Today was sunny and gorgeous, as the weather forecast promised. I took advantage of it for my last day on Vancouver Island to go to Ucluelet on the west coast. I must be sounding like a broken record, but what a fabulous place! The drive took me on winding roads through the centre of the island, over the central range and through Port Alberni.
On the way down to the coast, I stopped briefly at a rest stop on the Taylor River to stretch my legs. To my delight and surprise, the clear water of the river revealed a school of bright red salmon spawning in the gravel of the riverbed. Another highlight of the day was spotting a large sign by the road in Port Alberni for Aboriginal carvings and promising that an artist would be on site. Well, I just had to stop and see what was going on. The artist was a carver, Kevin Cranmer, the nephew of Doug Cranmer, who worked with Bill Reid and who made the totem pole featured at Expo 67 in Montreal! Kevin was working on a large totem pole in honour of his father (Doug's brother), who was also a master carver and who had died recently. When complete, the pole will be erected at Alert Bay in Kevin's ancestral village. Kevin took time out to explain the construction of the pole and a bit about his history and the history of the tribes on the island and along the coast of mainland BC. Fascinating! The Ucluelet coast is rough, rocky and beautiful. The coastal cedars have been bent and twisted by the wind and salt spray and are covered with moss and lichen. They make living sculptures which provide endless fascination for me. Unfortunately, I had to return to Victoria, but I enjoyed a delicious salmon dinner inspired by the spawning fish I'd seen earlier in the day. Tomorrow morning I fly back to Montreal - but I now have a long list of places I'd like to return to and explore further.
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Carol Loeb
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