Taking on Big Oil … And Winning
I made a submission to the National Energy Board’s Northern Gateway Advisory Panel back in February. I didn’t post my speech here because the energy situation has become so grave and depressing I feel it’s tainting my blog with negativity. However, a few people have asked to see what I said (and I wish I had stuck an audio recorder in my pocket — it was a pretty powerful speech I gave, starting off with a bit of trepidation which turned into forcefulness, frustration, and anger rising over the ten minutes to its peak when they cut me off). Here is the transcript I read from … very quickly. The only change I’d make is that it wouldn’t require North America’s entire proven reserves of natural gas to extract and refine the oil sands, it would only require half. And this would be mitigated by advancements in increasing the net external energy return, which is the net energy return adjusted for internally produced and process gas that is liberated from bitumen extraction and can be used in place of externally imported natural gas.
The Northern Gateway propaganda seems to have ended so it seems we may have been successful in thwarting the pipeline … for now. We’ll have to wait and see what happens after the US dollar hyperinflates and China emerges with the new reserve currency. Then they may be dictating whatever they want to us. On the other hand, America will still maintain its war machine, reserve currency or not, and I don’t think China would be interested in messing with that. So it seems more likely that America will just force control of the oil sands to supply North America instead, which seems like a much more sensible option.
It also seems that they may instead try to pursue the rail option to ship bitumen to Alaska ports instead. This would pose less of a risk for pipeline spills because the bitumen would be solid in the rail cars. But it would need to be heated up again at the port to reliquify it which would require further energy inputs. It also doesn’t address the sovereignty issue of our country’s assets being controlled by communists. Thanks for that, Stephen Harper!
Hello, thank you for listening to me. I am a soon-to-be Professional Mechanical Engineer (currently an EIT) with one year left until full accreditation. I am bound by APEGBC’s Code of Ethics, whose first line states that:
“Members … shall uphold the values of truth, honesty and trustworthiness and safeguard human life and welfare and the environment. In keeping with these basic tenets, members and licensees shall:
(1) hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public, and the protection of the environment…”
Since my professional specialization is in designing pipelines and factories, and doing energy analyses for power plants, I am therefore obligated by my professional code of ethics to comment on the danger presented to the public and the environment by the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline.
One of my first thoughts when I heard of this pipeline idea was to question why we are proposing to export oil from North America, when North America is already a major oil importer. In fact, if you go to the BP Statistical Review, you’ll see that North America as a whole imports 3.2 billion barrels of oil a year. This is a full 10% of global oil production, of 31 billion barrels.
So why on earth are the Alberta oil companies proposing to EXPORT oil from North America, when North America already imports half of the oil it consumes? Well, because we can fetch a higher price in the Asian market than in North America, that’s why. Why is that? Because North America supposedly has a “glut” of oil. But if we have a “glut” of oil here, then why do we need to import half of what we consume? This doesn’t make sense.
The answer to that paradox lies in the status of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. In other words, oil is traded in dollars, and this enables the US to maintain extraordinary trade deficits, which are mostly composed of oil imports.
Now, this situation is all fine and dandy, as long as oil continues to be traded in dollars. But if you’ve been paying attention lately, the US Federal Reserve has officially announced that it will engage in unlimited monetary stimulus in an attempt the jumpstart the US economy. What this really means is that US debt is spiralling out of control and the only way they can service it is to print infinite amounts of dollars. This money printing will not end until the dollar’s value is destroyed through hyperinflation over the next few years.
In order to maintain the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency over the last few decades, the Federal Reserve has been suppressing gold prices, since cultures outside of North America value gold as a monetary asset, but the US wants them to hold dollars instead. The Chinese know this, which is why they have been buying up all of America’s historical gold stockpiles at artificially low prices. What this means is that when the US dollar hyperinflates and other countries reject it as payment for international transactions, then China will come out backing its currency with gold. Then China will have the new global reserve currency. THIS is why Alberta wants this pipeline built to China.
When this shift happens, the US will no longer be able to import 13% of global oil production anymore, and US oil consumption will necessarily drop by half. When this happens, the supposed “glut” of oil in North America will overnight turn into an extreme shortage. I am therefore wondering how further starving North America of vital energy resources is in any way “in the public interest”. We need the oil here. It’s our oil, not China’s.
Now, one could respond to this imminent shortage of oil in North America by proclaiming that, “No Problem, when this happens, we’ll just produce more oil here in North America to take up the slack. There is vast amounts in the Canadian oil sands and US oil shales, enough for centuries of supply.”
Actually, this is not so. In fact, US oil production peaked back in 1971 and has been dropping pretty much steadily ever since, despite all the media hype about the tight shale oil explosion in the Bakken. Those numbers are not significant in the grand scheme of things, and they merely offset declines from existing fields. Today, on a per capita basis, the US produces half the oil it did 40 years ago. This is a direct result of the phenomenon of Peak Oil. The US peaked 40 years ago, and now the world is at Peak Oil today.
“Again, No problem! Right? The Alberta oil sands will become the new Saudi Arabia, and we’ll be able to supply the world with oil for decades to come, and become one of the wealthiest countries as a result! Just like Saudi Arabia did!”
Yet again, this is not so. If you go look at the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board’s annual report (this is the branch of the Alberta government that overseas the energy sector), on page 2 of that multi-hundred page document, you will see that the entire recoverable Alberta oil sands deposit amounts to 170 billion barrels. The entire underground resource is 1.8 trillion barrels, but only about 10% of this is actually recoverable as real oil. The estimated ultimate recovery is 315 billion barrels, which supposedly accounts for future technological advances and price increases.
These numbers sound big, but in fact the entire recoverable Alberta oil sands deposit, according to the Alberta government, represents SIX YEARS of global oil consumption. And would you believe that the Alberta oil sands deposit represents about a quarter of the world’s remaining oil reserves? Therefore, the world’s current oil reserves will last maybe another 30-40 years, at current consumption rates.
“But we’ll be discovering LOTS more oil in the future, right?” No, unfortunately, global oil discovery rates are vastly below consumption rates. All the best deposits have already been creamed out. We are now left with difficult, slow, and expensive oil deposits in the Arctic or deep ocean, and of course the Alberta and Venezuela oil sands.
From this it can be understood that the reason there has been such focus placed on the Alberta oil sands lately is NOT because it is a particularly good oil deposit. It’s actually pretty poor quality. Rather, there has been so much focus because the world is rapidly running out of light sweet crude. This is why oil prices have risen so much over the last few years, and these high prices are necessary to make the Alberta oil sands activities economically viable.
In fact, global oil production rates have not increased in over 7 years, despite prices more than doubling over that period. This is the ultimate proof that the world is at, or very near, Peak Oil.
The reason the Alberta oil sands deposits require such high oil prices is twofold. Firstly, it isn’t oil – it’s solid bitumen, like pavement. This has to be refined into oil. The processes required to do this are complex and capital intensive, and therefore expensive. Secondly, they require vast amounts of external energy to be brought in to do the work of both extracting and upgrading the bitumen into synthetic crude oil.
If you look at the Royal Society of Canada’s recent multi-hundred page report on the oil sands, you will see that these processes require natural gas inputs of about 1/5th of the energy contained in the final produced oil. Therefore, the Alberta oil sands deposits have a net energy return of 5:1. You have to put in 1 unit of energy, and you get 5 out. This compares with historical light sweet crude, of which the world is now rapidly running out, with about 100:1 or even 200:1 net energy return.
These numbers highlight the historical trends in oil extraction. We’ve always gone for the deposits with the highest net energy return first, and we’ve since worked our way down to the poorest quality reserves which we’re now left with. This 5:1 net energy return ratio will continue to drop as the best oil sands deposits get developed first.
But the problem here is that you can only go so low. There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, so when we approach a net energy return of 1:1, that oil sand will not be available to us as a source of energy. In fact, in order to provide enough surplus energy to run the rest of society, a minimum net energy return of about 4:1 is required, which is pretty close to where we are now. This is why the vast expanses of Colorado oil shale are not recoverable as a source of energy, and why production rates there are effectively zero, despite there being trillions of barrels of oil-equivalent kerogen solids underground — it’s not oil.
Currently, according to the website of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the easy-to-produce deposits of natural gas are in decline. And when you do the number crunching, it turns out that in order to process the entire recoverable oil sands deposit of 300 billion barrels would require more than the entire proven North American natural gas reserves of about 300 trillion cubic feet.
The fantastic claims made in the media about how North America has centuries of natural gas left are pure fabrication. These refer to the total underground resource, not the recoverable reserves. Furthermore, when oil production soon begins declining, then consumption of natural gas will inevitably increase to compensate.
So then, how are we as a continent responding to the Peak Oil problem? Well, we’re trying to dig it out of the ground and export it even faster, leaving us with even less oil in the future!
I suggest that this is not in the best interests of our country, nor our children’s future, nor even our own future, because these oil shortages are happening right now, not merely decades down the road. Simply adapting to less energy in the future when we run out of oil will not be a feasible strategy, because there is a certain minimum amount of energy needed to maintain complex modern society.
The unfortunate problem we face is that on a global scale, 1/5th of global energy use, according to the FAO, is dedicated to food production and processing. In order to produce 1 Calorie of food in North America requires about 7 Calories of fossil fuel inputs. Food comes from fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels, or an equivalent energy substitute, it will not be possible to maintain 7 billion people on the planet. Therefore, we have no choice – we MUST replace fossil fuels with alternative energy before they run out, or quite simply most of the world will starve. We currently appropriate about 20 % of the planet’s net primary production for food and biofuels. Without external energy inputs such as from fossil fuels, we would easily push this well beyond 100%, which is not possible. We have overshot the planet’s carrying capacity by about 5 fold.
On a global basis, 97% of global energy supply comes from burning complex carbon molecules, which includes fossil fuels, biofuels, and food. The other 3% of global energy supply comes from the so-called renewables of nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar. So clearly, alternative energy has a long way to go to make a dent in overall energy supply. Given that we are at Peak Oil today, we really ought to be intensively developing renewable energy systems right now.
Are we? Basically, no. Hydro is nowhere near capable of replacing fossil fuels on a continent-wide basis; it’s a no-go because we’ve already dammed the best rivers.
Timed out here…
But the problem in North America is that we have a cultural infatuation with economic growth. Currently, in Canada, that economic growth comes primarily from increasing unsustainable fossil fuel extraction activities. Therefore, Canada’s economy is growing at a rate greater than the increases in contributions from renewable energy such as hydro, wind and solar. We are becoming EVEN MORE dependent on fossil fuels, not less! At a time when the world is running out of fossil fuels!
The problem we face is that it requires energy to build out renewable energy infrastructure. Currently, that comes from fossil fuels. I have to ask what we are going to use for energy when it comes time to develop renewable energy systems in a big way, once we’ve sold all our oil to China and we desperately need what little fossil fuels we still do retain for food production.
This is why economic growth built around exporting our remaining oil deposits overseas is not in any way in the national interest. Our national interest is in keeping these precious energy reserves here and using them to build out a renewable energy infrastructure before it’s too late.
Thank you.
Snowbiking The Callaghan, Whistler
Since my last bikepacking trip up Cloudburst Mountain was so much fun I was itching to get out and try it again. That was a circle route up over the pass and back around the mountain. So I spent some more time poring over Google Earth and found out that there aren’t a whole lot of other opportunities like that for circle routes in that area because most mountains are just too tall.
