BRITISH COLUMBIA: By Sail and Rail

We’re in northern British Columbia, in a scantily populated river valley, on a passenger train bound for the Pacific port of Prince Rupert. On the tracks ahead, a moose is standing in the path of our train. The engineer brakes, blows his whistle, and brakes some more. The moose isn’t moving.

The train, with 210 passengers aboard, comes to a gentle stop. The moose doesn’t budge. Looking down from the dome car, we see why: The reeds trembling in the narrow strip between the tracks and a lake reveal where her babies are hiding.

Eventually the moose ambles off and our excursion resumes.

My partner, Maria, and I are on a summer solstice adventure that’s perfect for the 18 hours of daylight at this northern latitude. Our plan is to travel in a loop around our home province: by train from Vancouver north to Prince Rupert, by ferry down the Inside Passage to Vancouver Island, then by bus almost to the south end of the island. (We could complete the loop by going through to Victoria, the province’s capital city, and from there back to Vancouver, but the connection to our home is north of Victoria.) The loop will show off much of the best of British Columbia (everyone just calls it B.C.). With just the variety of its landscape, from glaciers and mountains to temperate valleys and craggy coast, this is arguably the most beautiful of Canada’s 10 provinces. The seamless system of trains, ferries and connecting buses makes the circuit--city to ski country, across tumbling rivers and past pristine shoreline, back to city again--nearly effortless.

Separated from the rest of Canada by the Rockies, and extending all the way to the Pacific and Alaska, B.C. is all but a country apart--politically, geographically and socially. Two-thirds of the province, which encompasses an area greater than California, Oregon and Washington combined, is mountainous, and nearly that much (60%) is forest. Just 4 million people populate this natural wonderland, half of them in Greater Vancouver, our starting point.

After a night in a hotel on Robson Street, in the lively heart of downtown, we’re at B.C. Rail’s North Vancouver station. Promptly at 7 a.m., our train, the Cariboo Prospector, eases out of the station. Almost immediately we’re sliding along forested shoreline and, as breakfast is served, we’re snaking around Howe Sound in the shadow of the jagged and snowcapped Coast Mountains.

After skirting Mt. Garibaldi (8,786 feet), we climb steadily through tunnels and over trestles toward Whistler, a world-class all-season destination best known as a ski resort. As the train pauses at the small station, we savor the aromatic alpine air and watch two passengers retrieve their mountain bikes from the luggage car and disappear down the shady path that leads to Whistler Village.

When the train moves on, we try to spot the ski slopes through the trees. Somewhere up there on Blackcomb Mountain is the longest uninterrupted fall-line skiing (more than 4,800 feet) on the continent. We catch a glimpse of Horstman Glacier, where skiing continues all summer long.

Two hours later we emerge from one last tunnel into bright sunshine. We’ve left the mountains and the coastal rain forest behind, and have entered the Fraser River Valley.

The Cariboo Prospector is following the route Canada’s first gold miners took, 141 years ago.

As the California gold rush began to wash out, word reached San Francisco in 1858: Gold! On the sand banks of the Fraser River! That year alone, 20,000 adventurers from San Francisco passed through Victoria, a Hudson’s Bay Co. outpost of 300 people. Britain, recognizing the wealth of this region, moved quickly to make British Columbia the newest crown colony, also in 1858.

Pine and sage scent the air. The four Scots from Glasgow in the seats across the aisle from ours detrain at Lillooet, the center of an area filled with gold rush-era ghost towns and abandoned mines (people still pan for gold along the Fraser River). They’ll spend two days here, then catch the next northbound train, resuming their circle tour (conveniently enough, the Cariboo Prospector runs three times a week, allowing easy stopovers).

The landscape changes again as we climb onto the high interior plateau. Rolling hills and grazing cattle, alkali lakes lined in white, colossal log barns . . . this is the Cariboo, B.C.’s cowboy country.

Pam (first names only on these informal trains), our “guest services coordinator,” shares snippets of local lore and color with the passengers. She’s the first to spot a herd of bighorn sheep ahead. They divide like a school of fish as we pass. Farther along, meadows morph into scattered forest, and our car tallies up 18 black bears feeding in the bush.

“We’re in guest ranch country now,” Pam says as we pass the Flying U Ranch, B.C.’s oldest, and so big (14,000 acres) that it has its own train stop.

