Why so long between blog posts?
We flew home from Port McNeill to Bainbridge Island the first week of July to spend time with family, friends and working. For the curious folks, there are two options to fly from the North end of Vancouver Island to Seattle (besides chartering or using your own aircraft).
Your first option is to fly Pacific Coastal from Port Hardy to Vancouver, and then jump on your connecting flight to your final destination – in our case Seattle. Be aware that it is about a 30 minute shuttle ride from the terminal where Pacific Coastal lands to the main terminal. You will be collecting your bags, bringing them on the shuttle with you, and re-checking your bags with your next airline. Or in our case, just carrying on. As we were flying Alaska Airlines from Vancouver to Seattle, we were able to use the Airside iphone app to verify our passports 72 hours in advance of our flight. This allowed us to not have to check in with an agent, either at bag drop or at the gate for passport verification. Pretty slick!
Your second options is to fly Northwest Seaplanes from Port McNeill to Renton/Lake Washington. As we were going to have to spend a night at The Fairmont YVR (oh darn!) on the return as the Pacific Coastal was a morning flight and Alaska Airlines flights to Vancouver landed after the Pacific Coastal flight took off, we decided to take the more direct and fun flight with Northwest Seaplanes.
And boy the weather did no disappoint. It was scheduled to be 88F in Seattle, and was already a toasty one as we were waiting for our plane to be ready for a 10:30am departure. There is no air conditioning or pressurized cabin on the de Havilland Beavers. Due to the heat they gave us cold bottles of water to try to help us stay cool on our flights (you land in Nanaimo or Campbell River for customs and fuel). The staff commented, at least we weren’t the customers returning on the late afternoon flight! That’ll be a toasty one for sure!
If you are trying to fly above the North end of Vancouver Island and below Prince Rupert, your options are now more limited. Northwest Seaplanes sold their fishing lodge at Hakai Pass in October 2023, and no longer operates flights to the Central Coast. The new owners have relocated the lodge to the Southern portion of Rivers Inlet, Finn Bay Lodge.
Your options are either to fly Pacific Coastal from Bella Bella to Port Hardy, then again from Port Hardy to Vancouver, and jump on your connecting flight. Or if you are not near Bella Bella, Wilderness Seaplanes will pick you up from a larger smattering of locations on the Central Coast and fly you to Port Hardy, where you then connect with the Pacific Coastal flight to Vancouver and on to your final destination.
Whew. Also to note, none of these options of cheap. You’ll be out $500-$750 one way. But then, that’s the cost of being in the remote wilderness.
One of the perks of cruising SE AK is that Alaska Airlines flies Seattle to many locations in the region, and for $150-$250 one way. And you can even use your Alaska miles to pay for the flight! So if we have friends that want to come join us, we try to get them to plan their time aboard when we are going to be cruising SE AK.
Now for some stunning photos of our Northwest Seaplanes flight from Renton WA to Port McNeill BC.