I went to MEC to get some real maps and discovered that there is a route leading from the Callaghan Valley (near Whistler) that goes west over a pass by Ring Lake and then down logging roads into the Squamish Valley. Great, I’ll just have to wait until August…
But … I just got my snow bike… so I can handle some snow. It won’t do powder but packed trails are OK. And I also have snowshoes, and a new packraft. So I decided to plan an adventure for March instead. My hope was that if the skies were clear the snow would be crusty enough that I could ride my bike over the pass if I got up early in the morning before it started to thaw. That’s super simple to do and I could easily cover 20 km a day if it’s crusty.
(I was planning to make a movie of this trip instead of a writeup but it just takes too long with the free Windows Movie Maker software. So I’ll just post some raw footage here; otherwise I’d never get it done. I don’t even have time to sort out the videos right now, actually. I have other posts that I want to focus my time on so I’ll just leave space here for them and add at a later time.)
I was super stoked to be trying out my new gear. My three day weekend of March 22 was coming up fast and the weather forecast was for glorious sunshine the whole weekend. I spent all my spare time the previous week working fast and furiously to get the kit together. It’s amazing how much stuff there was to do and I couldn’t possibly manage to get out of the house until late Friday morning.
Fresh powder across from Brittania Beach
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A little further along, coming into Squamish and this view of Mount Garibaldi
Above the highway, looking back down the Cheakamus Valley towards Squamish and Vancouver. The Squamish Valley merges from the right just over that hill. I was hoping to end the circle tour by packrafting down the Squamish to where you’re looking, and riding my bike back up the Cheakamus below to further up the valley where I’d park my car.
Video at rest stop.
I’ve never been to the Callaghan Valley before, which is an outdoor recreation area. It has the ski jump from the 2010 Winter Olympics, which apparently rarely gets used now. They punched a paved road way up the valley for that, which makes access easier, but at the same time just constitutes more “development” of our remaining wild areas. When will it stop? When will Whistler stop growing?
That’s Cloudburst Mountain! That I never actually saw last time when I circumnavigated it.
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Tired of looking at Cloudburst Mountain yet?
I ended up parking in a big lot at the valley bottom, beside the Whistler garbage transfer station, that snowmobilers use. The guy charged me $10 for two nights, half the normal rate for snowmobilers because I wasn’t snowmobiling. Finding overnight parking up the Callaghan Valley is particularly tough apparently, especially in winter.
Ready to go on my first winter bikepacking trip.
I headed up the 8 km paved road, starting at 500 m and finishing at the cross country ski area an hour and a half later, up at 800 m.
Looking up the road. It was fairly busy.
Looking back across the Cheakamus to the ever watchful Black Tusk (2400 m) towering over the whole area.
The road crosses the Callaghan River.
I had called earlier to confirm if I could come up and Kim came out to see me as soon as she saw I was there. They were a bit worried when I told them of my plans, especially since I had no compass (don’t need one) or map (all in my head). I had my Spot GPS though in case of emergency.
I set off up the hills and found it surprisingly easy to chug up the groomed runs. I did the grind for a few hours as I ascended the valley.
Handlebars: small sleeping bag, rain jacket
Front fork: water on right, alcohol on left. Thermarest on right in green sack, some freeze dried dinners on left in blue sack. GoPro video camera mounted above front wheel looking forward.
Top tube: Zip Shot tripod velcro strapped to the tube for quick removal, and rain pants strapped up front.
Under down tube: tire pump, and GoPro camera looking forward behind front wheel.
Frame bag: cell phone, food, tools, water filter, a few clothes.
Rear rack: packraft in blue sack, paddle shafts, snowshoes, cookset against seat tube, and bear spray wedged in there for quick access.
Panniers: one contains winter sleeping bag, other one contains my too-large tent and more clothes. Various remaining knicknacks throughout as well. Each contained one paddle blade.
Up and up…
I was running low on water but there were a few groundwater / meltwater streams beside the road which I could use to fill my bottles, without having to filter.
video
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I could hear a helicopter flying back country skiers in to the mountains across the valley.
Back country skier tracks
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Snowmobiler tracks. There are actually two black dots in there (top, left of center) which are the snowmobilers.
The valley beckoned.
I was heading up the Callaghan Mainline (gravel road), which is a cross country ski and access trail in winter. After reaching Callaghan Lake I headed left to go towards Callaghan Lodge.
On the way there I passed some guests from the lodge coming down the access road I was climbing. They were all very interested in my bike. For once, I was the tourist attraction. That’s not me.
I was hoping the trail would flatten out after Callaghan Lake, which it did for a short while, but then it started climbing for a few more kilometers.
The snow was kind of melting down at the bottom but at the top it was still fresh powder. It wasn’t crusty.
Riding these kinds of trails requires active thermal management. As the saying goes for winter travel, “If you sweat, you die”, so I was pulling layers off to stay cool when climbing. But then if I’d have a downhill section I’d have to put them back on.
My plan was to go as far as the trails would take me and then snowshoe a little further, camp, and continue on over the pass the next day. I’d packraft down the Squamish, then ride back up to the car.
But at the end of Day 1 I was totally beat. Past the lodge the trail got progressively worse. Four hours of hard climbing was taking its toll on me. I normally do the Grouse Grind in Vancouver quite often which is great training for high intensity climbing, but it only lasts 45 minutes or so. Plus I was up at 1300 m now, which is beyond where I normally train, so I could feel the altitude.
I basically got to the end of the trail and crashed, and set up camp 20 feet beyond…
Paul at work told me a trick to avoid soaking your boots from the snow — wrap them in plastic bags. This worked reasonably well but some snow still got in there. The plastic was pretty thin and some holes developed.
That was it for the day.
View from my tent
It was getting cold too — minus 5 or so, and dropping fast as the sun went behind the mountains. Luckily I had been winter camping before and learned a few lessons … like, don’t leave your wet boots out when it gets to minus 20 C…
I didn’t make that mistake again but I discovered a few more complications to camping in sub zero weather. Firstly, my alcohol stove was hard to get going at -5. I should have put the alcohol in my pants to warm it up first. Secondly, it’s kind of hard to wash your pots when the food crusties freeze solid in a few seconds. That takes some more planning, especially if you want to use that pot to melt snow for drinking water afterwards.
Another challenge I anticipated was that the stove would melt through the snow and collapse, so I cleverly brought along some tinfoil to place it on. But it was too thin and the stove still ended up tilting a bit. With all the snow melting, etc. I used about twice the alcohol I usually do.
I got my two sleeping bags set up, with my water bottle, water filter, alcohol, and boots in bed with me.
The other thing that happened was that I couldn’t curl up to stay warm because this caused leg cramps after all the hard work that day. I have to stretch out which means I get colder.
Ring Pass is thataway.
That night I spent a lot of time wondering if I should risk going over the pass or just head back down. My concern was that the snow went way down to 400 m, so I’d have a lot of downhill hiking through the snow on the other side, with sticks and twigs I’d have to pull my boat over. I’d see how my snowrafting went in the morning, then reassess.
It was a chilly night, probably down to minus 15, but I survived reasonably well. In the morning the trail groomer came by in his machine. I don’t think he was too happy with me camping right there beside the trail, but oh well, it’s public land. Skiers stopped and talked as they went by, and were quite interested and impressed. It’s not hard people, you just need the right gear!
I think snow biking will soon be taking off in Whistler. Years ago it was snowboarders invading the slopes and causing a caffuffle with skiers. Now I think it will be snowbikes to invade the ski slopes, causing a caffuffle with boarders and skiers. They can put them on the chairlifts in summer, so why not in winter too?
Morning flurries
Video of snowrafting.
Conflict Lake is quite scenic. Until I traipsed across it with my snowraft, that is…
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It’s pretty hard to pull through the snow. I think that’s because of the rubber bottom material which isn’t very slippery. I will try to find some more slidy material to put underneath for pulling across the snow.
That’s Ring Pass, right of center.
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After a kilometer around one side of Conflict Lake I’d had enough and rejoined the cross country ski trail to flip back over to my bike again.
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Doing the switcheroo in the blazing sunlight and strong winds, and cold temperatures.
Above you can see the track the skiers used to climb up to the knoll on the right. And below this track you can see all their ski tracks when they carved their way back down. I’ve never done back country skiing, maybe I should try. No time though, or money. Too many other things to do.
Video of undulating trails.
Nice bike portrait in the forest on my way back down
Videos going back down.
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Crossing Callaghan Creek the other way.
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That’s it!
I decided to drive down to the Squamish Valley and sleep there in my car for the night. Tomorrow I’d ride up the valley and packraft back down what I was originally hoping to do all in one circuit from Ring Pass.
Better Late Than Never — Horseshoe Bay to Ambleside
I have paddled (almost) every meter from where I started, in the Fraser River in Richmond (2010), up to where I’ve gotten so far, Bella Bella (2012). But I actually started this trip back in 2008 when I paddled the length of West Vancouver’s shores. Unfortunately I was sidelined by a completely preventable and unnecessary sports injury (nerve entrapment) in my leg for the two years between. Then in 2010, just before the trip officially started, I did the sections from Richmond to Vancouver, then Vancouver to Ambleside. And a few weeks after this, I started the trip for real.
The paddle along West Vancouver’s shores went the opposite direction, however, due to the prevailing winds. I headed east, since I really don’t like paddling into the wind if I don’t have to. One September day, the 26th to be precise, I loaded all my gear onto the 257 Horseshoe Bay Express bus (actually, the 246 first, then the 239, then the 257). People kept coming in and it got totally packed. My gear was up front but I got pushed to the back. The problem was I wanted to get off a few stops before the bus disgorges everyone else out at the end of the line at the ferries.
Somehow I got myself and my stuff off at the right stop, then lugged my gear the kilometer down to Copper Cove. I had dived here years earlier on a collecting trip for the aquarium, going down to 110 feet. I did get narced, but luckily I’m a paranoid narc, not a happy narc.
I put my boat together on the rocky beach and then launched. Looking north up Howe Sound. I went left.
Rounding the points heading towards Whytecliffe Park, looking back up Howe Sound to where I came from.
There was a pod of seals around Whytecliffe Park.
Racing out from Eagle Marine
There was also a flock of seagulls hanging out on some intertidal rocks here. I had gotten my long lens only a year before and this was one of the first times I had used it in my bobbing kayak. Most shots were blurry.
The winds were coming from behind me, from the west. When I went by Lighthouse Park it got quite choppy as they slammed against the west-facing vertical walls.
Looking the other direction. This is a popular place for climbers to practice. Look closely.
The park’s namesake.
I continued along in front of all the waterfront houses. Eventually these made way to the public access sea wall and beaches.
Approaching Ambleside
When done I pulled out and walked up to Marine Drive, and took the bus home. Not quite as exciting as some of my later adventures in the wilderness, but a day out in my kayak nonetheless!
Aug 31 to Sept 1 2012 — To Shearwater and Port Hardy
Bright sunshine in the morning
I headed over to Shearwater, and I planned to paddle back to the ferry terminal in the evening.
Times gone by
It seemed to take forever to get there. I was fighting the currents and wind. It’s all about expectations. I was expecting to just have a leisurely little hop over to Shearwater but it turned into a multi-hour slog about 1/3 as long as yesterday’s whole paddle. If I had expected a long paddle from the start, then I wouldn’t have been frustrated by the wind. Those Zen Buddhists are on to something.
I finally got into town and pulled up next to the harbour master with my boat roasting in the sun. I thought I might have to let some air out but it was OK.
I had lunch in the pub which was blaring some asinine television. Here we go again, culture shock. I then bought a book about the local wolves, written by Ian Mcallister, a local here who has been studying them for the last number of years, and who was instrumental in lobbying for the limited protection this area does enjoy, the so-called “Great Bear Rainforest”. The wolves are very interesting and it’s well worth the read. I have a soft spot for dogs so I love wolves. We used to have a wolf hybrid who looked very much like the one on the cover of the book. And it seems wolves have a soft spot for us too — they virtually never attack people.
