Canada: Prince Rupert

 Friday, July 7, 2023, Prince Rupert, BC

The ship arrived at 8 am. We walked off the ship onto a shoreside quay and headed to the information booth for a map. The town was conveniently right off the ship.  


This was our first time to this Canadian island, and the first visit to Canada for many years. It was a hot July day - it seemed like we couldn’t escape the heat anywhere. We followed the map to our first destination at this relatively tiny town. 


The Sunken Gardens was created by a philanthropist/gardener. Everything was in bloom and organized beautifully. The site had been a quarry, making it a perfect spot for anything “sunken”. See pictures!


Sunken Gardens were gorgeous



Another hilly destination by the sea, we headed uphill to the Museum of Northern British Columbia. A handsome building with rooms of amazing exhibits including our favorites: totem poles!





Continuing up the hill, we came upon the Prince Rupert Island Fire Department Museum. Very small and amusing.




Farther up the road we stopped at the casino. Just a couple of looky-loos though. Up farther there was an interesting mall, a large two story place with some vacant store fronts. We didn’t find an appealing lunch spot, so survived buying snacks in a small grocery store in the basement.  

Part of the city



Reenergized, we walked around this part of town found an office supply for the 3-hole punch to finish Charlie’s update of hundreds of pages of book lists that he had been working on for months during slack time on the ship. We enjoyed meeting them and hearing about their business.


We continued wandering through town, stopping in artsy and second hand shops. We stopped in at City Hall, which had stamps and post cards. We were now walking down hill, and passed through the area near the cruise dock toward a restaurant we had heard was good. When we got there, it was an absolute zoo with lots of people from the ship eating and drinking. The wait was just too long, so we ended up skipping lunch and continuing to snack on our mall purchases. 


We were heading for a hiking path at the edge of town. We walked quite a ways on the hiking path (it was converted from logging railroad tracks and you could still see the tracks in places). The woods were beautiful and reminiscent of islands in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. We finally turned around and headed back toward the ship. We came across a fish and chips joint that received rave reviews, but we needed to be back at the ship at 6:30 pm and the line was very long. 

Us on hiking trail



Instead, we headed back toward town and came across a bus stop, checked google maps and caught a bus back to the cruise port. Back through the customs building, and back on board heading to dinner and our next port.

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