Exploring Long Lake
They were up at 6 a.m. to go count fish. You have to go out there fairly frequently because the fish get concentrated below the fence. Every few hours they have to open it up and then watch from above to count the fish that go through.
The fuel storage shed, along with my deflated boat in that messy heap.
Today we were going to go down to the end of the lake in this speedboat to get sacks of rocks. The rocks are needed to plug up holes in the fence through which the sockeye were sneaking. The only place where you can reliably get enough rocks to fill the burlap sacks, at least during this high water, is at an avalanche chute way down at the other end of the lake. Sounds pretty interesting to me, I’ll go!
Be careful not to get sucked down the black hole on the right!
The logs accumulate at this end of the lake and every once in a while they will open up the fence and send them all down into the lagoon.
Looking east down the lake from the camp dock.
There was still lots of snow in the mountains, unusual for this late in the season.
A little ways down is a narrows where logs tend to collect so we had to be careful at this point.
This is actually the other side of the pass which I attempted to bushwhack the previous year. On the far upper right is the pass. I would have had to come down that steep hill, which looks like it is possible, though certainly not easy.
Really old petroglyphs
The entrance of the creek draining Triangle Lake, which is a little lake right adjacent to Long Lake.
Fishing is usually good here, and Etienne caught a cutthroat on his first cast. I got UW video of it. But after that, nothing. We presumed the water was just too cold. And it was also very high water; there are usually beaches around here but at this time.
The old cutblocks above Triangle lake, which is just behind that hill on the right. The road goes through these and would take me to the right and then northwards to Smith Inlet.
I would have to bushwhack up to the road, about 300 meters or so, through fairly thick bush.
The topography got more dramatic as we headed east down the lake.
More petroglyphs
I think those represent fish eggs.
The middle third of a very large waterfall entering the lake.
The lower third of the waterfall. In summer it is a nice swimming spot, but not today. It can actually get quite warm in the lake’s valley, being somewhat inland, and with steep rock walls absorbing the sun’s heat. There are quite a few douglas firs in this area, which need some warm and dry weather in the summer to thrive. So here, inland a bit, we are getting away from the hypermaritime coastal forests and beginning the transition through the coast mountains ecozone.
The south side of the end of the lake is where Canoe Creek enters. We tried casting but got nothing.
Looking northwards across the lake to the main valley where Smokehouse Creek enters. It comes from the right. This whole area, including the entire Smokehouse watershed, is now in a conservancy.
Up near the Smokehouse estuary. This area is usually a big beach but now it is totally inundated.
Heading up the river, we encountered eerie mist.
It is a sluggish river with a silt load from the glaciers in the headwaters.
You can see the meeting of the silty river water with the clear water of the stream.
We caught nothing; the water was just too cold.
The river is lined with old growth giant sitka spruce forests. We went up about three kilometers, then decided to turn back.
Then it started to rain.
Stopping at the avalanche chute a couple kilometers down the lake.
The rock bags were ready to go; we just had to move them onto the boat. That was my chore in exchange for getting the tour of the lake. We passed them along like a chain and loaded them up in good time.
The weight was a little lopsided on the way back.
Evening light, looking down the lake from the camp.
There was a hummingbird feeder outside the kitchen window, and there were usually about four of them buzzing around at any given time. I decided to get some shots but the window screen was taped on and I didn’t want to remove it. So I had to shoot through it. And the autofocus didn’t work because of that. All things considered, not a bad shot!
The seals chase the salmon up against the fence, where they sometimes get pinned due to the water flow. Then the seals pick them off. The fish eventually die there so they are collected and sent back to the local native band for traditional uses.
More salmon than we could eat. In this day and age, an increasingly rare occurrence.
Looking down at salmon swimming through the open gate. The walkway down below is a very dangerous place to be because if you fall in you will get pinned up against the fence and end up dead like a salmon, so people have to be latched onto a harness and guyline to prevent such a similar fate.
There were some poachers at the mouth of Wyclese Lagoon taking the sockeye. So the DFO guys made a trip out on the 6 p.m. tide to go talk to them and get their info. They would pass along the info, but they had no authority to arrest them.