As I sat in the sun, reading my book and looking out across the channel, I felt a real sense of accomplishment. I had gotten about 1/3 of the way to Haines; this was a major milestone for me and I had done it all on my own power (except of course, flying in and out between seasons). My pace had been way slower than I originally anticipated, but here I was! It’s about the journey, not the destination, as the saying goes.
It turns out the ferry also goes to Shearwater on its way south so I just waited there. I’ll see Bella Bella next year. This is the new ferry terminal.
Here comes my ride.
The boat didn’t leave Bella Bella until about 11 pm. It was jam packed full of people and they all threw down mattresses. The floor was wall to wall people. I pitched my tent out on the deck.
Morning.
Next year I hope to stay put in one place for a while somewhere up around Princess Royal Island and spend some time with wolves. I also want to see the white kermode bears.
Aug 30 2012 — Nice Weather into Bella Bella
You can see how high the tide came up, from the tideline to the right. Now just imagine me, standing in the dark, at midnight, with all my gear up on that green grassy / rocky area, cursing the tide. It’s kind of funny thinking back to it and I should have taken the opportunity to commune with nature under the moonlight. But all the frustrations from the last few days just came out. I felt much better by morning!
This is one of those times when I wish I had some time lapse video to show this starfish moving along that rock.
One of these anemones is not like the others… but they are of the same genus, Anthopleura.
It was the season when the kelp starts to fall apart and calls it quits for the year.
More calm skies. I lazily followed the shoreline up all day in the sunshine. What a nice way to end the trip. But, just like last year, the nice weather didn’t seem to arrive until the last day!
I think this is a solitary sandpiper. Definitely not on sand.
I was kicking myself for not checking the ferry schedule back at Hakai Beach Institute. I had no cell phone reception so I couldn’t get on the internet. At least I knew the ferry went north today. But would it head south tonight? Tomorrow? Three days from now? I wouldn’t know until I got into town unfortunately. I may have spent another night out if I had known, and I passed by an interesting crushed shell campsite that apparently has petroglyphs, because I didn’t want to miss the ferry.
This fishing boat was trawling and was just offshore from my campsite when I set off in the morning. They kept pace with me all day into Bella Bella.
As I was crossing a big bay the stormclouds brewed above me. I wasn’t in my drysuit. They soon burst and I raced to the other side to take shelter under this cliff and was almost totally out of the rain for about a half hour.
One of the last points before reaching Bella Bella.
Hah, and we were back to jumping salmon. The closer I got to town, the more frequent they became.
Nice! There is a hatchery on a creek right by the ferry terminal and they were all back for that. It seemed everyone and his dog was out in his boat trying to catch them but they didn’t seem to be biting much.
I came ashore at the ferry terminal and called my mom on the payphone to get the ferry schedule — tomorrow evening the red-eye came through. OK, that was settled. I wouldn’t fly back.
I wasn’t sure where to camp so I paddled another few kilometers into town. It was getting late and when I got to that public wharf it was really busy so I decided to head back to the ferry terminal and camp there.
I guess that’s why the tide was so high last night! The ferry terminal wasn’t the best place to camp because it’s at the end of one of the few roads on the island so anyone who has a car drives out there to see what’s going on, and they also came to see the salmon. So I had lots of cars drive by me, and a few people stopped to say hi. One lady warned me about a black bear in the area.
Aug 29 2012 — Holy Cow Rain!
Some rain overnight — what else is new…
There is another beach at this site that was an easier put-in.
I was ready for the weather, and it was still blowing from the south. I wasn’t complaining.
The winds and currents pushed me north pretty fast. I zoomed by Spider Island which apparently has an old WWII base, and a road leading across it. Midway along the island the rain started. I battened down the hatches and took advantage of the wind. A train of about 10 fishing speedboats from a lodge went by heading north. I was glad I wasn’t in one of those in this weather. They were probably thinking the same about me. Kind of ironic, eh?
The problem was what I would encounter after Spider Island, which is Superstition Point, a couple kilometers of exposed coastline facing the west. If you want to kayak northwards, you have to paddle it. It wouldn’t normally be a problem since yesterday I was in places more exposed than that, but this weather was really getting crazy. And the wind started coming from the west, which is definitely not the direction you want to be blown while going around that point.
I took refuge behind this rock, the last sheltered place before going out into open water. This is looking north and you can barely see Superstition Point on the right. I hung around here for about half an hour and eventually I couldn’t see Super Point anymore from all the rain. My boat was filling up with water. This is a problem because my drybags don’t really seal up. They provide protection from splashes but my electronics bag was placed sideways lying down on the floor in front of me, and there was about 2 inches of water in the bottom of my boat. I was worried this was going to flood my bags.
I decided that I had to come ashore. There is a portage around Superstition Point so I headed for that.
After paddling a small portion of exposed water and getting blown around pretty hard I entered the calm inlet leading to the portage. The rain continued and my boat turned into a bathtub.
I had to search around at the head of the inlet a little bit but I soon found the ribbon marking the trail.
I hiked the 100 meters five times for all my gear. I stayed in my drysuit and wore my sandals. I was a little worried I might poke a hole in my drysuit feet, but there wasn’t any gravel or anything else sharp to poke it. The trail was thick organic matter and peat moss. The forest was really beautiful old growth cedar. At one place a tree had fallen over the trail and I thought I should have used my saw to clear it a bit, but I was in no state to be doing that.
Finally, as I finished portaging my stuff over, the rain eased up. That was probably some of the most intense rain I have ever been in. It lasted for a good hour and a half and dumped about 3 or 4 inches, judging by the water in my boat. I climbed up a little bank on the right side to fill up my water bottles with all the water gushing out of the moss, no filtering required. This meadow was covered with goose crap.
Then the sun came out! And my gear was dry! I was perfectly dry in my drysuit! The extent of the water damage was the foggy lens you see in the above photo, which dried out pretty fast. I had lunch of peanut butter on mango, and energy bars. It seems I’m getting better at managing the rain. I still need to figure out how to get a quick and reliable way of making a front porch out of a tarp.
I was soon off again.
They don’t seem to mind the rain.
I followed the little inlet to the north and came out at Cultus Sound. The speedboats were there fishing. I crossed over and followed the coastline up to the north-east. I wanted to get to Latta Island where there was a campsite marked on my map. There are some really nice beaches in Cultus Sound but I wanted to plod on further while I could as this weather was causing me some worry. The only problem was that the map didn’t show many more campsites for a ways north so I’d have to commit to several more kilometers.
This area is pretty convoluted. I chose what I thought would be the best route heading north. Without my map and GPS I would have been lost. Yes, even me, Mr. Magnetic-Compass-in-the-Brain, would have gotten disoriented. I can’t imagine how the first explorers made sense of this place.
I went up Sans Peur Passage — that’s quite an interesting name. The current was behind me and I was making good time. But then midway down the channel I noticed quite a commotion ahead. It was the tides changing. I had no choice but to go through. It is a strange feeling being thrown left, right and center by strong currents, and trying to avoid whirlpools. The last time I experienced it this intense was way back in Big Bay in the Discovery Islands, and of course in Nakwakto Rapids at Belize Inlet. It’s a good display of the power in the ocean, to be able to move that much water so violently. All that power comes from the pull of the moon, and specifically the Earth’s rotation. But moving that much water around uses up energy and rotational momentum, so the result is that the planet has been rotating slower and slower over the ages, or in other words, the days are getting longer. They used to only be 23 hours. Eventually the moon and Earth will be locked tidally, and then there will be no more tides. Too bad for the rich intertidal life!
Shortly afterwards I passed another raging creek discharging gobs of foam into the sea.
As I made my way northwards the sun came out again and I had to undo my drysuit. I soon enough made it to Latta Island, the last island I would be landing on before turning up the channel to finish this year’s trip at Bella Bella. I searched around where the map said there was a campsite and couldn’t really find anything. I was a bit dismayed and decided I had no choice but to take the most suitable location, which had a little sandy beach way up at the top of the tideline. It wasn’t a very good spot, and it looked like it got flooded during high tide. Plus there was water seepage under the site from all the rain. Oh well, what else was I going to do.
I took advantage of the wind and sun to dry out my tent.
A black katy chiton. There is interesting intertidal life here. It doesn’t get bashed by the open ocean so much because the area is sheltered by Goose Island, a fairly large offshore island that I chose not to visit because doing so involves a long open crossing. It is supposed to be an interesting place though, with lots of bird life. And the northern tip is the site of the First Nations youth correction program, which involves banishing troubled youths to a few months of solitude in the wilderness. They seem to return as changed individuals — something we could learn from. Inmates leave regular prisons worse criminals than when they went in.
An interesting sand anemone that I haven’t yet ID’d.
I got another fire going which wasn’t easy due to both the wind and the lack of dry material to burn. I was running out of garbage to get it going.
At midnight I woke up to hear waves lapping by my head. Damn tide! It was flooding my tent! I had to move everything up onto the wet grass and rocks and stand there watching the tide in the moonlight. They say a watched pot never boils and I was not a happy camper to have to be spending half an hour in the middle of the night waiting for the tide to drop. Eventually it did. Luckily it wasn’t raining though. Note to future paddlers in this area: there is NO suitable campsite on the south side of Latta Island, regardless of what your map might say!
If you go to the dead center of this map, then look a little to the left, you will see a turquoise bay. Go check it out on Google Earth where you can zoom in more. I think they took the satellite image when the herring were spawning in that bay.
Aug 28 2012 — Disoriented in Hakai
It rained again overnight but the morning was dry. That barnacle log had shifted location with the tide. Their lives are totally dependent on where the weather takes them. At some point they’ll get thrown up high and then life will move on to something else.
There is a little creek tumbling into the water down a rocky waterfall just up the shore a bit. I stopped and filled up with water and because it was groundwater I didn’t filter it. I thought I’d try drying my shorts out in the weather on my mast.
But the rain was coming from behind. It hit me but didn’t last very long. That’s the way it seems to be out here, at least in summer. Everything blows through really fast so the rain is fairly intense but doesn’t last for long.
As I rounded the final point on Sterling Island before heading west out the channel back to the open ocean, I noticed wolf trails leading down to the water. They have a whole network across the island and will regularly run the routes looking for food, timed with the tides. It would be interesting to hike them, but you’d have to be prepared to crouch down a lot.
The currents turned in my direction as I headed west. I went out into the middle of the channel and was really moving. It soon spat me out into the ocean again and I crossed over Kildidt Sound to the Serpent Group of islets out in the middle of it. My map showed lots of campsites and other interesting things over at the Edna group of islands so that’s where I was heading. The wind started to pick up from the south and when I hit the Serpent Group I decided to cross on the windward side. That was a poor decision because I was getting hammered by both the southerly wind and the waves bouncing off the rocks. I thought maybe I’d see more sea otters on this side, which I did, but the weather precluded spending any time with them. I wanted to have lunch but there was nowhere to stop, it was too rough.
As I continued crossing to Kidney Island I went by a noisy gaggle of gulls making a fuss. I didn’t know what it was all about but in reviewing the photos it was another boil of sand lances.
The weather was really getting rough and I was paddling hard to get to shelter behind Kidney Island. I made it and just as I was rounding the final point into a calm sheltered bay a California seal lion followed me and got to within about 10 feet. Yikes, that is the one animal that could cause me some trouble if it decided to investigate and take a bite out of my boat. I went right up to the shore as quickly as possible. I pulled out my camera but of course he left just before I got it ready.
I took a break and had lunch here, and filmed some green anemones in the intertidal. The calmness was nice. But, there was no place to camp so I had to go back out. The southerly wind was blowing me onto Ronald Island so I had to fight the crosswind. I made it to a little channel between Ronald Island and a couple little islands to the west. I zoomed north down this.
