British Columbia, Canada

Day 1: A motorcycle trip begins

Our destination: the Haida Gwaii Islands, off the remote west coast of Canada. Our mode of transport: motorcycle. The plan is to ride north through Vancouver Island, hop on a series of ferries to reach Haida Gwaii, then ride home through the interior of British Columbia. It’s the kind of trip that sounds straightforward on a map and slightly ambitious in reality.

Day one was the easy part. We packed everything we’d need for two weeks into the motorcycle’s three travel cases — a exercise in spatial reasoning and optimism — then rode from Seattle to Edmonds, caught a quick ferry across Puget Sound to Kingston, and continued 61 miles to Port Angeles. From there, a larger ferry carried us and the bike across to Victoria. Two ferries down, several more to go.

• Ferry: Edmonds to Kingston
• Ferry: Port Angeles to Victoria
• Accommodation: Fisher House B&B

Day 2: Tofino via Nanaimo

Our plan is to ride the entire length of Vancouver Island from south to north — but first, a detour to the west coast. Tofino is one of the best spots for whale watching in the area, and we weren’t about to ride past it. On the way, we stopped in Nanaimo to try the town’s namesake dessert: the Nanaimo Bar, a layered confection of cookie, custard, and chocolate that fully lives up to the hype.

The 200-mile ride was beautiful until it wasn’t — traffic ground to a halt on the narrow, twisty road that crosses from the eastern to the western shore of the island. But traffic jams can have a silver lining when you find yourself among fellow touring motorcyclists: they’re always happy to chat about routes, gear, and packing strategies while everyone waits. Once things cleared, we made it to Tofino just in time to catch the sunset, which felt like a reward for the patience.

• Accommodation: Adventure Tofino B&B

Day 3: Elusive whales and rock-flipping bears

We spent the day on the water with two back-to-back boat tours — whale watching in the morning, followed by bear watching in the afternoon. The whales were elusive, surfacing just long enough to spout and dive before vanishing again. Impressive to witness, impossible to photograph, and a good reminder that wildlife doesn’t care about your camera settings.

The bears, on the other hand, were easy to find. Black bears along this coast have figured out that low tide is crab season — they emerge from the forest onto the rocky shore and methodically flip rocks to find their meals. We watched mother bears demonstrating the technique to their cubs, who then tried to imitate them with varying degrees of success. Tiny bears flipping rocks too big for them and looking confused when no crab appears — it was impossibly cute.

• Whale tour: Adventure Tofino
• Bear tour: Adventure Tofino

Day 4: The long ride north

Vancouver Island is big. Much bigger than we’d appreciated just looking at a map. It took over five hours to ride 315 miles from the south end to Port Hardy at the northwest tip — and the farther north we went, the more the island shed any trace of civilization. Towns thinned out, then disappeared entirely, replaced by uncountable trees and lakes. By the end, it felt less like riding to a destination and more like riding away from everything else. Our B&B in Port Hardy is aptly named “Escape.”

• Accommodation: Escape B&B

Day 5: The Inside Passage

Today’s ride required practically no riding at all — just parking the motorcycle on a massive ferry and settling into an upper-deck seat for a 15-hour journey through the Inside Passage, the sheltered waterway that runs along British Columbia’s west coast. It was nice to just sit back and enjoy the view: calm water, forested coastline sliding past on both sides, and the occasional whale sighting that sent everyone scrambling for the outdoor deck.

This far north in June, the sun doesn’t set until well after 10 pm, so the scenery lasted almost the entire trip. We finally docked in Prince Rupert close to midnight — about as far north as you can go on this coast before hitting Alaska. We rode the short distance to our B&B in the lingering twilight, exhausted from doing absolutely nothing all day.

• Ferry: Port Hardy to Prince Rupert
• Accommodation: Enchanted Rainforest Guesthouse

Day 6: More ferries to Haida Gwaii

Two more ferries today — because that’s what this trip is about. The first was a seven-hour crossing from the mainland to Skidegate in the Haida Gwaii Islands, traversing open ocean where rough seas are a real possibility. We strapped the motorcycle down to the car deck and hoped for the best. Thankfully, the weather cooperated and the crossing was smooth enough to actually enjoy.

From Skidegate, we took a second (much smaller) ferry across a channel to the next island, and we rode the final 15 miles into the tiny town of Sandspit. We checked in at the office of Moresby Explorers, leaders of the zodiac expedition that we’re joining tomorrow. This is the adventure we came for!

