The BC Ferries Blues

I am writing this blog post on a BC Ferry heading from Prince Rupert to Haida Gwaii. This process took 5 phone calls, 5.5 hours on our first stand by attempt to get on the ferry. 2 nights in Prince Rupert, 4 5 hours on our second stand by attempt and $220 when we finally got on. It’s stressful going stand by. I think I am finally starting to understand people who live or have lived on Vancouver island (or Haida Gwaii or the Sunshine Coast) feeling you are always at the mercy of the ferries.

We are not innocent in this chaotic adventure though. Haida Gwaii has one ferry that runs to it and it doesn’t even run daily. We called BC Ferries on June 20 from Smithers because at that point we were a 4 hour drive away so thought if we could get on in the next 4-5 days, we’d be good. However, the earliest they could get us a reservation was 9 days away. So yeah, we probably should have called 2 weeks earlier. Then we thought we’d take our chances going stand by (although we called daily asking if any reservations had become open). The day before we were due to arrive in Prince Rupert, we learned about getting on a wait list. Uh, yes please (although why this wasn’t offered to us the first time, who knows). So we show up on Sunday, June 24 at 7:00 am (departure was at 10:00 am) and learn we are 10^th on the wait list but when they call the people about 1.5 hours before departure who are on the waitlist, 3 haven’t shown up so we are now 7^th. This is good right? AT 10:00 am (departure time) they tell us to buy our tickets. Great!! This means we are going! I start texting a Thunder Bay friend who is going to be in Haida Gwaii June 29 and tell her we are going to be there too! 1.5 hours later and we are not on the ferry (it hasn’t left yet) and we are now told the ferry is full and we are not getting on (our tickets were reimbursed). Ahhhh.

Okay so we spend the night in Prince Rupert again and show up the next night (Monday night) at 7:30 pm. We were initially 7^th on the wait list but moved up to 4^th due to some no shows. They tell us to buy our tickets right away but we are not buying the optimism until they tell us to load. We sit in line and a person who was 6^th on the list gets to go on (they had a smaller vehicle). Ugh. Not again. But miraculously at 10:30 pm, they give us the go ahead to board. A huge sigh of relief. We made it.

Fast forward 1 week later and we have a reservation to come back from Haida Gwaii for Tuesday, July 3 at 10:00 am. However Monday morning we get an email saying our reservation is cancelled due to mechanical issues of the ferry and has been tentatively rescheduled for Wednesday at 11:00 pm. Bonus day in Haida Gwaii for us but as there is only 1 ferry that makes the crossing between Prince Rupert and the Haida Gwaii. There were people scrambling for accommodations and the grocery stores started running out of food. The positive in the last adventure is that our ferry crossing (which would have been another $220) is free. 

Prince Rupert to Village of Queen Charlotte