This is where it got confusing. I had picked up a kayaking map of the Bella Bella area way back in Telegraph Cove two years ago. The guy at the shop said not to buy it, it is “worse than useless”. I figured, how could it be that bad? Well, the problem with maps is that they can indeed be worse than useless because if they are wrong, you can get yourself into trouble.
If I haven’t mentioned it before, I should say that I have a sixth sense when it comes to direction. I never get lost. But as I was approaching Triquet and the Edna Islands I just couldn’t reconcile the map with my GPS. I had to keep looking at it every few minutes and I couldn’t figure it out. Had I lost my sixth sense? No! The map was wrong! No wonder I was getting hammered by the wind and waves, as I was in the open ocean in the middle of a southerly storm!
This whole area is a bit confusing because there is apparently two groups of islands right beside each other, one called Edna Island and the other one Enda Island. They each have a campsite, and I wanted to go to the northern one. But their position in relation to Triquette Island (a larger one that protects them all from the open ocean) was way off on the map. I decided based on my GPS that I would head north down the channel to the east of the Edna Islands to get to my campsite, since that’s the way the wind was blowing. I couldn’t come into harm doing that.
So I made it across in the raging wind to take refuge behind another little islet.
It was here that I spotted this kelp crab in the kelp. Apparently the scuba diving around here is really good.
I moved out to go down the channel and then looked back to see this jewel of a protected beach on Triquette Island! What? It wasn’t on my map! Actually, yes it was, but I was in a different place than I thought I was.
I paddled back up from where you are looking, against the raging seas and currents. It took almost half an hour to get over from that point. It’s a really nice beach with a developed campsite. And the open ocean is right on the other side of the trees, behind where I’m taking this photo. I heard some cranes too; apparently there is a nice mudflat just to the west of here. However, the sand is very fine and given that it was only 3 pm I decided to move on. But as you can see, with the falling tide my boat got beached so I had to slide it back into the water on logs.
It didn’t take long to reach the campsite on Enda Island. My shorts didn’t dry out very well with all the rain. And you’d think I would have realized to take them down since I was getting bashed by the wind…
The site was fine sand again, oh well. There is quite a bit of garbage washed up here, and interestingly a bunch of large plastic pipes half buried in the sand.
Along with the garbage there is a lot of driftwood and I found a few dry pieces of cedar. I had brought along all the wood I chopped the previous night, which imparted a wonderful cedar smell to my bag, but it wouldn’t burn properly as it was too wet. Anyways, I managed to get a fire going long enough to cook dinner, which was pasta primavera. The rain was on and off, and it was starting to get on my nerves. The sun poked out for 5 minutes. At least there wasn’t any bugs.
Aug 27 2012 — Calvert Island to Sterling Island, and sea otters too.
It rained pretty hard through the night. And I learned that you really do need a mattress, especially if you’re sleeping on a slab of cold granite. It really sucks the heat out of you and the layer of air in your mattress keeps you warm. Plus my backback wasn’t exactly comfortable. But I made it through.
The sun came out by morning.
Calvert Island is more piney / boggy due to the nutrient-poor granitic soils.
I hiked back.
And came upon this little guy doing what frogs are supposed to do.
On the trail back from the beach I bumped into this deer that jumped into the wet bushes at the first open spot.
After checking email again and repacking I was ready to go. Then it started pouring.
I got all snug in my drysuit and set off. Then it stopped raining. This is looking east through the channel between Hecate and Calvert Islands, with the mainland in the distance across Fitz Hugh Sound.
I slowly made my way back up the channel heading north. I had a slight headwind and I wanted to be really careful with my shoulder so I just hugged the shoreline and crawled up.
I got to the last point before heading across Hakai Passage and ate some lunch in a kelp bed.
I made my way to the closest little islets with the wind pushing me out towards the open sea. As I crossed the channel I heard a humpback breathing over towards where I had the encounter the other day. I didn’t even bother looking. Imagine that, all humpacked out!
When I got to the islet I noticed some seals in the kelp that were moving strangely and sticking their heads quite a ways out of the water.
That ain’t no seal! That’s a sea otter! Finally — I’ve never seen them before in the wild!
This one was curious and got quite close. They aren’t so skittish like river otters.
There was a family of about five individuals that called this kelp bed home.
He went down and brought up a large California mussel. If you don’t know the story of sea otters, you should read up on it. They are a “keystone species“, or one that totally changes the nature of their ecosystem. They used to be plentiful in BC but the fur traders almost wiped them out. But they eat sea urchins. And sea urchins eat kelp… So with no otters around anymore, so went the kelp forests which are an important nursery for many species of fish. They’ve been moving south again from Alaska, and they are now down to at least Ucluelet on Vancouver Island. Along with this, the kelp beds are coming back.
Aww, look at the baybay! Elaine, look at the baybay!
After the weather started to get a bit worse I moved on and crossed over to Sterling Island where there was a campsite marked on my map. I was really fighting the current so I hit the shoreline as fast as possible after rounding this cormorant rock. It was 15 km to paddle today but it seemed longer.
Just let me sleep…
The rain came and I didn’t have my drysuit zipped up underneath my raincoat. My raincoat leaks in in the neck in heavy rain. Oh well. I was really happy with this campsite.
This is a great little protected bay / beach looking northwards.
And the wolves had been here.
Climbing over logs
Wolf sign
It is another crushed shell beach, another likely midden site. They are all over the place here. Great for throwing your tent down.
This beach has a large variety of berry species. Here is the ubiquitous huckleberry again.
This is thimbleberry which is related to salmonberry, but very sweet. The berries only last a couple days, if that.
Salal
Black currant
A different type of currant
Alaska blueberry
I never though barnacles made noise, but they do. If I touched this log they would all start seething en masse.
I got my stuff ready for dinner, and was dismayed to notice that I no longer had my windscreen for my stove. Bummer. I must have left it at the top of the hill last night, as I was racing around trying to stay away from the black flies and get in my tent ASAP. Oh well, it will just take a bit more fuel (methanol) to cook dinner from now on. I still had half a litre left, way more than I needed.
I went to start the stove and I opened the second of my 500 mL bottles of fuel. I had finished the first one. But it wouldn’t light no matter what I did. What was going on? Then it dawned on me that this wasn’t methanol, but water! Duh! Last year I filled this bottle up with fresh water for drinking when I had used up the methanol. I stored it for a year and then packed it up as methanol for this trip! Now what was I going to do? I had no more fuel. Was I going to starve??? Once the shock wore off I realized I’d have to get back to nature and cook my dinner the old fashioned way, on fires from now on. But all the wood was soaking wet! How was I going to have a fire?
Above the beach was this canoe, and a downed cedar tree.
Luckily I brought my axe / saw combo. And I’ve watched enough Survivorman to know how to get a fire going the hard way — with a lighter, dry paper, and kindling…
The fire wasn’t easy to get going or keep going with the wood being so wet, but I managed to keep it alive long enough to boil the water.
Usnea lichen hanging from trees.
I went down to the water to watch the soap opera drama of the tidepool sculpins and hermit crabs duking it out. There were thousands of them. It was really funny, and I should have gotten some video of it. Then, as I was standing still a grey shorebird landed pretty close to me. I didn’t want to move and scare it away. I just observed as it came within a few feet of me. It was a wandering tattler. Then it flew away.
As it approached dark the no-see-ums came out in full force and I had to retreat to my tent pretty quickly.
Aug 26 2012 — Hakai Beach Institute
Some unlucky sand fleas
Western sandpipers in the mud in the morning
I only had 4 km to get to the Beach Institute. My shoulder was still sore so I took it really slowly. I’ve dealt with tendonitis and similar conditions enough to know that you just can’t push it. You have to let it heal.
This place was a bit of an apparition. It is a bustling little university campus in the middle of the wilderness. It used to be a fishing lodge but the new owner decided to do something different with it and joined up with the local First Nations to turn it into an environmental science field station.
They have an impressive solar farm and battery bank (and big diesel generator). This is one of those times however when you wonder how much energy was required to build the renewable energy system versus how much it will ultimately produce. That isn’t a criticism, since in remote locations you need to have local energy supply, but more of a recognition of a problem we will encounter everywhere in the future as we transition to renewables by necessity because fossil fuels run out.
The perfectly manicured grounds just seemed bizarre. They are very open to visitors here, offering free wifi and fresh water. And I could plug in my battery chargers. But they don’t provide food or have anything for sale. I sat at the info building at the top of the ramp and went on my computer. Lots of boaters came up to check it out, and I had some good conversations about their trips. One couple hadn’t set foot on solid ground for a few weeks. I ended up being the information person for visitors for a couple hours as I found out the answers to the questions I was wondering, that other boaters were also asking when they arrived. Kind of funny, I fit the part, and had to tell people that I didn’t actually work there.
I hiked across to West Beach. I had hoped to see some wolves here, but there were just too many people around. One of the guys said that there is another beach further up that may have them, it’s called “wolf beach”. But I didn’t feel like putting in the effort to bushwhack to it.
Instead I was going to hike up to the lookout and camp there. It’s amazing how I could barely fit my stuff for one night in my backpack. The rest of my stuff I left at the Institute. I really need to focus on slimming down my gear.
Thick west coast mud
Gnarly
That’s where I was going.
Very recent trail building
There’s a nice panoramic view up here. It isn’t very high, Google Earth says only 50 m but I think it’s higher than that.
Looking north to where I’d be kayaking tomorrow.
The black flies were really bad up here. I didn’t cook my dinner, I just ate some energy bars and looked for a tent site which was really hard to find. I ended up on a rounded granite outcrop that wouldn’t flood if it rained. I went in my tent ASAP and listened to the weather report which was calling for rain. I was pretty exposed up here at the top of this hill. I didn’t bring my mattress from lack of space so I slept on my empty backpack.
Aug 25 2012 — Across Fitz Hugh Sound to Hecate Island
The weather was beautiful in the morning — sunny and calm with only a few fog banks down south. I had really wanted to cross over to Hakai and head up that way; the route up Fitz Hugh past Namu didn’t look as interesting. Luckily, the weather made the decision for me.
The dogs had been with me all night, except for the times when they went nuts and ran off into the bushes. For some reason I got used to them barking and slept through most of it; probably because they were doing it to protect me. I offered them some peanut butter covered mango for breakfast but only the older guy accepted it.
I avoided the keeper since I don’t think he even wanted me to say goodbye. The younger of the dogs sat at the top of the road watching me pack up while the older one was zonked out. I sadly waved goodbye and set off, once again, into the unknown.
I had 9 km to cross since Koeye is located at about the widest part of Fitz Hugh Sound. There were a few boats around so I’d be OK. A couple hours should be more than enough time to cross before the afternoon winds picked up. Or so I thought…
A phalarope of some sort. I passed lots of seabirds; you notice a lot more life out on the water when it’s calm. I came upon one little guy sleeping while floating. He had tucked his beak into his feathers and was snoozing away. Just as I got my camera out he woke up and took off. This one above was less wary of me, having seen me coming.
Interesting cloud patterns on the water that day.