Ahh … resource wars. This run is pretty big, especially this year. They estimated at least 100,000 fish. If their counts verify this then it will probably be attracting more attention from DFO as a real fishery. Because you know, in this day and age of resource scarcity, you can’t have any excess fish anywhere that aren’t caught… all excess must be directed to the giant human mouth… to consumers half a world away who believe that sockeye salmon come from a can. But apparently we’re not facing a Malthusian collapse, there are lots of resources for everyone…
I had been talking to the guys earlier about living out here all summer. They are out for two months at a time, with a short break until they return again. They said it’s nice but it can get a little uneventful out here for so long. The other end of the lake is where all the action is. I wondered how I’d handle it. I think I could handle it okay because I find the littlest things in nature interesting. Nothing ever happens in cities in my opinion. Riots after the Stanley Cup finals? Whatever. Salmon running up a river with grizzly bears? Yeah, that’s exciting. The only thing I don’t like about being in the wilderness is the of lack of internet; I have to keep in touch with what’s going on in the rest of the world. But they have satellite internet here so I think I could easily spend a whole summer up here.
I thought about how unique it must be in the world to have your very own wilderness lake right at your doorstep. It’s only at about 4 meters elevation, and it’s 25 km long. How many other places have that? Maybe way up north or on top of a mountain somewhere, but a low elevation wilderness lake like this in highly productive ecosystems? Pretty rare. This is another special place on our coast.
Looking downriver from the fence towards Wyclese Lagoon
I made Himalayan lentils and rice and had a relatively early night.
July 7 2011 — Seeing Long Lake for the First Time
It was a chilly night, because it was clear!
It was a beautiful morning and I lolled around for a few hours on the dock in the partial sun, charging my batteries, organizing stuff and drying out all the food in my waterproof food bags. The bags not only keep the moisture out, but they also keep it in if it does somehow enter, for example hypothetically if you’re on a kayak trip in the rainforest and over days of non-stop rain you have to open them up several times to get food out… I had to keep the food dry or it could go bad.
A salmon bag that was lying around. Perfect for my tripod! I’ll take it, thanks!
I spent a couple hours working on making a mount for my underwater GoPro housing to hang off the front of the boat and record underwater footage as I paddle. The issue was that there was no way I was going to go up to the front of the boat to secure it every time I wanted to use the UW camera. So it would have to be at the end of a long stick that I would put in place between two brackets at the front of the boat, and then wedge it in further back towards me so that it is held sturdily. I got that finished and I was getting ready to get on the water to try it out…
But at that moment I heard a quad coming down the road. It was John and Patti, two natives who worked for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans up at the fish camp at the lake. They said I could stay up at the camp!
Then they drove me and my stuff up to the camp.
Seeing Long Lake for the first time — behind some smoking sockeye salmon.
This camp has been here a long time, originally built by loggers who worked some of the shores of Long Lake (you can see above how the forest down near the opposite shore is younger than the old growth further up the hill). There is a large sockeye run that comes up the river into the lake in the early summer and the camp operates a fish fence which allows the fish to be counted. The adults hang out in the lake until the end of the summer and then go up the rivers at the other end to spawn in the fall. That is where the bears and wolves catch them. Sockeye fry require a lake in which to mature for a year before heading out to the ocean, after which they return about four years later as adults to complete the cycle of life. So only river systems with lakes support sockeye.
There was another DFO boat coming in on the 6 pm tide (you have to wait until the tide is high to get through the narrows into Wyclese Lagoon). I also realized that I could possibly do the other portage I was thinking about — from half way down Long Lake there is an old forestry road that goes 7 km north up to Smith Inlet. At this point I was really kicking myself for leaving my wheels at the other end of the lagoon. So I decided to hoof it back to get them before the end of the day.
The boat was pretty light but it seemed to take forever to get back there. I was worried about a bear eating the tires since they really stunk of rubber, and apparently bears like to eat rubber. That would be a bummer. But that’s the thing about kayaking, you have to be patient. The boat only goes a certain speed and you can’t go faster than that. You have to be out there for the present, not the future, or you will go crazy. It took two hours, from 2:30 to 4:30. I also had a headwind, but I wasn’t cursing that because if it kept up it meant I would have a tailwind for coming back, which was more important.
