Day Three: Aberdeen WA to Vancouver Island BC

Aberdeen WA to Vancouver Island BC

So much to see so little time, this area (Olympic National Forest) has long been on my list of places to explore, With an area of 628,115 acres (2,541.89 km²), it nearly surrounds Olympic National Park and the Olympic Mountain range. Olympic National Forest contains parts of Clallam, Grays Harbor, Jefferson, and Mason counties. The landscape of the national forest varies, from the temperate Olympic rain forest to the salt water fjord of Hood Canal to the peaks of Mt. Washington.

And though I have explored the west side of these mountains and other areas of Washington this area with its vast rain forest would be a great place to spend time exploring, but we are on the bikes and need to get to the ferry at Port Angeles and on to Vancouver Island.

 Vancouver Island sits South of the 49th Parallel and It has the warmest climate in the country (British Columbia) and since the mid-1990s has been mild enough in a few areas to grow subtropical Mediterranean crops such as olives and lemons.  We can expect larger climate changes the farther north we get, I won’t expect vast orange crops or plantations of Pineapple any more.

In 1792, the Spanish explorer Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and his crew were the first Europeans to circumnavigate Vancouver Island. On April 8, 1806, Captain John D'Wolf ofBristol, Rhode Island sailed the Juno to Newettee, a small inlet in the northwestern promontory of Vancouver's Island. 

in 1846, the Oregon Treaty was signed by the British and the U.S. to settle the question of the U.S. Oregon Territory borders. It awarded all of Vancouver Island to Britain, despite a portion of the island lying south of the 49th parallel. 

Our first stop after boarding the ferry will be Victoria, British Columbia. In this harbor you feel as if you have just completed a long gurney to a distant land, well a new country yes but not far from the US and the world seems to have changed.

We have one day to explore the island and we are expected on our next ferry ride from Port Hardy to Price Rupert.