The water changed from deep clear blue to more like green pea soup as I passed through algae blooms. Believe it or not, but this is the stuff that powers our economies. Oil comes from plankton that settled out onto the floor of ancient seas hundreds of millions of years ago. Remember that when some economist or oil industry apologist tries to convince you that we should accept environmental degradation for the greater purpose of powering economic growth based on fossil fuel extraction. Anyone who tells you that ecology is subservient to economics is either lying or totally delusional. They’ve got it completely backwards. And when you see images of the industrial landscapes across Alberta with all the upgraders and refineries processing the oil sands, and you’re told that, “it’s the price of progress”, No! Don’t believe it! Progress does not come from burning up irreplaceable energy reserves at a rate 200,000 times greater than deposition rates! Remember that no matter how hard they try to hype that technology up, those industries aren’t “producing” petroleum, or anything else for that matter; all they’re doing is harvesting and burning that green stuff you see in the above photo. Without this oceanic equivalent of … pond scum, the Alberta oil companies are nothing! The Alberta economy is quite literally subservient to pond scum (not that there’s anything wrong with pond scum). We are still completely dependent on ecology for our survival.
As I neared to within a couple kilometers of the opposite shore (Nalau Island) I heard a humpback somewhere in the vicinity of Hakai Channel. I made my way over. And it seems the humpbacks made their way over to me…
It was a pod of about five or so and they got pretty close to me, within a whale’s length. For about half an hour I hung around with them as they ambled about in the channel. I was a little worried when they got too close but everything was fine. I didn’t take photos since the light wasn’t the greatest and I had photos from the previous day, plus they weren’t feeding. I pulled out my video camera and unfortunately I zoomed in for most of the footage which was a bad idea since it got so shaky. But I got a few half decent segments.
Then they moved away up north.
They started feeding as a group…
It was hard to get any decent shots with them a few kilometers away now but they still certainly made their presence known. I’d be paddling along and then I’d hear a huge crash, like blasting going off. I’d look back to see five humpbacks slamming into the water and making a commotion. But by the time I got my camera ready it was always too late. The noise echoed all around the Sound. Everyone could hear it.
Then one of them let out a grunt. Holy cow, I’ve read that you can hear a humpback underwater half way around the world and I can believe it. He was a couple kilometers away but it sounded like he was right beside me. I nearly jumped out of the boat. Interestingly, it is thought that noise pollution in the oceans may be interfering with blue whales‘ ability to find each other over long distances and hampering their recovery.
BC had a whaling station up until 1968, located near Port Hardy. They cleaned out most of the humpbacks from BC but thankfully they are now returning.
The luxury yacht that was enjoying the show along with me.
I wanted to go check out the Hakai Beach Institute down on Calvert Island, so I crossed over Hakai Channel. I was in the influence of the open ocean now and there were big swells with huge wavelengths. They were crashing hard on the rocks but I was able to get in really close safely. I took some interesting video showing the size of the waves.
After taking lunch in a semi-protected kelp bed I continued south down the channel. This is Hecate Island in all its glory.
My shoulder was getting really sore so I was taking it easy. I slowly followed the shoreline down, keeping an eye out for campsites. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of opportunities.
I looked on my GPS and thought there might be a good spot around the next corner. But when I rounded it I was presented with a busy fishing lodge. Oh well, I continued on a tiny bit further and found a nice bay with a great little cobble beach.
I had been thinking about how I could carry more water with me, as I would be going through Hakai which consists of many little islands without much water available. After the scary situation in the Broughtons two years ago I wanted to make sure I had spare capacity. Well, like magic, I found this brand new, never-opened water bottle on the beach… among the only garbage to be found. It probably fell off a fishing boat at the lodge. It wasn’t very big, but an odd occurrence. Kind of weird, and this happened back at Shelter Bay too. When I wished for a jug of fresh water, it just washed up on the beach the next morning!
A pair of noisy sandhill cranes flew overhead in the direction you’re looking. And I caught glimpses of some sort of little weasel racing along the edge of the vegetation. I pondered that even though when I arrive at new places I can get a bit lonely before I get to know them, and that no matter how sterilized and impersonal a map may make a place seem, it is inevitably someone’s or some animal’s home. Every place is unique and special. Was this my home too?
I took advantage of the evening sun and managed to dry out most of my gear. It’s amazing how two hours of sunshine can make such a difference.
This is a good camping spot as the tide didn’t flood the whole beach, leaving enough space for my tent. In a storm surge it might flood though. And there is a creek nearby.
August 24 2012 — Spending the Day in the Koeye Estuary
Tracks left in the sand revealed that my big furry friend had returned this morning, but only to check the tideline and he didn’t come closer than about 20 feet. It seems they’re not out to get us, they just want to check the tideline like they always have.
The weather was decent.
The dogs had been barking most of the night and they came over to say hi while I loaded up. I felt like I should give something back. I tried offering a peanut butter covered date but it wasn’t a hit.
I headed up the river to the estuary and went by this gull that seemed to follow me. It got quite close.
The tide was way down. And the water was brown due to all the tannin runoff from the rain. The salmon were gone. Overnight, the seasons had changed.
It was the season of plenty with berries everywhere and salmon in the rivers.
There was a noisy pair of eagles near here.
Misty, mossy mountains
Ahh, there must be something going on upriver…
I passed a family of river otters and there was a funny noise coming from a half submerged tree on the bank. It took a while to find the source which was a baby otter and mother. It was super cute but I couldn’t get a shot of it in time.
As the meadow came into view I saw a black blob moving along the shore.
The river was getting shallow and I had to get out and start walking up. These headless salmon are from wolves. They only eat the heads, some think it’s due to parasites in the meat they want to avoid. We have an advantage because we can cook our food.
The place was noisy too with some Canada Geese.
It wasn’t long before I saw the wolves on the opposite bank, near where a branch tributary of the main river was joining and forcing the salmon to go through shallow water. The bear that was wandering down the shore joined them.
It turns out I was pretty lucky to see the wolves. They normally only come out at night and they avoid people. Considering that there there’s usually a person or two coming up to the estuary every day for various reasons, I’m surprised I saw them. The timing of the low tide helped with that. I was pretty far away but the clicking of my camera sent them off. Damn you Nikon!!! Time for a new body. Maybe the D400 when it comes out.
I went further up to a main junction where there were some salmon making their way up the shallows. They are really hard to get close to, I’m impressed the animals can catch them. I contemplated going up the side channel a bit to see what was there but the water was too shallow. Good thing too, because a few minutes later I looked up that channel to see a mother and cub come wander around. Too bad there was a tree in the way!
I never did actually get a good shot of the two together. Then they ambled off again.
The meadow seems to consist of sticky organic mud matted together with grass roots.
The forest here is very beautiful. It is old growth and has never been logged. There is something magical about being in it.
Biological oils from all the productivity going on here were getting caught up in the downed logs. These licorice ferns were making one last dash for life.
I spent over half a day up the estuary, and the time went by really fast. As I was heading back out with the tide the bear was back at the salmon spot, but the tide was high so he wasn’t catching any salmon.
I find that my kayak is somewhat limiting in some respects. I’d like to be able to ditch a lot of my gear sometimes and just go up the river for a few days and camp out. I would love to camp in the forest overlooking this feeding spot and get up with the break of dawn to see the wolves. That way I wouldn’t disturb them, I could remain in the forest. But what would I do with my stuff and food? Without a sailboat or something similar to store my food and excess gear in out at the bay, I can’t do that. Oh well, the kayak provides other advantages.
OK, last shot.
Everything is covered with growth here.
I came back to that friendly gull. He was sitting on some rocks and wasn’t at all afraid of me. I put my paddle up to him and he climbed on board. I thought I could have a new pet. But then I realized he might be sick, who knows, maybe with avian flu or something. So I put him back.
As I rounded the bend into the bay I looked out to the ocean and saw the big triangular mouth of a humpback shooting out of the water right at the entrance to the bay. I couldn’t believe how much life there is here. I went out and tied up to the kelp but he had left.
Evening light looking up the Koeye Valley. Yet another fantastic day in another fantastic place along our coast.
I went up to the construction site because there was apparently a keeper there minding the place with everyone gone back to Bella Bella. I wanted to camp up there because I’d had enough with grizzlies wandering around my tent. The keeper was the quiet foreman from before and he said I could camp there, but he wanted to be left alone. He came here to have his privacy. I obliged and set up camp on the outskirts. I tried to dry out a lot of my gear in the last rays of sunshine, and then I downloaded photos to my computer.
The dogs kept me company. They have a great life here. It might end up being cut short though because the wolves will probably get them at some point, with them chasing bears way up the valley. I guess that’s their life, short but exciting. I’ve found that I feel the most alive when I’m in the moment, when decisions you make could mean the difference between life and death, and you have to rely on yourself and your own capabilities. That’s what many of us urbanites tend to yearn for, to escape the drudgery of the 9 to 5 where everything is predetermined and “safe”. But is it really any more dangerous out here than in a city? I can walk down the sidewalk downtown and at any point just take two wrong steps and get run over by a truck. What’s the difference? It’s just that out here there’s no one to save you (at least immediately). In the city we get a sense of security from all the people everywhere.
It seems like everything comes together to make the Koeye a special place. The barrier islands open up right across the Sound, just enough to let the big open ocean waves through. The bay is a little sandy jewel hidden behind a headland. There is a lake up the river that I didn’t get a chance to see unfortunately, even though there is a trail leading up to it (I couldn’t find it).
In my very short time here I sensed a different vibe, the First Nations presence seems to be more “in tune with nature”. I know that sounds cliche but I get a different feeling here than in mainstream society. Even our official parks are an extension of mainstream society, at least their administration, as we tend to visit them to “consume” the wilderness as an antidote to our urban lives. I guess I’m no different in what I’m doing.
The white man outposts along the coast seem to be just extensions of the city with people flying in from Toronto to get in a weekend of fishing where they bag as many fish as possible from their noisy powerful speedboats that can get them from A to B in mere minutes. Their fish are prepared for them by the staff, and then they fly back out. All the while, satellite radio and TV keeps everyone entertained with the creature comforts of home. They never actually have to leave the city; it comes with them. I guess it’s tempting for me to develop a holier-than-thou attitude, and a little unfair, as I make my living from consuming the natural world just like everyone else does.
These aren’t simple issues because this area has to “produce” economically in order for our politicians to leave it semi-wild. If the fishing lodges didn’t bring in the money and if the people on the cruise boats didn’t want to see beautiful vistas of unbroken forests then the whole coast would have been logged instead. Get away from the more frequently visited places like the Inside Passage, and it pretty much all has been, except what was lucky enough to be locked up in parks.
And most people can’t get in a kayak for two weeks to experience the coast; the cruise boats are their only opportunity. Are they being any more “consumptive” than I am? Hell, I bring pre-packaged plastic satchets of ready-to-go food to power my journey. Where did those come from? Most of my gear is made of plastic. Plastic comes from oil. And I flew in on a noisy gas-guzzling plane.
It wouldn’t be a nice place here with thousands of kayakers everywhere experiencing it up close and personally, and the grizzly bears up the Koeye River sure wouldn’t appreciate it either. So I hope that people can experience being immersed in the wild through my accounts here, without actually having to go through all the motions themselves. Then maybe my impact on the wildlife will be somewhat mitigated.
August 23 2012 — Day Off in the Rain at Koeye
It rained pretty hard overnight. And the water came up to within about 5 feet of the tent. And I slept with my head pointing downslope so I could keep an eye on what was going on outside. But this position was causing me a lot of muscle ache in my abdomen for some reason.
It wasn’t the greatest sleep with the rain on and off. When it wasn’t raining I had the front fly open so I could see out. But then when the rain came I had to close it up which meant I had no idea what was going on outside.
In the morning I dozed around in bed and then went back to sleep for a while. I was just coming to when for some reason I felt the need to look out the front which luckily I had unfurled when I first woke up.
And there, standing about 4 feet away from me (more like, above me), was a grizzly bear.
Hmm. Was this a dream? I was still half asleep. After about a second I realized it wasn’t a dream and “You have got to be $#&!ing kidding me!” was the first thought that went through my head, and then without time to even contemplate what I would do, out came a loud, “HOLY SHIT!”