I finally got to the end and no bears had come by. But unfortunately one of the wheels was flat! I hadn’t planned on that and my boat inflator pumps wouldn’t work on the bicycle valve. I’m lucky it didn’t go flat on the portage. Oh well, I would see if I could fix it at the fish camp, since they had a compressor, and ironically, the exact same box dolly with tires that weren’t flat!
I had a nice tailwind on the way back and I played a bit with my new underwater housing mount as I went along the shore of the lagoon. I also saw the DFO boat race across right on time.
When I got back at 6:30 I started walking up the road and I heard banging coming down towards me. Then two guys in the quad came around the corner holding a shotgun… apparently it’s DFO policy that you always carry a shotgun in bear country. They were Wayne, the boss, and Etienne, another exchange student, this time from Paris, France, on a summer program working in the hatcheries at Bella Coola.
They graciously invited me to stay at the camp even though I don’t think it was officially allowed. I set my tent up in the storage room. Then they fed me sockeye and rice and salad, gave me beer, I got on the satellite internet, and had power to charge all my batteries! Wow! I think they were a little taken aback by my presence, this guy just showing up out of the wilderness, although they have had kayakers visit before, very infrequently. Imagine if I had made it across the bushwhack to Long Lake and shown up from the LAKE side! That would have really freaked them out!
I was in bed by midnight and then they turned the generator off.
July 6 – Across Wyclese Lagoon
It rained overnight and was still drizzling in the morning. Everything outside was soaked. I got up around 10 am and packed up.
It was a difficult entry, with a steep rocky slope down to the water through thick alder bushes. This is wide angle so it makes everything look flat.
Looking back to where I put in. I came from the right. There is a road hidden in the forest. And going backwards, the road eventually turns left again and goes back to Mereworth behind that hill. That’s where I came from.
It was good to be out on the water again. I moved fast, at least relatively speaking. It was certainly easier. But compared to bicycle touring, it’s still a snail’s pace. I will never complain about headwinds on my bike.
It was cloudy and calm, a nice leisurely paddle down Wyclese Lagoon.
There was lots of floating woody debris in the lagoon. And the water tasted fresh to me. I did see a seal around here, however.
Paddling along the shoreline was interesting with hundreds of little waterfalls cascading down through the tree roots, fed by all the recent rain.
The opening to the left leads northwards to Smith Inlet. Long Lake is just past that on the right.
Looking back to where I just portaged. That light green line is the road I walked down, from the left behind the mountain. It goes to the right, then hits the junction, at which point I walked towards the camera and crossed over to the left side.
I was getting concerned about finding a campsite since there were no beaches and no apparent tidal variation. This is looking towards the outflow of Long Lake. The lake is just over behind that first little piece of land.
I figured I’d head over to see the lake outflow, and then just go out to the ocean if there were no good spots.
And then I spotted this! A dock! And a road! Things always seem to work out out here.
I set up camp and aired everything out, which definitely needed it.
More hummingbirds
I was wondering exactly what this dock and road were for. Obviously, to get to the lake, but I wondered why it was so well maintained. Tire tracks on the road indicated that people had been here recently, but there were no boats. I was kicking myself for leaving my wheels back at the other end of Wyclese Lagoon. I didn’t have space for them and I didn’t think I would be needing them again. I walked up the road a bit but then got a little concerned about bears so then I came back. It is a kilometer to the lake from the dock.
July 5 – Portage to Wyclese Day 2
Last night I dreamed I had procrastinated studying for my final exams too long and I was scrambling on the last day. What a horrible feeling. I have that dream not too infrequently. I wonder what it means. I have lots of vivid dreams out on these trips. Everything is vivid out here.
It rained all night. I noticed that after hours of steady rain my tent started to leak through the seams on the roof. I wished I had sorted out making some sort of tarp setup off the front of the tent to make a “sun”deck, out of the rain, so I wouldn’t be stuck in the tent whenever it was raining.
I thought about staying here another day because I didn’t want to get wet. Good luck with that on this trip… Plus that would give my arms a break. I was at about 8 km of 12, so I had about another 4 km to go.
