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Day 5, August 21, Sayward to Woss: There is a bit of a climb heading north out of Sayward, but it's no more than a nice diversion from the mostly flat terrain of Highway 19 on Vancouver Island. The road also turns inland, passing a number of lakes and beautiful forest scenery. We were deep into logging country now and each rest stop contained educational (propaganda?) displays put up by Western Forest Products. A Lake Along the Road to Woss

After the initial elevation gain of about 1000 feet, the road descended through the forest. As we approached Woss, John noticed a plume of smoke in the distance that appeared to be a small forest fire. There wasn't much wind and the smoke was rising straight up so it didn't look like there was much danger of it spreading rapidly but it was a bit more serious than we first thought.

Rugged Mountain Motel and Lucky Logger Pub, Woss

Welcome to Woss Heart of the Nimpkish Valley

The town of Woss is even smaller than Sayward. We were very fortunate to find the Rugged Mountain Motel listed on the web or we wouldn't have known there were accommodations here. The town consists of about 50 houses, offices of Western Forest Products (WFP), volunteer fire department, a gas station, convenience store, the motel and pub. That's it... locals have a 45 mile drive to Port McNeil just to buy groceries.

The Lucky Logger Pub was the hub of activity in Woss and after lunch we settled down with everyone else at the outdoor tables on a warm afternoon. We struck up a conversation with a couple of the local employees of WFP. The ice-breaker was one loggers' t-shirt that said: "MY ANGER-MANAGEMENT CLASS IS PISSING ME OFF!" We chatted about life in this small, company town; raising families in Woss; the vagueries of everyone working for a single employer; chantrelle mushroom gathering for a little extra income; local wildlife; hunting and fishing... And there were periodic updates on the development of the forest fire which was so far being attacked only by aerial water drops as things were too hot and terrain too rugged to fight it on the ground. They had the possibility of earning some overtime pay fighting the fire. But a few days later we'd hear that logging operations would be suspended until the next rain because the fire was probably started by sparks from some logging equipment. That would mean some time without work and without pay. Our original plan was to loop back south from Woss to Gold River and Campbell River, and then continue south on Highway 19 to Nanaimo and the ferry back to Vancouver. But there were two things a little unappealing about this route. First, it would mean retracing some ground we'd already covered. Second, and more importantly, the road from Woss to Gold River is unpaved and over 85 miles long. John and I have done several 80+ mile days on previous tours, sometimes even including significant climbs. But an unpaved road is a whole other animal, and the thought of a slow, jarring ride on gravel for 85 miles was not exactly something we were looking forward to. So we started to look for alternatives and came up with the idea of just continuing north to the end of the highway in Port Hardy. We didn't have enough time alloted for doing that and riding back, but renting a car for the return trip would solve that problem and that's what we decided to do. Next morning our breakfast was delayed a bit as the cafe was busy preparing bagged lunches for the firefighters. No problem for us, as we were looking forward to an easy 45 mile ride into Port McNeil instead of a rugged 85 mile ride on a dirt road to Gold River. Next