That was enough to send him on his way down the beach. He was just checking the morning tideline for any goodies that may have washed up last night. I had my food bags sitting outside the front of my tent and that’s what he was interested in. I do not believe in tying your food up a tree unless you have a really good opportunity to do it properly. It is likely that the bear would just climb the tree anyways if he wants the food; apparently it’s an old wive’s tale that grizzlies can’t climb trees. If I had done that here I wouldn’t have even noticed since the noise from the waves would have probably overpowered the noise of the bear eating my food. And then we would have had a problem bear on our hands that correlates people with food. Instead, I’ll defend my food. If he had really wanted my bag he would have grabbed it and run away, and since I usually tie it off onto everything else that would have woken me up. Then I would have chased after him with bear spray to retrieve it — problem solved.
Thankfully he was just investigating and then continued poking around down the beach.
He casually made his way around the bay, past the longhouse to the lodge construction site.
I was wondering what kind of entertainment I was going to be getting from across the bay. Soon bear bangers were set off from the boats and the big bear dogs started going wild. He high tailed it into the bush and the dogs were in hot pursuit, barking like mad. This lasted for quite a while and I could hear their progress way back into the bush up towards the river, behind where I was camped.
I dozed off some more and then almost hit the roof when out of the blue something crashed my tent. I let out a yell louder than I ever have (I don’t know what the sailboat overnighting in the bay 100 m from me was thinking about all this). The problem arises if something crashes your tent before you have the chance to 1) get your spray ready, and 2) unzip your tent, in which case 3) you’re kind of screwed. Thankfully, I don’t think most animals would just come out of the blue and suddenly crash a tent without hanging around and making some investigatory pokes first. In the case of a cougar, you are totally safe in your tent.
Anyways, a few seconds later I saw that it was the bear dogs on their way back, stopping by to say hello. They tried to get in my tent but I wasn’t having that.
This is the young guy.
The older, more wise of the two.
For most of the day they hung out with me. They knew their job — to protect people from bears, and they did it well. They slept most of the day, as they seem to be barking throughout the night at every noise or scent they pick up.
Not a huge bear — probably an adolescent just getting into mischief.
It rained on and off for most of the day and I had no initiative to do anything. But lying in this downward position all day was really causing me a lot of muscle ache. Stretching out didn’t help.
A younger guy from the work group walked down and I had a talk with him. He had been volunteering here for a couple weeks as a carpenter after being at the Hakai Beach Institute (see a few posts in the future). He was heading back to Bella Bella tomorrow, and then back to Victoria for school. It turns out he is friends with people I know from the Ucluelet Aquarium! Small world.
The gulls making a fuss over something.
Poking around the forest behind my tent.
The place with all the action. It’s kind of interesting, the kids’ camp is located almost a kilometer away from the main lodge, up the river above another sandy beach. That seems to be where the bears go through as there are lots of tracks there. But, there doesn’t appear to be any problems.
Aug 22 2012 — Blair Island to Koeye
The wind picked up a bit by morning but the sun was poking through. It was a pretty difficult put-in as the tide was completely out, way below the rocks I camped on. I set up and video-recorded the fun of me loading my kayak. But the dessicant strip in the housing was full and the GoPro camera fogged up when the sun hit it.
I headed north across the bay.
Every piece of “dry” land here above the tide line is covered with thick vegetation.
Looking west across to Calvert Island with Addenbroke and Sweeper Islands in the foreground.
Yes, the sea she was angry that day! But only if you were heading south. Or over at Calvert Island where there was showers. I was laughing where I was!
The narrow channel between Sweeper and Addenbroke Island
Looking north
Looking east up Fish Egg Inlet. Just more of my big playground…
I love the patterns of old growth cedar.
Solar powered light station
With such a nice tailwind I had some lunch as I drifted north. Peanut butter, Persian dates and dried mangoes.
It was a pretty uneventful day as I headed up the coast. I had tailwinds and tailcurrents all day.
The Koeye River empties into the chuck before that mountain. It’s well hidden in a small bay.
As I made the final approach I turned crosswind to get around the headland protecting Koeye Bay. The big winds had created some decent sized waves, plus there are open ocean waves pounding this shore as well. They were all bouncing off the rocky shoreline creating a few tense moments as I made my way across. I made it though and here I was rounding the final point.
The Koeye watershed is a fairly recent conservancy and is sacred to the Heiltsuk First Nation. They had a lodge here which burned down last year. They are rebuilding it now.
I went up to say hi. There was a Nature Conservancy guy here hiking the trails with a group of First Nations grizzly researchers from Bella Bella. They have set up barbed wires along the bear trails to snag tufts of hair which they then send off for DNA analysis. They were up the trails today. If only I had been here a day earlier, I could have gone with them! I said that I’d camp on the beach on the opposite side and the work crew foreman said that was fine, although there has been a bear wandering around some mornings. He wasn’t overly talkative so after a few minutes talking about things I headed down to go look up the river.
Norwegian Camp is an old mine just up the river from the bay.
The tide was still rising and I rode it into the estuary. It is an interesting place because there is a kilometer of river protecting the estuary which is a ways back from the ocean.
The river was low since there hadn’t been much rain lately. The water was warm and crystal clear and I could see salmon zooming around underneath me. They were pinks waiting for the rains. They were jumping all around me. I couldn’t stop laughing, it was so funny, there were thousands of them. It’s not easy to get a picture of a jumping salmon but here it is.
Looking up the estuary
Rain was starting in the mountains.
It soon moved down to the estuary so I decided to take refuge under a tree and wait for the tide to turn so I could ride it back out.
Just as I was getting back to the bay it started to pour. I set up my tarp and tent in the rain with the fine beach sand getting everywhere.
The gulls taking a break for the evening.
Then the sun came out! I shoulda waited and set up my tent in the dry!
And of course a rainbow.
Aug 21 2012 — North From Penrose
The next morning brought lots of little fishing speedboats right offshore. I guess this is a good spot for salmon.
The tide was way down, exposing the impressive extent of the shell deposits.
The upper tide line being encroached by forest was also thick shell deposits. Another reason this is a great camping beach is that there is a very sheltered tent site above the beach amongst the cedars, out of the weather.
This was a small pebble that was completely encircled by live barnacles. I guess it spends its life rolling in the surf, otherwise one of those faces would be clear.
A nice easy put-in in the tropical-like waters. There was nothing tropical about the temperature of the water though — 12 degrees in the middle of August! That’s how warm it gets here! El Nino years would be quite a bit warmer, however, and that’s when more southerly species come up.
Purple and orange ochre stars, and green surf anemones
I came upon this gaggle of surfbirds (that’s actually their name). They showed very little fear and I got to within less than 10 feet. The currents were fast and in my direction so I tied off to some kelp and started clicking away. I was there for a good half hour.
Chickens of the sea, pecking around the surf line and seaweeds
This guy liked eyeing me up.
Looking across to Calvert Island
I continued on north for a little while with the currents behind me and made the almost 3 km crossing to the mainland.
As I reached the other side I heard a humpback and went over to investigate. It was a lone whale feeding using bubble nets.
There’s something fishy going on here, I can tell… It’s easy to get a shot because you just point the camera to the bubbles and … wait for whale.
There he is! Taking a huge gulp of presumably herring.
He was moving around a bit and I kept my distance of about 50 to 100 m. I just hung out near the shore of the little island, repositioning myself every few minutes.
Barnacles
You can see the baleen here.
Yum! Herring!
I hung out for about an hour, then moved on after the activity died down a bit. I needed to make some miles, but on the other hand, I came here to see humpbacks feeding, so what more was I going to see?
I planned to camp up near Addenbroke Island (the one with the lighthouse) and I was basically out of water. I needed to get it from the mainland somewhere as the island would not likely have any. The GPS showed a little creek entering at one point so I went ashore in the difficult waves to fill up from this picturesque little gully.
Maidenhair ferns
It had been another fantastic day with cooperative winds and currents. I started to scout out potential campsites but the coastline was pretty rocky. Addenbroke looked even more rocky and steep so I instead elected (there was only one of me so the election was a landslide) to investigate the sheltered waters of Blair Island.
I rounded the bend into the bay at Blair Island and found a little islet with some fairly flat rocks. The time was 5 pm and I hadn’t seen any other suitable camping spot for a while, and there didn’t appear to be much further on either, so I called it a day. Back to sleeping on angular rock outcroppings…
It’s a nice little spot and there appears to be a place nearby on the main part of the island that might have a small pebble beach that doesn’t get flooded, plus entry and exit would be easier there. Not ideal, but if you really need a campsite it will work.
Sept 29-30, 2012 — Circumnavigating Cloudburst Mountain, Squamish
I’m reminded why I love bike touring so much. I’ve long been a fan of Lee Lau‘s mountain biking / skiing adventures. So I decided that it was time to get off my butt and do something with my weekend, since it had already been 4 weeks since I finished my latest kayak adventure… (I’ll get back to writing that trip up too, I’m a bit bogged down right now).
A guy at work had recommended High Falls Creek up the Squamish Valley so I pulled up Google Earth, did some Google searching, and put together plans for an overnight mountain biking trip. I was going to circumnavigate Cloudburst Mountain by riding up the gravel road to the pass at Tricouni, then descend down the other side to the Cheakamus Valley, and then climb back up over to the Squamish Valley, where I left my car.
After a lazy Saturday morning I barely got out of the house before noon. I had been fighting a weird lung infection for a few weeks and it felt a bit better, but not really. I wasn’t sure what to expect of my body but I wasn’t going to waste a perfectly good weekend.
I drove through all the tacky “development” along the Sea to Sky Highway until finally getting away from that madness when I turned off into the Squamish Valley which thankfully hasn’t changed at all over the years.
I pulled up beside the golf carts to plug in at Camp Squamish. Is that what my car is? A glorified golf cart?
A rooster
WTH?
A little intimidated by what I was in for, I set off. I had 10 km of flat valley bottom riding before the spur road climbed the sidehill.
Nice pastoral scenery along the valley bottom. It has been very dry, with only one rainstorm in the last 3 months.
Shortly afterwards the pavement ended and I left the private lands and entered “Tree Farm License 38″ which, despite being logged out, is still publicly owned Crown Land. There was a First Nations settlement agreement recently however which transferred title of a large amount of land over to a group that will hopefully better manage the resources than our culture has.
The mighty Squamish
A hydro power plant on a tributary of the Squamish. The water comes all the way down those penstocks from above. The amount of power produced is proportional to the pressure (height of water), so you can see they get lots of power from that.
Soon after the power plant is the trail for High Falls. Unfortunately it is way too steep for a bike so I had to ride up the gravel road that hikers who hike up the falls hike back down to return to their cars.
The views got better and better as I climbed.
And climb I did… Thankfully, my lungs and body performed admirably.
Looking Up the Squamish Valley
I passed three groups of hikers heading back down. They were all impressed with me riding my bike up, not seeming to give themselves credit for hiking up the falls themselves. It’s harder walking…
As I rounded the valley the road levelled off a bit. That’s Cloudburst Mountain poking through the clouds.
Crossing High Falls Creek in the high valley above the waterfalls.
Up and up some more
Misty mountains
After a few hours of hard climbing I reached 820 meters elevation, up from 50 m where I started. This was near the end of the road.
The fireweed had finished for the season, going to seed. This is very near the end of the road, at least as far as I went on it.
Since logging roads go up to the pass from both sides, the Cheakamus and Squamish valleys, and almost but not quite meet, being only a kilometer apart, my intuition and Google Earth skills convinced me that there must be a way between the two valleys. My intuition proved correct, as this quad trail led from the cutblock through the old growth forest to the other side.