I could hear a river down below, swollen from all the rain.
I decided to head out when the rain eased off a bit. The timing wasn’t too bad; I got out by about 10 a.m. As expected, the road quality worsened right after the cutblock since it hadn’t been maintained as recently past that point. The alder was growing in from the sides and down the center. So I could just pick one of the tire tracks and go down it.
I did a couple kilometers in a half hour and was very optimistic about getting to Wyclese Lagoon in short order. But the road got progressively overgrown as I went along. I was videotaping my progress though, which was interesting, and it turned out pretty good.
Then it started raining again. At one point I could vaguely make out Wyclese Lagoon off in the distance, as Kevin had said. I made it to the junction at the bottom of the valley and then headed east. The going was slow but steady, and I was soaked.
I ripped off the camera mounts a couple times in the trees, and one of those was on at the time! It was some interesting footage, and the camera landed lens up. And the boat flipped over about five times, especially on some steep downhill sections. The problem was that one wheel would go over a small alder in the center of the road and this would snag and push the wheel up and the boat would flip.
I was yelling to keep the bears away but there was little sign of them.
Finally I made it to some more flat road near Wyclese Lagoon. The road really did vanish into that greenery; this was a short clear section.
The guys had used “hip chain” to survey the road the other day. This is thin cotton string attached to a counter on your hip which measures how far you have gone. The thread is biodegradable but every 20 meters I would have to clear it off myself and my boat.
And it got wrapped up in the wheels.
But they left me pink ribbons every 100 meters with the distance marked. See the hip chain on the left?
End of the open section, beginning of the brush. Totally soaked.
I stopped for some peanut butter and dates for lunch in the middle of the brush at one point. But after a few minutes the bugs discovered me so I continued on battling the hip chain and alders.
I picked up some debris.
Off roading with my boat… Kevin had marked a debris slide on the map, which was very accurate.
I finally got to the end of the road after the final river crossing (luckily there was still a bridge). The float was gone and the shore was overgrown with alder, but the landing had a nice big open area for my tent. Looking east towards Wyclese Lagoon.
Looking towards where I just came from.
I disassembled the kayak, changed into dry clothes, and made dinner — wild turkey. It was okay, not too great. I filled my bottle from a drip coming off the moss on the cut bank. This was fresh groundwater so I didn’t have to filter it.
I dried out nicely even though there was no sun. Body heat I guess. And the rain had stopped.
Sitka alder. It has jagged leaf edges and grows more like a large shrub. And it smells really nice.
Red alder. It has slightly undercurled leaf edges and grows like a tree. It doesn’t smell.
Red alder on the left, sitka alder on the right.
The no-see-ums were getting bad so I retreated to my tent for the night. I replaced the lens for my GoPro camera which had been ripped off the mount and landed on the ground and got scratched.
I had now finished the portage section of this year and basically made it to Smith Inlet. It was this crossing that had sent me back home last year so I was glad I had licked it. I felt thankful that I was able to do this trip, both physically and mentally; many people couldn’t.
The song in my head today was Barney Bentall’s “Got Something to Live For”
July 4 – Portage to Wyclese, Day 1
Well the guys were up early so so was I. Again they fed me breakfast. They were going to fly out in the afternoon so all morning they would be getting their stuff together and cleaning up. A new crew would then be coming in. They also gave me a map of the road and terrain I would be going through which showed cutblocks and forest cover. They had just hiked the road the other day so he wrote down certain hazards and landmarks for me to use as a guide.
I got my boat inflated in the parking lot and started trying to attach the wheels. I really should have practised more at home. No problem because I was in a forestry camp and there was wood and supplies everywhere!
The problem was that when I filled my kayak with all my gear, the weight made the wheels rub the underside of the boat. So what I did was get strips of cedar bark from the slash piles and wedge this in between the boat and the wheel assembly, which lifted the boat a few inches to give it clearance. This worked.
Then I tried to get as much weight as possible behind the wheels so the boat would ideally balance on the wheels without me needing to lift the front end with a lot of force. This was mildly successful as there was only so much room behind the wheels.
I said goodbye to the guys and started heading up the road.
