The entire coastal region of British Columbia is beautiful. We just happened to pick Sidney because I noticed a tiny national park flag when I scanned over it with Google Maps. But it couldn’t have worked out better. The town was like some idyllic village from an early 60s TV show. The residents were incredibly friendly, and the mountains and coastline that wrapped around the town were jaw dropping.
But first, we needed some groceries. We hopped off the bus in Sidney’s shopping district. The entire "downtown" was just a few blocks across, and it had a few restaurants, a grocery store, and this place:
I had never heard of Capital Iron before, but I was intrigued. Isaias had given me the fishing bug back in Eugene, and this looked like a place where I could find some equipment. Fast forward twenty minutes later, and I’m surrounded in the fishing aisle by a half dozen residents (none of them under 60 years old) telling me where the best spots are, and what bait to use. I love Canada.
I could have spent hours in that store , but Aimee was waiting outside with our luggage, and she was probably bored out of her mind. But to my surprise, she was surrounded by a half dozen residents welcoming her to Sidney and telling her the best places to visit. She loves Canada, too.
The residents that Aimee was chatting with perked up when they found out we were from Arizona. Our state is apparently the promised land for British Columbians, and every one of them had been there at some point. In fact, many of them spent their summers in Yuma. On purpose.
For those of you who have never been to Yuma, AZ, it's like Death Valley, minus the cool name, plus a whole lot of RVs. We don’t understand the appeal, but the city population quintuples every summer with cold-weather visitors. They must not know that Arizona has more cities. There is no other fathomable reason to be in Yuma, unless you’re getting gas on the way to San Diego. And even then, 20 minutes is more than enough time.
But back to Canada. We were stocking up on groceries to get us through a few days of camping, and we still had one more quick bus ride before we could really settle down. It was here that I learned the hazards of picking a campsite based on a Google Map icon.
We walked for about an hour (with multiple duffle bags and a full bag of groceries), and it was not looking promising. The directions I had printed out took us to the middle of a residential area, and we had no idea where they could be hiding a national park. And then we saw it, a converted home with a small sign out front: “Sidney National Parks Administration.”
Son of a bitch.
The Google Map pin was on the admin building, not the actual camp site. And to make matters worse, it was a Sunday, so we couldn’t go in an ask them where we had booked a night.
Thankfully, there was a stack of tourist maps on the front porch. They didn’t show distances, roads, or much of anything else, but it was enough to get us started.
We saw a local resident loading things into his car a few blocks away. I asked him about the park that we were headed to, but he didn’t know about it. I also hinted pretty hard that we could really use a ride back to the bus stop, but he didn’t take the bait. He must not have been Canadian.
Aimee took everything with her usual grace, but I was still cursing Google (I wasn't quite ready to acknowledge my lack of preparation). An hour later, we saw a wooded area that looked promising.
It was the right park, and we couldn’t have been more excited to drop our bags and make camp.
We had everything set up by 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and it was time for me to break in my new fishing pole. There was a gated neighborhood across from our campsite, and we thought we'd take our chances at their private dock (I was wearing my nicest flip flops).
It didn’t take us long before we ran into some local residents who very politely told us to beat it. They were definitely Canadian. But they did tell us where we could find a public fishing pier.
Of course, fishing isn’t for everybody.