I set up my GoPro video camera on my chest for the trail ride but unfortunately it was aimed too low and the footage was ruined.
Yeah! So stoked that everything worked out as planned. Here I had just emerged on the other side, in the Cheakamus drainage now. I had good cell phone reception so I called my mom.
My mechanical steed
From here I could see across Cheakamus to Garibaldi Park and Black Tusk. I have hiked up there many times, but never actually climbed the Tusk itself out of a fear of heights (and large falling rocks from climbers above). That’s the microwave tower to the left, which may have be providing the cell signal, I’m not sure.
Wider panorama of Black Tusk and The Barrier
This is The Barrier. It is a crumbling cliff face that holds back the quite large Garibaldi Lake. I imagine some geologists have probably studied it, but I would not want to be anywhere near that valley in a big earthquake.
I turned back up the road going up to Tricouni to get away from the cooler and noisy valley bottom creek so I could set up camp. I found a great spot just up the hill.
Evening light
What every man wants to see outside his tent.
Always pleasant surprises when camping
I pulled out my iPhone and surfed the internet. Internet in the wilderness! I was so content. Everything had worked out perfectly. My bike worked great, and my body was fine. My worst booboo was from when my D7000 camera that was strapped around by back came flying to the front while going down a steep section and whacked my funny bone. Man that hurt!
Poking my head out the tent before sunset
Ready to go in the morn
Good to see the bears are getting their phytonutrient antioxidants.
Looking back up to Cloudburst Mountain as I descended Chance Main to Cheakamus
Some recent logging
Some valuable yellow cypress left behind. I don’t get it. Each of these logs is probably worth $10,000 but they were just sitting there.
Slimy mushrooms growing out of the road
Lucille Lake
Crossing the Cheakamus River. It’s quite a bit smaller than the Squamish.
Yet another view of Cloudburst Mountain, partially obscured by clouds.
Cheakamus Canyon
Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way of avoiding a few kilometers of Sea to Sky Highway for this circuit. At least all that “development” brought good bike lanes.
Tantalus Range, on the west side of the Squamish Valley (right where I parked my car)
There is a trail that follows the Cheakamus Canyon and spits out on the highway. It was here that I left the highway and descended into the canyon. It is an old cattle drive trail from the 1850′s. I also rode up it many years ago in the Cheakamus Challenge mountain bike race.
This is why the trail goes up to the highway and ends — an impassable canyon, and the railroad crosses the river. I am unsure if there is a trail going north on the west side of the canyon, following the railroad. It would be nice if there is since that means the highway section could be avoided.
It’s a little eroded in places.
Nicely upgraded with pea gravel.
Starvation Lake
Nicely upgraded … yeah right! More like shale hell! I guess they hadn’t finished their work and there were lots of sections like this with unridable loose shale thrown down. I hope they’re going to fill that in with some fine material, otherwise they’ve ruined the trail! I had to stop and tighten my racks at one point as they were rattling around. For this kind of offroad riding (which is basically all I want to do) I would like to try to get set up more like a bikeback, which doesn’t use racks and panniers, instead strapping sacks and bags strategically around on the bike frame. Less stuff to weigh you down and rattle off. Less space too, which forces you to take less stuff.
There is a pedestrian bridge across Cheakamus River.
From the bridge there is a trail that goes up to meet a road leading to Butterfly Lake at the top of the hill. This road starts from right where I parked my car. So my plan was to go up this trail and ride down the road on the other side to complete the circuit.
Once away from the part of the trail that serves the private residences along the river, the trail seemed disused. At the first switchback it turned steep. And washed out. Brutal.
The washed out brutal steepness continued for quite a while. I was hoofing my bike up for about an hour and a half. I had only brought 500 mL of water and there are no creeks. I ran out. I was getting worried. There were a few places with views across Cheakamus to brighten my spirits.
As I was beginning to get a really dry mouth and an uncooperative body I summitted the pass into the Squamish Valley. Whew! After some equally brutal, unridable descent I met up with the well groomed road.
Within a minute I reached Pilchuk Lake. What a wonderful relief that was! As I was getting my water filter set up an SUV came by. They were residents up at Butterfly Lake. This road is private but they were friendly and I don’t think they minded that I was there when I told them where I had come from. They told me that the trail I hauled my bike up used to be their road in! Wow, I guess they only used quads before…
Nice scenery riding down towards the Squamish
Almost there
My only damage, from getting whacked by my pedal. I also lost my front mudguard.
Well I had made it. I was so glad how it all worked out, and it was only like 3:30 in the afternoon! All the distances seemed to go by so fast! I think that has to do with spending so much time in my kayak lately where I’m thankful if I can maintain walking speed. Total distance: 52 km.
Heading home
The daytime heating had created an inflow wind at Squamish and the windsurfers and saiboats were out taking advantage of it.
Well that was a fantastic trip. I have been out of commission for a few years due to my physiotherapist-inflicted leg injuries, limping for 2 years and on crutches for 6 months, and I was wondering if I’d ever get back up to speed. One day, years ago, I had done a big adventure where I drove up to the Black Tusk microwave tower, left my bike there, drove down to the Garibaldi Parking lot, then hiked up to the Tusk and rode back down to my car, all in the same day. Well this adventure was along those lines so I guess I haven’t lost it! I’m back baby!
As usual I got some videos which I’ll post later when I get it sorted out…
Aug 20 2012 — Flying Back In to Duncanby
This year I decided to drive up to Port Hardy and park the car in the airport lot for the duration of the paddle ($30). A bit more gas money, but cheaper in other ways. But WAY more convenient. Cars do have their advantages…
After sleeping in the back of the car at the downtown Port Hardy wharf, I showed up to the airport mid-morning and wandered in and heard an announcement for a flight to Ocean Falls, then asked the counter girl if that would have bee the flight I wanted. She said no, the one I wanted, to Owekeeno (a village up Rivers Inlet), was just about to leave. So I ran back to the car to get my stuff organized, ran back in to get a parking ticket, ran back out to put it on the dash, then started organizing my stuff into bags on the lawn. We were already late leaving so the pilot and counter girl came out and helped carry my stuff on as I ran onto the plane. My kayak is so versatile…
I had four fellow passengers, government officials who appeared to be on a First Nations treaty negotiation trip out to Owekeeno.
Back in a Grummand Goose
One of the rivers of Vancouver Island emptying into Queen Charlotte Strait.
The weather was low marine cloud and we were soon above it as we headed north across the Strait. I saw a whale down in the open waters.
The clouds soon parted enough to reveal islands below.
It was a little hard to figure out where we were going with the clouds but it turns out we were headed up Belize Inlet! That’s the empty logging camp I stayed at the first year when I was heading back out across to Port Hardy!
That’s looking east across to the inland section of Mereworth Sound in the far back, with the 12 km logging road portage I did the previous year being off frame to the left.
Looking east up Mereworth Sound from above the logging camp where my portage last year started (to the left of frame). Then we flew up Mereworth, where you’re looking. It was a great treat to be flying over the places I had paddled previously. I thought we might fly over the pass to Long Lake where my first failed bushwhack attempt took place. But then we turned around. I’m not sure why we took this detour. Maybe the pilot thought we could get over to Owekeeno faster via Long Lake but then decided the clouds were too low.
A fresh slide above Mereworth. There was more fresh logging up the Sound this year but I don’t think this contributed to the slide. They just seem to happen. We went back out to Belize Inlet and crossed over to Smith Sound behind Cape Caution.
One of the islands in Smith Sound.
The brown beaches I encountered last year during the heavy rains were still brown.
We crossed over to Goose Bay to drop me off.
They look kind of awkward in the water, leaning to one side.
Unloaded.
Lots of fishing charter boats came back for lunch with their catches. These are chinook and coho. I asked if there were sockeye and he said they are prohibited. Owekeeno has a big lake, which sockeye need as part of their life cycle, but the run was fished out a century ago. “You have to go to Alberni for sockeye”. Ironic how out here in the wilderness the sockeye are in worse shape than in Alberni. Although Long Lake had a nice run the previous year. I’m sure we’ll pounce on that soon enough.
After lunch and topping off my laptop battery, I was ready to go.
Soon another Goose took off near me.
Salal
Looking back to Goose Bay. Duncanby Landing is hidden behind the islands left of center.
The rocky islands of Penrose Island Marine Park are a haven for seabirds.
What kind of duck is this?
I came upon a colony of my buddies, the oystercatchers.
They decided to go for a spin around me.
The Penrose Islands are nice and my destination was Fury Cove at the far north-west end, where you can see on Google Earth that there are some nice white sandy beaches. Indeed.
It’s so nice to be somewhere that has natural debris and foam on the tidelines, not garbage.
This is a stunning pure white crushed shell beach, reminiscent of a tropical coral reef. It goes all the way down to low tide and beyond. I am wondering how these beaches form, how so much crushed shell can accumulate in this spot. We don’t see these on the South Coast. It must be a midden beach, which is the “dump” site from First Nations clamming activities. There was likely a village here long ago.
I don’t know what this is. A sandpiper of some sort? They should be breeding in the Arctic this time of year. There was a pair poking around the beach tideline.
Its mate, on the other side of the beach. They called to each other and then they were off.
These crushed shell beaches are fantastic for camping because the sand is coarse enough that it doesn’t stick to everything and get everywhere.
Looking NW across Fitz Hugh Sound to Calvert Island.
As the sun was setting and I was half asleep I looked out my tent to see this pterodactyl fishing in silhouette of the sunset.
I took some videos too and I will upload them when I get it sorted out. Soon, hopefully.
Fitz Hugh Sound — Wow!
I just got to the Hakai Beach Institute where I’ll spend a day or two before heading up to Bella Bella. In a word, this place can be described with WOW! The wildlife is amazing. At the Koeye River there were thousands of pink salmon jumping at the estuary waiting for the rains to begin so they could go upstream. Then it rained and I went up afterwards to see wolves and grizzlies catching them.
Then I crossed over Fitz Hugh to the Hakai area and ended up in the middle of a pod of humpbacks. They are everywhere here. I have been up close when they are feeding with their bubble nets. They were also torpedoing off in the distance.
Here are a few shots so far:
Can Solar Powered Desalination Save the World?
I put up a new page on the top banner analysing whether there is hope that solar power could desalinate enough sea water to expand the planet’s agricultural capacity to save humanity as we run out of fossil fuels. Short answer? Maybe it could provide significant relief, but we better get our act together really soon.
Also, I will be heading off into the wilderness for a few weeks as of tomorrow and you can follow my progress online with my Spot GPS which I’ll try to update every evening. I’ll fly in to Rivers Inlet where I left off last year and continue on up, hopefully to Bella Bella. I have a late start so I don’t know if I’ll make it that far. I hope to see grizzlies and wolves catching salmon in the Koeye River. My GPS location map is here.
Also, a commenter pointed out some material from the 1930′s that had been written regarding “technocracy”, or what is now called “ecological economics” or “thermo-economics”. I haven’t had time to look through it very thoroughly but from scanning, it seems to be eerily similar to the things that I have written. How different people can come to such similar conclusions independently, almost 80 years apart, says something. It is here.
Leafing Out to the West Coast
I believe I just made the first journey out to the west coast in a Leaf. The other week Sun Country added a Level 2 charger to the Hospitality Inn in Port Alberni, as well as one at the Black Rock resort in Ucluelet. The one at Black Rock isn’t as critical as you’re staying overnight in Ukee anyways so even a 120 V Level 1 charger (i.e. a wall plug) would do.