Things were great for the first hundred meters, then the road turned left and went up a steep hill.
I had to take out my heavy food bag and backpack and hike these up first because with that weight in in the boat I just couldn’t move it up the hill. I wasn’t heavy enough and my feet skidded on the gravel.
The hill continued on, then began to kind of look like it might level off, but then it continued on. And it continued on some more, and more, and more. Wow, what a way to start the portage. I wasn’t expecting this! Since I was starting at sea level and would be ending at sea level, my math skills told me that it couldn’t keep going up! Finally after about a kilometer it levelled off.
At one level spot I heard a lot of bird noise so I stopped to take it in. There were hummingbirds, and these always seemed to be around. They would come come check out all my bright colours, it must be like bling to them. I was also still above the inlet and I could hear ducks flying overhead since they seemed to fly inland sometimes. I’m not sure why, if they are going over to the next inlet or maybe a lake or pond. But at this spot there was also a Swainson’s thrush bathing me with its enchanting call that echoes through the forest, one of my favourite sounds. And then there was a couple of ospreys circling above. What a bird spot!
Female rufous hummingbird
I continued on after recording some of the sounds, which I will put up later when I get that option enabled (I know I always say I’ll do this but I will at some point). I could only go maybe 50 or 100 meters at a time, after which I’d have to take a break and switch arms and body positions. The boat was heavy and I was lifting a lot of weight. And the road started going down a bit too, which was nice. So far so good.
Oops. Sometimes if a wheel hit a rock the setup could be unstable. At this point I decided to filter some water from the adjacent ditch. It was brown but drinkable.
Fresh bear sign
I came upon some interesting mushrooms growing in the middle of the road. I stopped to take some photos and then I was startled by some strange animal noises just ahead on the road.
Soon I saw that it was a grouse.
It was acting strangely. If I tried to walk by on the road it would run out in front of me and cross over. It must have been trying to divert me away from its nest. I spent about 10 minutes trying to get photos of it.
I continued on for a while and then got a bit tired; it was early afternoon – sleepy time. And it was starting to rain. So I lay down in the middle of the road with my kayak drip skirt over me as I snoozed in the light rain and wind, and munched on dried mangos. I must have been there for an hour. I watched a bird come to drink from the puddle beside me, which I also did afterwards but I filtered it.
The road was flat and I was making good time.
I stopped at the first cutblock and ate more mangos. There was a steep little hill up from here. I made a video of me pulling my kayak up the hill.
My destination for the day was the big cutblock not far ahead. The weather looked like it would start closing in so I hoofed it. This is the view looking west from it.
My timing was good since as soon as I set my tent up it started raining fairly hard, at around 5 p.m. I waited out the rain for an hour and a half, snoozing of course.
I had a 15 minute break to get out my GPS, organize, and brush my teeth. I only ate dates for dinner as I wasn’t too hungry. I listened to the weather report and then the batteries were pretty much dead. I hoped I’d see some sun soon because that was the only way to charge them.
More hummingbirds came to visit me every 10 minutes. I love those guys.
I was a little worried about bears, with all the sign around. Fortunately though there wasn’t too much in this cutblock, and it was on high ground so there wasn’t too much to attract bears here anyways. My concern was that with the wind I wouldn’t be able to hear one until it was on me. But I took security in my little house on wheels. My stuff gives me security. When I lose control of my stuff, I get frazzled.
I reviewed my photos from the last few days. I noted that I use all four lenses (each on its own body – from wide angle to telephoto) roughly equally, so that was validation of my lens choices for the trip.
I could hear frequent planes off in the distance. This was a nice campsite with long views across the shallow valley to the “mountains” on the other side. I could see the weather as it came in and swept through.
And there was a beautiful fragrance permeating the air, the smell of sitka alder. This is a shrub / small tree that lives in higher elevation or cooler coastal areas. It has a wonderful scent. The olfactory sense is amazing at bringing back memories. I think there is actually a neural connection in your brain between scents and memories. Whenever I smell sitka alder it brings me right back to hiking the Joffre Lakes trail many years ago, along the Duffy Lake Road into BC’s interior.
