BC Adventures

The plans were set. I was ready to go, and then I saw the Nimpkish. In a blurry black and white photograph the little ferry was drowning under massive waves. I would soon spend 9 hours on this ship travelling from Bella Coola to Bella Bella on the coast of British Columbia, and my chest was feeling tight.

Luckily the weather was calm for our journey and the morning passed by with meditative stares at the misty evergreen mountains dropping into the ocean. I soon drifted off to sleep.

I woke from my nap as the ferry docked and I groggily made my way to the deck. I missed the captain describing the town but was told to be back on the boat in 30 minutes. Off the ship I yawned and stretched my arms up to the fog that was rolling over the mountains encroaching on the town. The only indication of our location was a dilapidated sign saying “Ocean Falls, Home of the Rain People” with an eerie duck smiling under an umbrella. The other passengers had filtered off and I quickly noticed I was alone. I walked up to an old block of houses and soon realized they were completely overgrown and abandoned, front porches collapsing under the weight of wet vines. Doors were left unhinged, and furniture still moldered inside. An empty tequila bottle on a kitchen counter the only sign of an interloper from our current time. The “Rain People” had apparently been gone for some time.

I walked through more crumbling houses, making my way uphill. At the outer limits of town I found myself staring at the cascading falls of a dam, enveloped in the mist and roar of water. At the bottom of the falls an abandoned mill provided a clue as to why I was standing in a ghost town.

Hearing the crunch of gravel I turned to see a fellow passenger. We nodded and said nothing, it felt wrong to break the silence. Moments later, the horn of the Nimpkish broke through our reverie and we quickly shuffled down the hill to the ship.

Back on board, the subdued passengers watched the mist from Ocean Falls recede into the distance. Soon reality crept back in and the chatter began, excitedly sharing eerie discoveries. A crackle on the loudspeaker brought our attention to dolphins on the starboard of the boat. The Pacific White-Sided Dolphins put on a show, dancing through the water. Watching them play alongside the Nimpkish, effortlessly gliding through the wake of the ferry, I felt alive from the contrast of the day. My fear of the Nimpkish gone, the excitement of new discoveries having taken its place.