10pm boat to Vancouver Island! I blame my tardiness on Canadians’ discrepancies with English. Mind you, only in Quebec is French the first language; the rest of the country speaks English. To a degree.

What got lost in translation is that I was told to go through a park to access the bridge I needed to get to the ferry terminal, so naturally I exited the highway to drive into and through the park, thinking access to the bridge would be on the opposite end. Of course, when I got there after a very scenic tour of the grounds, I saw the bridge above me, unreachable from any road other than the highway. Nice, eh?

The ferry to Vancouver Island finally behind me, I still had the trip to Port Hardy – whose motto: “Live the adventure,” I found especially relevant – my final destination for the day, ahead.

It was a beautiful cruise up the coast: Forests of ship mast-straight trees flanked Route 19, which is sparsely trafficked until you want to pass a haul truck to take advantage of the wide, sweeping S-curves. You’re isolated but surrounded by nature: foxes at the edge of the woods were common, and I saw my first bear of the trip about 20 minutes before reaching Port Hardy.

It was small, a black cub – probably about 3’ at the shoulder – grazing by himself. He poked his head up from munching on grasses to see what was causing all the racket, and thankfully when he saw he’d have to chase this snack to get a bite, went back to his vegetarian diet. I thought of the saying: “Never get between a sow and her cubs,” and since she was nowhere in sight (but probably nearby), I thought it best not to stop for photos.

Pulling into Port Hardy at sunset, I was lucky to find a bank (since I’d been smart enough to start the trip with no Canadian currency) as well as a hostel with an available bunk. Checking in, I asked the owner whether she thought the name of the local supermarket – Overwaitea – was a bit odd. “Why?” she replied. “Because it’s like Sav-More?”

Before hitting the hay there was some routine maintenance to tend to: replacing the clear packing tape that protected my headlights from stones bouncing off the road. Having accumulated a day’s worth of bugs, they were nearly opaque.