The Journey North

It suddenly occurs to me that I never did explain how we got to Kitimat. It's a two day drive here from Victoria and an absolutely beautiful one in the summer. You can either take the ferry to Vancouver and then drive halfway up (to about Quesnel or Williams Lake) in one day and then the rest of the way the next day or drive to Port Hardy at the north end of Vancouver Island (an 8 or 9 hour drive from Victoria) in one day and then take a 15 hour ferry trip to Prince Rupert the next and drive 3 hours to Kitimat from there. I've done both ways several times and it's absolutely beautiful.

However, it's December and it's not so beautiful a drive this time of year so we flew. We couldn't get a flight out of Victoria so we ferried to Vancouver and flew out of there. After spending the whole day in the airport (we went hours early so my mom could go to ikea. Yeesh!!) we were finally ready for takeoff. But then there was a mechanical problem and our flight was delayed for about an hour while we waited for a replacement plane. While waiting, another flight going to Smithers also had a mechanical problem and several others were held up because of weather at their destination point. One flight to Cranbrook had to be redirected to Edmonton!!! That means bussing back across the mountains in the middle of winter. Not fun.

Well, we finally got on our flight and not 15 minutes out of Vancouver there was another mechanical problem and we had to go back to Vancouver so they could fix it. They told us to wait an hour for another replacement plane, but while we were waiting I heard someone say they'd fixed it after about 5 minutes. Aurgh!!! It's less than a 2 hour flight from Vancouver to Terrace but with a 3 hour delay that adds up quite a bit. Oh, plus then there's the 45 minute drive from the airport into Kitimat. And they got snow here a few weeks ago that wasn't very much and wasn't really worth plowing, so everybody drove over it and it turned into slush which then froze and iced over every street and driveway in town, very much like the odd time it snows back home. It's like, no matter where you go you can never really win. Life's funny like that isn't it?