This was the last fresh cutblock on the map, and I was figuring that the road quality would quickly degrade immediately afterwards since it wouldn’t have been maintained recently. That’s also one reason why I decided to set up camp here.
July 3 – Flying Out to Mereworth
I was a little nervous about my upcoming trip but luckily I had two months of experience from the previous year to go by. I imagine if you were starting from scratch from here it would be a tad more intimidating.
The nice homey check-in counter. I just walked across the weigh scale into the back to talk to the pilot and go over maps. You don’t usually do that at most airports. And he trusted that I wasn’t going to blow the plane up so I didn’t go through airport security either! The benefits of small town…
All my stuff, 11 pieces and 180 lbs
Looking westwards to Vancouver Island. First we were heading southeast to Port McNeil to pick up some other passengers, then north across to the mainland on the “Sched” run, the regular flights they take all over this country to pick up / drop people off, kind of like a really expensive personal bus service.
Looking up Kingcome Inlet, where I had that awesome huge paddling day the year before (the halibut fishermen).
We crossed Queen Charlotte Strait and moved over the mainland. There are many lakes and inlets here and it is easy to lose track of where you are in the labyrinth below.
As we were preparing to land we passed by Huaskin Lake.
We dropped off a forestry worker at a logging camp way up the end of an inlet. He was going to be in for a few weeks, working on road building. The landing was quite interesting, as we circled the site and then banked hard to come in through the narrow inlet opening. One mistake, and we’re in the trees.
We took off the same way we landed and circled around to get height to cross the mountains as we headed northwards towards my destination. The other passenger was a sailboat cruiser on vacation from the UK, coming along for the sightseeing ride. Luckily for him we were going through some beautiful country to get me to my dropoff point.
We soon got to Seymour Inlet and then crossed up north to Belize Inlet. I was hoping to go for a quick tour of Long Lake but the weather up there wouldn’t allow us to safely make the pass over to the lake, so we just followed the dead straight Belize Inlet to the west, passing the raging tidal waters of Alison Sound as they swirled through the narrows.
The scenery was so ruggedly dramatic. I imagined a kayak down there. It would be totally insignificant. That’s what I would be for the next few weeks. This truly is an amazing place. I bet our sightseeing passenger was thinking I might be crazy flying into here alone with a kayak, and I was wondering that myself.
One of the many hundredds of raging waterfalls gushing into the ocean after all the rain. I don’t think water availability is going to be an issue for me this year!
I wanted to fly into that decrepit little dock I had lunch on in Mereworth, but that had disappeared, either by a storm or they took it away. So we landed at my desired destination anyways, the floating green forestry camp. I hoped they wouldn’t object to me just barging in like that.
There goes my ride. No turning back now.
There is something special about Mereworth. It has the feel of an unspoiled wilderness, even though there is logging around. The logging that goes on doesn’t overly spoil it, at least in my opinion.
I put my stuff on that dock in case the forestry workers didn’t take too kindly to me showing up. The land and road is publicly owned so I am allowed to go there, but the camp is private.
After getting my stuff organized a little bit, I noticed that my maps case was missing. I left it on the plane ! I had it with me in the seat so I could see where I was but when landing I put it on the floor, and in all the excitement I forgot it. Not a major problem as I had a new GPS with loaded maps, as well as Google Earth on my computer. Plus I knew the terrain well from studying it intensely beforehand.
The weather wasn’t too bad but it was threatening to rain with a bit of light drizzle, intermittent with sunny patches — typical unsettled weather. I knew someone was out in the bush because there were fresh tire tracks in the mud since the last big rain yesterday. So I sat on the dock and waited, with bugs flying around.
I watched a bumblebee on some clover in a crack of the dock and had another philosophical moment with nature. I mused about how the nature we see in cities is the same nature you get out in wilderness. Same bees, same clovers, same hummingbirds and dragonflies. There’s just more of it out here, and more variety. We are all part of the same thing, this amazing biosphere, the result of 4 billion years of progression of life on earth, the miracle that life is. Call it God, evolution, Bodh, whatever you will; it’s amazing. At heart I’m a scientist and far from taking away my wonder towards the world, analyzing things scientifically only strengthens the wonder. When you learn about how complex even the simplest bacteria or pond algae is, it’s hard to thereafter look down upon pond scum! The more questions science answers, the more questions it raises. There is ample room for spirituality within science. In fact science in no way precludes spirituality; believe it or not, the scientific method was actually founded upon it! Many people equate science with reductionism, determinism. And while that is part of the scientific approach, that’s not really what makes science science, and therefore people shouldn’t be turned away from it because some scientists are hardcore reductionists. I’ll write an essay about that someday when I can get my thoughts well organized enough.