• Ferry: Prince Rupert to Skidegate
• Ferry: Skidegate to Alliford Bay
• Accommodation: Seaport B&B

Day 7: Zodiac launch

This morning we left our trusty motorcycle behind and began four days aboard an inflatable zodiac boat, exploring the Gwaii Haanas National Park. It’s a vast protected area accessible only by water, containing pristine wilderness and the remains of ancient Haida villages. Our guide and captain, Bryan, led a small group of ten of us, all either brave enough or fascinated enough to spend four days bouncing across open ocean in a rubber boat.

We felt a little silly layering up in waterproof jackets, pants, and boots before setting out — until we were moving at speed through wind and spray, at which point we appreciated every layer. Traveling at full throttle on an open zodiac is a genuine thrill, sort of like motorcycling on water.

Our first stop was Skedans, one of the ancient Haida village sites. Each village is looked after by members of the Haida Gwaii Watchmen program — Haida people who live on-site to protect the ancient ruins and guide visitors. At Skedans, Nick showed us around: a young guy who’d left city life to reconnect with his culture, and who had a gift for making the past feel present. Between the weathered totem poles and the overgrown longhouse remains, the place felt suspended in time.

Nick shared some of the Haida stories that give these sites their weight. In Haida tradition, humans and animals are deeply intertwined — both have spirits, both move between the natural and supernatural worlds, and the boundary between them is porous. Raven discovers the first humans hiding inside a clamshell and sings them out to play. A woman goes to live among the bears before returning to the human realm. People who drown in these waters become orcas. You start to understand, standing among these mossy village remains on the edge of the Pacific, why the Haida feel such a fierce drive to preserve the world around them.

Beyond the village, the landscape was pure wilderness — no roads, no buildings, no signs of modern life. We eventually reached our home for the night: a floating lodge anchored in a sheltered cove, where a multi-course dinner and comfortable beds were waiting. Not a bad way to end a first day on the water.

• Zodiac tour: Moresby Explorers
• Accommodation: Moresby Explorers Floating Lodge

Day 8: Let’s vote

Today tested everyone’s commitment. We set out for the southernmost islands of the archipelago, and the ocean had other ideas — choppy waves, strong winds, and driving rain that turned the zodiac ride into something closer to a theme park attraction. At one point Bryan asked the group if we should turn back. The unanimous answer: keep going, as long as it doesn’t get worse. It got worse. Let’s just say the group bonded.

We stopped only briefly for lunch and to check out a waterfall in a sheltered cove, then pushed on. By late afternoon, we reached Rose Harbour — a tiny outpost at the southern tip of the park where two houses remain, grandfathered in from before the area became protected. The owner of one house cooked us a fabulous dinner, and we slept in the other. After a day like that, a warm meal and a dry bed felt like a five-star hotel.

• Accommodation: Rose Harbour Guesthouse

Day 9: Totem poles returning to the earth

We woke to blue skies and calm water — a welcome reversal after yesterday’s ordeal. The group climbed back aboard the zodiac and headed for SGang Gwaay, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the best-preserved Haida village sites in existence.

The history here is heavy. Before European contact, the Haida numbered about 20,000. Then came trade, and with it, disease. Smallpox devastated the population, reducing it to fewer than 600 by the late 1800s. SGang Gwaay was one of the last villages to be occupied, as survivors from surrounding communities gathered there. What remains today is a haunting row of beautifully carved mortuary poles — totem poles designed to hold the remains of the dead. When a person of high status died, their body was placed in a bentwood box and eventually raised atop a carved pole. The Haida are a matriarchal society, so the responsibility of carving the pole fell to the eldest son of the deceased’s eldest sister, who would also assume his position. The poles at SGang Gwaay are now being left to return to the earth, as is done in Haida tradition — slowly leaning, softening, and disappearing back into the moss and forest.

On the way north to the floating lodge, we spotted seals sunning on rocky islands and a whale breaching in the distance. Back at the lodge, we squeezed in a tandem kayak paddle around the bay before another great dinner — a quiet end to a day that had given us a lot to think about.

• Accommodation: Moresby Explorers Floating Lodge

Day 10: The Legacy Pole

Our final day on the zodiac began with homemade granola bars from the floating lodge’s talented chef — a small luxury that felt enormous after days of ocean spray and early mornings. We visited another ancient Haida village near Windy Bay, then learned the story behind the Legacy Pole, a totem pole erected in 2013 that celebrates a hard-won victory.

