Port McNeill and the totems of Alert Bay

Port McNeill

We spent the night back at Port McNeill, which is one of those places that probably doesn’t get a huge number of tourists itself, but acts as a gateway to another destination. There is nothing wrong with it, and it is always interesting to see a ‘normal’ town, but there isn’t a great deal to do. Of course, some thirty minutes into the drive out of town, we realised that we had forgotten to go and see the one claim to fame that they do have here – the world’s largest burr. In fact, not just one, but two.

In case you are not familiar with a burr, it is that lumpy outgrowth that you sometimes get on a tree, usually caused when the tree is trying to protect itself against some kind of attack, and envelopes the invading disease or bug, to prevent it getting into the core of the tree.

 

World's Largest Tree Burr, Port McNeill

Now you may wonder just how big something like that can get, and I can tell you; these two have circumferences of 45 foot and 62 feet, and weigh in at 22 and around 30 tonnes.

No, we didn’t turn the car around and do an hour of extra driving just to go back, but I have borrowed a photo for the town’s website to show you, one of them sitting in it little gazebo, so that you don’t miss out on seeing it!

Alert Bay

So, if we weren’t there for the giant burr, why were we there. Well, this is where you get the ferry to a Cormorant Island, and more specifically, to Alert Bay. The island is only eight miles all the way around, but it has become a popular place to visit because of its colonial and First Nations heritage. Getting off the ferry, we stopped off at the visitor’s centre, where we were given a very helpful introduction and maps etc.

Alert Bay

A number of the main buildings in town date back to around the end of the 1800s, or the start of the next century. There used to be a huge 1870s Fish Saltery next to the location of the ferry terminal, which then became a canning factory in 1902, until the business closed in 1941. That is gone now, but a bit further down, you can see the old net loft buildings.

Alert Bay

Some of the prettier, more colourful buildings are the old Municipal Hall, the Old Customs House and the Old Court House. Aside from the first of those, which is now the Visitor’s Centre, the buildings here are generally are private premises or lodgings, so you can’t go inside them.

Alert Bay

Another attraction, albeit one that we didn’t have time to check out, was the Ecological Park. This is an unusual swamp area on a hill, that was created when a dam was built half way up the hill to store water for the fish cannery, the natural springs caused the whole area to flood, and it killed off the trees. The area has now been set aside with a boardwalk of trails created. Apparently, they used to call the place Gator Park, even though it never had any alligators; they have since dropped that name, but it seems to have stuck with the locals.

Alert Bay

One thing that there aren’t a lot of here, is places to get something to eat, especially if, like us, you are pressed for time.  We did follow a local recommendation to try the bannock, a name that I was equating with the Scottish fruitcake, but which turned out to be basically deep-fried dough. It really wasn’t going to do our diets much good, so we had it to take away, ate about half between us – it was rather tasty after all – but ditched the rest, in an admittedly fairly poor effort to limit the calories.

Bald eagle, Alert Bay

The main attraction here though is not the houses, the swamp nor the bannock, but rather it is the collection of totem poles and the U’mista Cultural Centre. I’ll talk about the Cultural Centre in the next post, but for now, we can take a look at some of the poles, including what they claim is the tallest totem pole in the world. I say claim, because I have seen the same claim made about one in Victoria too, and I can’t say which is right. The leaflet we were given refers to a 163 foot tall pole and a 10 foot pole, but then says that the top of the pole fell down during high winds in 2007, so it may be that with the extra 10 foot it was the tallest, but no longer.

In any case, it is quite tall. I got Nic to stand at the bottom of it for a photo, to give you a sense of the scale of it. It was carved by Jimmy Dick and five assistants, and as it is not a specific family post, its images show some of the tribes of the local Kwakwaka’wakw people. The carving was finished in the late 1960s, but was only raised up in 1973.

As to the rest, I can’t tell you a great deal about them. There are a couple of stories, but I should leave those for you to discover for yourselves if you ever visit the place. So, I will just leave you with some photos.

Old Cemetery, Alert Bay

Old Cemetery, Alert Bay

Alert Bay

Alert Bay

Alert Bay

World's Tallest Totem pole (perhaps), Alert Bay

Long House, Alert Bay

Alert Bay

New Cemetery, Alert Bay

New Cemetery, Alert Bay