I decided to grab my camera to take a photo of the bee, but then it flew off… and then the truck arrived. Two guys came down the ramp — Kevin, a long time local forester, and George, a forestry exchange student from South Africa, on his second day in the bush. Kevin noted how just that day he was telling George that soon the tourists would be arriving (presumably in their sailboats). They didn’t expect a kayaker to fly into their dock!
They invited me to stay inside their house which was very gracious. They fed me, gave me free internet and TV, and power! In return I gave George the video I took from my flight over because he hadn’t taken any video of that but he wanted to show people what it was like. They also let me use the sat phone to call Pacific Coastal and let them know I would be okay without my maps.
I also got the story on the forestry worker that was attacked by a grizzly two years before. They were working in a cutblock above the entrance to Wyclese Lagoon, and a bear had been hanging around for a few days. They ignored the warning signs and continued to come back, one day with tuna sandwiches. And for some reason they had no bear spray. Then I guess the bear decided it had had enough, and wanted their sandwiches. So it was definitely not an unprovoked or random surprise attack. That made me feel better.
July 1 and 2 – Getting Ready
On Friday I was in Vancouver, on the phone with the water taxi company in Port Hardy arranging a lift across to the mainland. They said they could do it, but they were going the next day in the afternoon, on their regular run up to Rivers Inlet. They wouldn’t do it again until Tuesday.
So I took the Prius over to the Island that evening and my mom and I headed up to Hardy Saturday morning in the rain. We got to the water taxi place just in time and it turns out they couldn’t take me across after all. The weather was snarly and he wouldn’t go over to Seymour Inlet because he was rounding Cape Caution. To avoid the rough water you have to stay many miles offshore when going around the cape, because it’s shallow. He didn’t want to go up against the mainland with me.
So that was that, a bit disappointing. I asked around about ideas and no opportunities presented themselves down on the docks. My mom dropped me off at the backpacker’s hostel and that had a big huge room upstairs which was good for all my stuff. They suggested I talk to Pat over at Odyssey kayaks. I headed over there in the pouring rain and met up with him. He suggested I contact the float plane companies to see if I could get a lift across.
We also talked quite a bit about kayaking around there, and he gave me the story on that cougar over in Shelter Bay. Apparently there was a group of campers there and the cougars (siblings) were hanging around. When one girl went out for a pee, she got attacked. She screamed and kicked and the others came over and scared it off. It got away with her shoe but otherwise she only had scratches. So it turns out I actually was in danger there.
The next morning I booked a flight with Pacific Coastal at 3 pm and took another Prius taxi ride out to the airport. Luckily I knew everything would fit inside, because that’s what we drove up in!
Year Two Starts
In about 12 hours I should be on the water taxi across Queen Charlotte Strait to Bramham Island where I will pick up from where I left off last year. I only have 3 weeks this year, which I should be thankful for given all the work going on right now in the engineering biz with commodity prices up (I wonder why that is….)
I plan to go back up Belize Inlet and cross over to Wyclese Lagoon via the logging road, thereby avoiding that strenuous bushwhack which ended my trip last year. Then I’d like to go up to Long Lake if possible. One way or another I’ll end up in Smith Inlet where I hope to see grizzly bears, and after that I’ll kayak out Smith Inlet and around to one of the floating stores in Rivers Inlet where I hope to catch a boat back to Port Hardy so I can return to work as scheduled.
I have better video cameras this year, more of the little GoPro HD cameras. I also have proper underwater housings for them which means the underwater footage will be in focus. I also have a new, better looking PFD.
My Spot GPS locator website is the same as last time so you can follow along and get excited if I forget to press the button.
Around the Coast Mountains 
