To Party Hardy.

Port Hardy, BC was the first stop on our journey.  It is nearly as far North as you can get on Vancouver Island. Port Hardy is a mining, forestry and fishery blue collar town.  It had its hay-day long ago and has been trying to recover ever since.

We would not have picked it on the map because we probably would not have found it. My best friend had moved out 4 years ago and was the primary reason for making it our first stop.

Our home was a 1 minute walk to Story’s Beach. The sandy shore was the perfect setting for evening walks, and also prime ground for crabbing at low tides.

The first night I was on call at Port Hardy I came in at 3am to assess a patient who eventually needed to be sedated and I placed a breathing tube due to severe pneumonia. Then had to wait a few more hours until a plane could land at the little airport. The medicine there was rarely boring to say the least!

The hiking was amazing there! Our best trip was out to Raft Cove via the Mackjack river.

The adventure started with a 3 hour driving with 4 of us crammed into the front seat of my friend Chris’ truck. We saw plenty of black bear as we wound our way down the maze of logging roads until we got lucky and found the overgrown trail head in the middle of the wilderness.  With a paddleboard, canoe and kayak we weaved our way for 2 hours down the tidal river until we hit shore at Raft Cove. We surfed, had fires, walked down the beach and had such an amazing time!

I would go back to Port Hardy in a heartbeat. It was a quaint little town on the edge of the wilderness with no shortage of adventures!