Prince Rupert
Dear all,
while waiting for the clock to turn 1am – budget travellers do not spend their hardearned money on a second partially useless hotellroom – when the cab will pick us up in order to go to the ferry, I will give you the latest news on my trip.
It all started out really well: panicky packing & crazy cooking. With lots of food and a huge packback we caught the bus going north from Vancouver to Prince George (12 hours) and from there to Prince Rupert (another 12 hours). Beautiful scenery, which of course is not unexpected since it all lokks like Sweden, just much much bigger (and for those living in the southern parts of Sweden: way more mountains with snow on top), small canadian towns on the way and a variety of other bus passengers. In all, it was a successful trip.
Until we reached Prince Rupert. When the cab pulled over at the ferry terminal we were met by closed gates. Really closed, including a chain and a lock. Eh… So our nice cab driver (Karl-Heinz originally from Wiesbaden, the bonding started straigt of from there) called his old school friend Murray, who was now manager of the terminal. And got the message that the ferry was postponed due to rock slides and icebergs. But it was on its way, it would leave at noon two days later. Ok, the extra days in Prince Rupert were spent hiking and strolling around town. Lots of eagles, I have learned to recognize skunk cabbage and false azalea, two plants that grow in the whole region.
The town itself consists of 11 000 people, mostly native fom the Tlingit or Haida clan, some Hindi and the rest Canadians (whatever that might mean in terms of origin). This has some tremendous effect on the town: there are in all 18 different churches. Walking from our inn downtown we passed the Latter Day Christ, the Pentecoastal, Mason Hall, S:t Paul Lutheran, Sikh temple, and the Kingdom Hall (and City Hall, which to some might be a religion). The question arising from all these different churches is not how they all came here, but what is the religion teching in their schools like? Given the fact that the Berlin commune in Germany recently voted not to introduce religion as a subject for students but to stick to ethics, I would find it really interesting to see how teachers here would deal with the various active religions.
Anyhow, after another delay, the ferry finally arrived (only about 56 hours late) and I am now in the beautiful state of Alaska. More on my adventures here will be written about later.
I hope that you are all fine!
Cheers,
Ulrike