in today's video we continue our road trip across Vancouver Island this time
ditching the car and hopping on a ferry our destination Alert Bay on cormorant
island to explore the town see totem poles and learn about the Namgis first
nation so come along and let's kick off this adventure
well good morning guys morning guys welcome back to port McNeill we are going
on a little excursion today yeah we sure are bought tickets to go to alert Bay on
the ferry BC Ferries hey there so fantastic price the tickets were only
$10 per person return yeah it's a lot cheaper than we
were expecting it's about a 50 minute ferry ride oh yeah oh so now we're each
way yeah my dad brought his binoculars yeah in case I'm hoping to see an orca
or some sort of a bigger whale maybe yeah that'll be she's beautiful but you
never know never know good to be prepared yeah I know what they say a man
that is prepared is worth two men yeah and once we get to alert Bay we want to
visit the U'mista cultural center yes and also see the totem poles and the burial
ground those are two must maybe some hiking as well if time allows alright so
now we're gonna go get on the ferry we need to walk down to the port the
passengers are heading that way so let's go
we arrived in Port McNeill and were able to book tickets for the ferry right on
the spot it was the end of the tourist season plus it was also a rainy day so
there weren't too many day-trippers now as a travel tip there are six sailings a
day from port McNeill to alert Bay but it's important that you check the
schedule on the BC Ferries websites since there is the occasional cargo only
sailing plus another one that makes an additional stop in nearby Suontula
the ferry ride itself flew by there is an upper deck for passengers should you
travel on a sunny day but we pretty much hit away from the wind and rain
well guys we've just arrived in alert Bay as it starts to rain sam says this
isn't rain because he's from the island and apparently it can come down like
pouring buckets this is light drizzle but yeah there's a few places we want to
hit up first up we're gonna go visit the totem poles and the burial ground yep
we're just making our way on foot we decided to leave the car behind in the
port because it's a fairly small island and quite easy to cover on foot so
that's what we're gonna do today how many words are there for rain here on
the island I don't know I'm surprised we haven't had more rain on this trip to be
Oh ah we've been so lucky this is our seventh day you've just had
showers so far and even right now it's just a tiny little drizzle this doesn't
even qualify it with locals as rain on Vancouver Island see I think I'm so glad
I've got my um B would you guys think of the ferry ride what's a nice fair right
thirty smearing about an hour long and yeah yeah we are at alert Bay alerts Bay
as soon as we got off there was a big sign saying home to the killer whale and
then they had an info board talking about this town during its heyday when
there was a lot of fishing apparently there was a lot of money here this is
where people would come for a good time on the weekend lots of entertainment and
they said it wasn't unusual for like a fisherman to drop thousands of dollars
in like one night of drinking a local pub well you see in 1972 they had over a
1000 fishing vessels register in this island the fish was plentiful and they
could make a good living but today we went through the port there
is nothing there a lot of people that I used to make a good living out of it
she's had to quit yeah now alert Bay has more of a tourism based industry so you
can come here and do tours we saw whale watching tours actually all of them are
sold out for today but yeah it's a nice place to come and explore on foot first
off we're going to see the totem poles check it out let's check it out crying
it's crossing our fingers for not too much rain
okay where are we so we've just been walking around the town for a little bit
kind of walking along the water our first stop of the day here is at the
namgis burial grounds this is the it's like a cemetery and the graves are
marked with the totem poles and you see we cannot walk in there because it's
disrespectful of course so we can only view from outside the area unless you're
gonna see on the videos there are some totem poles that are nicely painted but
some other ones are kind of decayed and this is done on purpose by the each
individual family son believed that once the totem pole has fallen down the
spirit of that person that is berry here has left a place so they leave the totem
poles to be decomposed and weigh continue the cycle of life and death
some other people some other families they believe that they wanna keep them
and some of them are nicely painted so yeah some of them are so old that even
the carvings are starting to fade and disappear yeah weather conditions in on
years and years of standing up here facing the ocean and some other ones are
still remarkably you can still tell what kind of carvings they have no heels and
stuff like that but yeah it's super super interesting and something else we
should mention about alert Bay is that it's so small that you can walk the
entire island you can you don't need to bring your car here you can come as a
passenger on foot like what we did on the ferry yeah and it's accessible to
walk the whole island there are few hours that's what we're gonna do yeah
we're gonna do now we do one side now we're gonna go the other way yep and
check out what else is there to see
after visiting the Namgis original burial grounds we walked back across
town and over to the U'mista cultural center it's impossible to get lost
because you're basically just following the boardwalk along the waterfront the
whole way the u'mista cultural centre operates as a museum in a cultural
education facility in alert Bay it was founded in 1980 as a project to house
potlatch artifacts which had been confiscated by the Canadian government
during a period of cultural repression in the 1920s but first we need to
explain the potlach potlatch means to give and for the Kwakwaka'wakw
peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast the richest and most powerful person was
the one who gave away the most the potlatch is a gift-giving feast held on
the occasion of births deaths adoptions weddings and other major life events
today the U'mista cultural center houses many of the repay treated
artifacts in ceremonial regalia associated with the potlach it was the
return of these items that gave the center its name since U'mista means
the return of something important no filming or photography is allowed in the
hall that houses the potlatch items but trust us this is the one place you have
to visit if you come to alert Bay as you already know we were using the trover
app to document the places we visited so you'll find the U'mista Center on
our list another site we couldn't miss is the biggest tallest totem pole in the world
the totem stands 173 feet tall and is located directly in front of the big
house where visitors can watch traditional dances and performances on
Thursdays Fridays and Saturdays during the months of July in August
well good much much-needed speaking update so basically what happened in a
nutshell was we didn't have that much time until our ferry departure we were
running around town yeah I mean we could have stayed a little longer but the next
ferry would have been like two or three hours later yeah and so yeah we just had
a really good time we continued to walk along the harbor front yeah so basically
after we visited the totem poles we walked in the opposite direction yes to
the cultural center yeah that's fantastic
it is really cool in there $12 for adults 10 for seniors and they had like
cool masks and more carvings and carvings lots of argument handicrafts it
was really interesting it was the one area where we weren't able to film was
the most interesting you know that's the best part where they have all their
ceremonial masks you're not allowed to film that but it's honestly the most
impressive yes so that's at the ferry that's the far end of the museum and
yeah you could easily spend quite a bit of time there if you were to go through
and read every exhibit afterwards we walked up to the big house and we're
where you can find the world's tallest largest totem pole it's gigantic it's it's so
it's so tall that it like it kind of boomerangs at the end no really like it
kind of just bends off into the distance it's it's held down with cables yes and
topple over I would say we saw quite a bit considering how much time we had an
alert bay we did more of a half day we kind of arrived later in the morning but if
you wanted to have a bit more time to spend at the museum and also to do the
hike I'd suggest turning into a full day maybe catch the first ferry or one of
the first two ferries yeah it was just a fantastic trip though I'm really glad we
went there it's just one of the more interesting places we visited on our
entire time at Vancouver Island and that's pretty much a wrap for a day
trip to alert Bay it was a short visit but with a few more hours and better
weather you could plan to do some hiking and explore the town a bit more
thoroughly then the next video will take you on another day trip this time to
explore Zone Tula on Malcom Island we're Finnish immigrants set up their own
utopian society so see you then