In 1985, after enduring decades of unsustainable logging on the islands, the Haida organized a blockade of a logging road on Lyell Island. Over two weeks, 72 Haida were arrested, including tribal elders — and Haida police officers were ordered to arrest members of their own community. The standoff drew international attention and eventually led to an agreement between the Haida Nation and the Canadian government to create Gwaii Haanas National Park. In 2010, the surrounding marine area was also designated as protected, making Gwaii Haanas the first place in the world to be safeguarded from mountaintop to seafloor. The Legacy Pole commemorates that cooperation, and a carved detail near its base depicts “the five good people” who organized the original blockade.

We took one more walk through the forest, stopping to marvel at one of the biggest trees on the islands — twelve of us couldn’t reach all the way around it. Then we climbed aboard the zodiac for the final leg back to Sandspit, ending four remarkable days on the water.

• Accommodation: Seaport B&B

Day 11: Back to the mainland

Time to reverse course. We rode the motorcycle back to Alliford Bay and caught two ferries back to the mainland — a route we now knew well enough to feel like regulars. After days of zodiac boats, ancient villages, and floating lodges, straddling the motorcycle again felt almost mundane by comparison.

We arrived in Prince Rupert in the evening and returned to the same B&B, where we found two other adventure motorcycles parked out front. Their riders turned out to be Australians on their way to Alaska — and as tends to happen when touring motorcyclists cross paths, we spent the evening swapping stories about routes, close calls, and gear that didn’t quite work as advertised.

• Ferry: Alliford Bay to Skidegate
• Ferry: Skidegate to Prince Rupert
• Accommodation: Enchanted Rainforest Guesthouse

Day 12: Grizzly bears

After black bears in Tofino, today it was grizzlies. We took a boat tour into the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary — a protected inlet north of Prince Rupert that’s home to one of the densest grizzly populations on the coast. We spotted several solitary adults and a curious juvenile, but the real stars were two mothers with their cubs. Between Tofino’s rock-flipping black bears and now these grizzlies, British Columbia was making a strong case for best bear-watching destination on Earth.

• Grizzly bear tour: Prince Rupert Adventure Tours

Day 13: Roadside bears

We turned inland today, leaving the coast behind and riding east into the interior of British Columbia. Within the first hour, we spotted a couple of black bears chewing on grass right by the side of the road. By now, seeing bears seems hardly surprising. The 300-mile stretch that followed was probably the best riding of the entire trip: an excellent road winding through forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers, with hardly any traffic and views that kept getting better around every curve.

We stopped in Hazelton to visit the ‘Ksan Historical Village, which preserves the art and architecture of the Gitxsan First Nation — beautifully carved totem poles, painted longhouses, and a setting along the river that made the whole place feel alive rather than museum-like. Then it was back on the bike for the final stretch to Burns Lake, riding through golden evening light with the big sky stretching in every direction.

• Museum: ‘Ksan Historical Village
• Accommodation: Wulf’s on the Lake B&B

Day 14: City? Nah

Another 335 miles of interior British Columbia, and another day of excellent riding. We skirted Prince George — the only real city on the route — stopping just long enough for gas and lunch at a grocery store before escaping back to the rural highways. The simple pleasure of open road, no traffic, and endless scenery was exactly the kind of riding we’d come for.

• Accommodation: AccoLog B&B

Day 15: Tourist trap? Nah

Today’s 200-mile ride followed the Fraser River as it carves a dramatic gorge through the mountains. With such amazing views, we were certainly grateful to be on a motorcycle instead of in a car. We passed Hell’s Gate, a popular tourist stop with gondola rides and fudge shops, and kept right on going. Instead, we stopped at Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park, where a bridge built for cars in 1926 now serves as a pedestrian walkway suspended over the gorge. Quieter, more atmospheric, and no fudge required.

• Park: Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park
• Accommodation: Evergreen B&B

Day 16: The last stretch

The final 160 miles back to Seattle traced a slow transition from wilderness to civilization — wild forests giving way to cultivated farmland, then small towns, then suburbs, then the city. We avoided the big highways after crossing the border, sticking to country roads instead, which turned out to be the right call: we stumbled on a farm selling freshly picked blueberries, pulled over, ate far too many on the spot, and stowed several boxes more for the road.

When we’d planned this trip, we weren’t sure how many consecutive days of motorcycling we could handle, so we’d built in plenty of other activities — zodiacs, ferries, bear tours, Haida villages. Turns out we could have kept riding much longer. British Columbia’s roads are that good, and two weeks on a motorcycle through this province felt less like endurance and more like the best way to see it.