Lightning plays through the clouds at dusk as we pull into Prince George, 462 rail miles from Vancouver. This city of 75,000 is the major service center in the vastness of north-central B.C., a hub of mining, logging, hunting and fishing (there are 1,600 fishing lakes around the city).

We overnight here, as this is the northern limit of B.C. Rail’s passenger service. We’ve chosen our hotel from a list provided by the rail line; it’s modern, convenient, typical of a highway hotel chain.

In the morning we board VIA Rail’s westbound train, the Skeena, just in from Alberta. Its destination, Prince Rupert, is 12 hours and 385 miles away.

All morning we skirt lakes and play tag with rushing rivers. The lush, Swiss-like Bulkley Valley fills the windows as we enjoy lunch with a glass of wine. It’s after lunch while we’re up in the dome car that the mother moose stops our train.

The last two or three hours before the coast serve up picture-postcard Pacific Northwest scenery, and the dome car fills for the first time. On our left, the swollen Skeena River nearly reaches the rails. Immense cedars, uprooted by the spring melt, tumble in the current. Waterfalls ribbon the forested slopes rising on our right and fill the air with mist.

Mist and drizzle follow us into Prince Rupert, B.C.’s northernmost port (population 16,000), known for its Victorian architecture, totem poles and sportfishing.

We check into a hotel, pick up a rental car and head for dinner in quaint Cow Bay. It’s after 9 p.m., and we’re hungry. Cow Bay reminds me of the Key West shrimp docks in the ‘60s, only instead of sea gulls perched on the pilings, there are bald eagles. And it’s cooler--48 degrees, in a silver mist.

On the corner of the wooden boardwalk, right over the floating docks, is Smile’s Cafe (established in 1934), which a friend had recommended for its award-winning seafood. Despite the hour, the tables are full, so we go next door to the Breakers Pub and get a fine table with a view. We’ll have the long northern twilight until 11 p.m., and we feast our eyes on commercial salmon and long-line boats, charter fishing vessels and yachts tied up at the floating docks.

Although new protective laws have severely restricted commercial salmon fishing, this is still a sportfishing paradise (98 charters are listed by the local Information Center). Chinook salmon is the prime target, with halibut (200 pounds and more) running a close second.

The Breakers makes up for our disappointment at Smile’s. Maria orders Dungeness crab, and I choose fresh halibut and chips. Both are perfect. Suddenly halibut becomes my favorite fish.

Doug Davis owns West Coast Launch, Ltd., one of several local outfits that offer humpback whale-watching tours from mid-July to mid-October. In the morning we board his 40-footer for a tour around Kaien Island, where Prince Rupert sits. The cabin is snug and comfortable with airplane-style seats, and the water is rippled only by passing fishing boats.

Davis takes us through the Butze Rapids (he’s the only one who does it) where, every six hours, up to 20-plus feet of tide ebbs or floods through the narrows, creating a phenomenon called reversing tidal rapids.

“The tidal rapids create standing waves and back eddies,” Davis tells us as we tiptoe up the surge in perfect control, thanks to a 300-horsepower diesel and a hull designed for such stuff. “Whitewater kayakers come out here to surf the face of the standing waves,” Davis says. When the rapids run strongest, a half-hour or so after the top of the tide, they can create lots of foam, Davis explains. “Kaien Island gets its name from the [native] Tsimshian word for foam.”

(For those who’d rather watch from shore, the Butze Rapids Overlook trail, just east of town, is an easy 3 1/2-mile loop through old-growth forest and tidal flats.)

Salmon canneries thrived here long before the old Grand Trunk Railway established Prince Rupert in 1914. The North Pacific Cannery, oldest and last surviving cannery village on North America’s west coast (now a museum), is a short drive south of the city, on the Skeena River. A complete boardwalk community on stilts--housing, company store, boat factory--it operated from 1889 to 1968.

We spend three hours wandering around and taking the tour ($5, complete with historical stage performance; daily May 15 to Sept. 15). We have lunch in the original cannery mess hall, now a cafe: honey-basted salmon steaks, hot from the grill, over a Caesar-style salad. We agree: The fish we’ve had in Prince Rupert is the best ever.

The next day is the summer solstice, and the ever-present mist (it does get sunny here, though not on this visit) shrouds the treetops and shellacs the cedar totem poles found throughout the town.

When Capt. James Cook explored the coast in 1778, the resource-rich region around Prince Rupert was the most densely populated area in what is now British Columbia. European diseases decimated the native population, but their rich artistic culture survives. The Museum of Northern British Columbia, magnificently housed in a huge cedar post-and-beam long house in Prince Rupert, displays some of this 10,000-year-old heritage.

George McKay, a Nisga’a carver (the Nisga’a are one of the seven coastal First Nations), has two fine cedar masks in the museum. We find McKay in the carving shed not far from the museum, working a chunk of aromatic red cedar into a traditional feast bowl.

“I got tired of doing those,” he nods toward a shelf filled with 18-inch tourist totem poles.

McKay still does larger poles. One, 40 feet high (donated to the town), took him four months of 10-hour days to carve.

“It was my first pole since the passing of my father [whose hand-made tools he is using]. I was sort of lost without him, and it guided me to what I was meant to do.”

McKay sends most of his carvings to Alaska because “they sell quicker there.” (The favorable exchange rate, however, $1.50 Canadian to $1 U.S., makes them more of a bargain here.) Ketchikan, just 39 miles up the coast, a short hop by Alaska Marine Highway ferry, gets five cruise ships a day in season. Prince Rupert is lucky to get two a year. (That imbalance may change. Prince Rupert is upgrading the dock facilities at Cow Bay as a first step in luring the lucrative cruise business.)

Next morning at six we catch a shuttle from our hotel to the B.C. Ferry dock. As walk-ons, we get to board the ferry-liner Queen of the North before the vehicular traffic. The forward lounge is empty, and we have our pick of window reclining seats for the 15-hour voyage to Port Hardy on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, 274 miles down the Inside Passage.

Even so, we spend much of our time out on the stern deck. Looking through a window, any window, just doesn’t compare. Out here we can walk to one side or the other as the ship passes waterfalls or orcas or snowcapped mountains. Except for Bella Bella, a First Nations (Heiltsuk) community on Queen Charlotte Sound, and a couple of manned lighthouses, the roadless, forested, fiorded coastline is inhabited only by wildlife.

When lunch is announced, we shamelessly gorge ourselves on salads, fish and pasta from the dining room buffet; for dinner, we nibble on snacks.

We arrive in Port Hardy at midnight. After a short sleep in a motel, we board the bus for Victoria. Most of the passengers in the tall coach are, like us, off the ferry.

As we drop south (303 miles to Victoria) along the island’s east coast, the dark hemlock forests give way to cedar and arbutus. Soon we spot the idyllic Gulf Islands lying just offshore. Passengers chat about what they plan to do in Victoria.

The province’s capital, with its Edwardian and Victorian turn-of-the-century street-scapes, gardens, harbor-side parks, museums and British pubs, is a favorite city of visitors and residents alike. For Maria and me, Butchart Gardens and tea at the Empress will have to wait. We hop off the bus early for our last connection of the week, the ferry to our island home.

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GUIDEBOOK

British Columbia, by Land and Sea

Getting there: Alaska, Canadian International, American and United airlines fly nonstop from Los Angeles to Vancouver. Round-trip fares start at $218.

Getting around: B.C. Rail and B.C. Ferries have a new self-guided package tour for the itinerary described here. (We’d have booked it if we’d known about it.) “The circle tour,” which begins and ends in Vancouver, costs $734 per person for six days, five nights (double occupancy) through Sept. 26. This price covers all trains, ferries and buses, and overnight accommodations in Prince George, Prince Rupert, Port Hardy and Victoria (two nights).

Arrangements can be made to stay longer en route, and for upgrades, such as a cabin on the ferry to Port Hardy, or a helicopter ride instead of the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver.

Information: B.C. Rail, telephone (800) 339-8752.

Peak travel season is June 15 to Sept. 15. Trains and ferries run all year, but most frequently in summer.

Staying in Vancouver: Listel Vancouver, 1300 Robson St.; doubles, $175 to $215. Tel. (800) 663-5491, Internet https://www.listel-vancouver.com.

The venerable Sylvia Hotel, 1154 Gilford St., near the harbor, is one of Vancouver’s best values, with rooms from $45 to $120. Tel. (604) 681-9321, fax (604) 682-3551.

For more information: British Columbia Tourism, tel. (800) HELLOBC (435-5622).