I took that as the sign to take my Leaf out to the west coast, something I’ve been planning to do for a while. After the ferry I topped up my charge in Nanaimo at the free charger at Beban Park, then headed off to Port Alberni around 10 p.m. As I crawled over the hump into town it became apparent that I’d only end up using half the batteries to get from Nanaimo to Port. Then I spent 4 hours sleeping in the back of the car in the foyer of the hotel to get a full charge because I had no idea how the run to Ucluelet would sap my power. I awoke at 3 a.m. to the noise of the cleaning guy and drove 30 km out the highway to find a nice little side spur to finish my sleep until 8 a.m.
I was treated to brilliant sunshine in the morning. I chose the blue colour to go along with the ocean theme, but I now realize it exactly matches the sky.
After breakfast of peanut butter sandwiches and local huckleberries I continued on into the unknown.
At Sutton Pass I stuck my GoPro sports video camera on the windshield and got some great footage driving down the highway. Unfortunately I accidentally deleted it without realizing I hadn’t copied to the computer first…
Across from the new hydro generation station along Kennedy River is a riverside giant cedar forest trail.
A couple months earlier the pink fawn lilies were in bloom.
And the trilliums.
They are some of the first plants to come up in the spring and the seeds are ready to drop in early July. I had stopped two weeks ago to check them out and the seeds weren’t quite ready, and something had eaten / taken most of the pods. But this time they were ready to go and I salvaged a few.
I took more footage of the crazy highway section above Kennedy Lake and a big rig whizzed by right at the hairy section, making for some good video. Unfortunately I lost that one too.
In the end I only used 2/3 of my batteries to get from Port Alberni to Ucluelet! And I was envisioning dying in the middle of nowhere and having to fire up the emergency generator! It’s just a matter of driving slowly and conservatively.
At the new Black Rock charger. I may have been the first EV to use it.
I kept track of how much battery each section used up, from Nanaimo to Port and from Port to Ucluelet. It turns out I only need to spend an hour and a half charging in Port. Not too bad, so the journey between Nanaimo and Ucluelet that normally takes 3 hours in a regular car will take me about 5 or 6.
If only … if only it had 20% more range, then I could do the whole thing from Nanaimo to Ucluelet in one shot… Makes me lust after a Tesla Model S.
Now onto the real reason for my visit out to the west coast.
The old Ucluelet Mini Aquarium on the left, an unheated shack we have been running for the last 7 summers. The new permanent (and heated) building is the blue one on the right. Interestingly, we use a heat pump to heat the building. The sea water pumped from the dock up to the exhibits and back out is diverted through some concrete tanks you can see under the bottom left of the building overhang. This contains heat exchange plates which take the heat out of the 10 to 17 degree C sea water and heat the building with it.
We had our official grand opening June 1st and I’ve been coming out to work on unfinished business with pipes, pumps and tanks since then, and of course fish too.
A couple months before opening.
Just before opening.
Even the sea lions out in the harbour in front of the aquarium were excited on opening day.
Last minute plumbing 1/2 hour before the grand opening.
Philip with his opening speech.
The Great Tidepool
Philip the founder, and Kumiko
Melanie gets credit for this shot…
This one too.
I got some interesting video with my underwater GoPro housing of the spotted ratfish in The Great Tidepool.
No visit to Ucluelet would be complete without a scramble down at the rocks by the ocean. In June the flash of cinquefoil contrasts vividly with the black rocks.
July 17 – Around to Rivers Inlet and Out
I decided to head for Rivers Inlet today and pack it in for the year since the weather had been so bad. I had to be back at work in a week so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to spare. I was tired of being soaked and I was worried about my camera gear.
A humpback zooming around the bay. They spend the winter in the clear tropical waters of Hawaii, having babies and not eating because there is little to eat in the tropics -- that's why you can see so far through the water. Then they migrate to our coastline for the summer and feed on all the productivity from the upwelling nutrient rich waters meeting summer sunshine. They have interesting feeding strategies including working cooperatively to make bubble curtains to corral herring schools and then chomping them down in one bug gulp.
It was raining a bit in the morning as I packed up but as soon as I pushed off it ended.
It was low tide so the low beach with eelgrass was nice and calm. Goodbye Brown Island! I'll be back someday!
I made the kilometer long crossing to the mainland, a little wary of the humpback hanging around.
The sun came out.
Big waves
A few seconds later. If I needed to come ashore I would be out of luck for the next 5 km or so, although there were a few sandy coves, albeit with fairly large waves.
I have seen these barges a few times, loaded with colourful containers, heading north.
It was a nice paddle along the open coast to the point where I would turn east into more sheltered water. There were lots of birds and some boats going by.
This is a nice beach on an isthmus separating the peninsula from the rest of the mainland.
This pigeon guillemot let me drift fairly close. This wasn't even taken with my bird lens.
But not too close
Heavy swell on a reef
Looking across Rivers Inlet to the BC Ferry heading north along Calvert Island
Taking a break after rounding the peninsula. Looking west.
Looking north
Looking South
Here is the beach on the other side of that isthmus. It has a nice campsite. I wish I had stayed there an extra night.
I crossed eastwards over the bay to the main part of the mainland, which I would continue along northwards. I was getting very warm in my drysuit in the sun. I had to pull the top part off. Wearing it would be out of the question; I would overheat in no time. I don’t know what you’d do if you were somewhere treacherous with cold rough water, where you had to wear it for safety reasons, but you were stuck out in the blasting sun.
I paddled along under a big wide sky with the clouds parting around me. I looked west to the open ocean and to the productive seas all around me. In front of me was the rest of the world, an entire ocean of possibilities. I thought of all the marine life passing in and out of this place, some stopping to spend some time and others merely passing through on their journey to someplace else, maybe no place in particular. Others spend their whole lives here, gleaning their nutrition from sunshine and the sea water that swirls through, itself on its own never-ending journey around the world on the currents and through the clouds, all driven by that same sunshine. The fantastically intricate plankton glistening in the shafts of sunlight, going about their lives without knowing or caring about all the problems we create. For a while I went back to my early years, wide eyed in amazement at the wonder of the ocean, back to those salmon fishing trips out to Barkley Sound on Vancouver Island when I was first immersed in our coast.
The final leg of my trip this year was before me -- Duncanby Landing is at the base of that far mountain.
But first I had some interesting little islands to make my way through. They reminded me of the Broughtons. I was in no rush.
One of the fishing lodges I wasn't going to.
There's Duncanby Landing.
Looking up Rivers Inlet
After landing and taking my stuff out of my kayak I found this passenger that had been with me all day. This isopod was almost 2 inches long. There was actually two of them -- one underneath that was being mated with.
First thing’s first was to have a big chicken taco salad in the dining room with Sirius Satellite Radio blasting classic rock from the 70′s. Sorry, chicken.
I used the sat phone and arranged with Pacific Coastal for a pickup in a couple hours.
Packed and ready to go
But the plane actually ties up on this other dock, at the very end of it...
I asked a young guy on the dock helping me with my stuff (what a nice guy) what their work schedule was like here — 3 months straight, 7 days a week. Wow, that’s impressive. At least there’s nothing to blow your money on out here.
My first time in a Grummand Goose!
Looking up Smith Inlet. I came out along the northern shore, from the back right heading towards the left.
The southern part of Smith Inlet is a more convoluted maze of narrow channels between Greaves Island and the mainland.
Pack Lake behind Mereworth Sound
I wonder if anyone has ever been to those ponds on that mountain.
Pack Lake, looking eastwards
Looking westwards to Burnett Beach and the open ocean off Cape Caution
That's Belize Inlet! Nakwakto Narrows is to the right just outside the frame.
Belize Inlet on the left, leading through the narrows to Schooner Channel to the right, which you can't really see because it's mostly hidden behind Bramham Island.
As we crossed the strait I looked across to Shelter Bay. No indication from here of the drama that went on there last year in the trees.
That's "oil spill alley" from last year, where I had lunch before crossing the next big channel ahead of me. The pigeon guillemot nesting island is that little one on the left.
That's what kelp beds look like from the air.
We touched down and I was once again brought back to civilization. When I come out of the wilderness I notice that there seems something odd about how we act. After a few hours this sensation wears off, though never fully, I guess as I too re-integrate into the Borg collective. Funny, when I go into the wilderness I don’t feel anything odd about it… Must be the bond market. It influences us in ways more profound than we can imagine.
I stayed at the backpackers hostel again and tonight there were fireworks on. The whole town was out, right in front of the hostel. The next day I caught the bus back to Courtenay.
July 16 – Taking a Break on Brown Island
When I got up I felt like I had slept in but it was only 8:30. I had set up the bowl under the drip line overnight and it collected even more water than the previous evening when I dozed off for a couple hours in the rain. I was surprised by this because I heard rain in the night but I thought it only was a shower for about 15 minutes. It must have been at least a few hours long though to be able to collect that much water. How deceptive.
Since the weather seemed better, today would be another break day, this time to dry out, not to get soaked.
The water was calm at low tide. It really quietens down at low tide here and the waves from the swell almost disappear. But then when the tide comes up so do the waves. It must have something to do with the bathymetry of the shore which attenuates the waves at low tide.
Looking back up Smith Inlet
The odd boat went by, but most of the boats went by on the other exposed side of the island because that's where the open ocean is. Every boat that goes up the coast has to go by there. I could hear them but not see them. Only boats that have a specific reason for entering Smith Sound went by me here, and that totaled two over the two days.
The panoramic views from this spot are quite something. You can see from the south, all the way eastwards and towards the north, all through Smith Sound. You can see the weather as it rolls in.
There were also many planes flying north and south right over me. I guess this is a major flyway.
Indian paintbrush
The weather turned sunny and I took out my 70-200 lens with the teleconverter to start taking some photos.
As I was in the meadow a hummingbird came by. Great! She wasn't shy and I could maybe get some good shots of a bird in a flower.
Then this happened!
That actually would have been a nice shot of a hummingbird in a flower. But what the hell was going on? Suddenly everything fogged up! I freaked out and tried to locate the source of the fog, and unfortunately it wasn’t between the lens and camera, it was inside the lens. I have heard of lenses being ruined in the Amazon when persistent fog caused fungus to grow and etch the glass. And this was no cheap lens!
I didn’t know what to do. This was obviously happening because of all the humidity in the bags over the last few days seeping into the lens, and then when put in the warm sunshine it condensed out. The only thing I could do was lay it on my sleeping bag under the tarp, separated from the camera, and leave it to air out.
So then I took out my 70-300 lens which is a cheaper, though still expensive, lens. And almost immediately it did the same thing! I opened it up too and laid it out. Then I took out my little 35 f/1.8. It happened again! I laid it out. Then I took out my wide angle Sigma, and luckily nothing happened with that one. I attribute that to sloppier build quality…
Anyways, after about 1/2 hour, to my great relief, they aired out, as good as new.
I took advantage of the sunshine to charge my batteries. So it turns out I hadn't needed my computer batteries last night to charge them after all.
Brilliant white sand, like a tropical isle, too bright to look at in the sun.
Man, when the sun came out, I was roasting under the tarp! Outside wasn't any better in the bright reflections from the sand. There were a few showers now and then but they didn't amount to much.
I went tidepooling. Here are two genetically determined colour variants of the ochre star. These happen to eat mussels, which is the answer to the skill testing question the other day about why some logs are clean of mussels while others aren't (some logs can be accessed by stars at high tide, while others can't).
That's a limpet on the left on pink coralline algae, next to a big closed up green surf anemone
Tidepool sculpin
Scapula from a large mammal that died and washed up here, probably a sea lion.
The ball of the shoulder from the same animal. There were a few bones lying around from this carcass.
Yellow monkey flower
I listened to the weather report which was improving. I went over to the next cove to see what was there, and immediately found something interesting…
I found the reason for the island's name, gushing into the sand.
Literally, like tea.
I filled up my empty water jugs with it just in case I needed it, but I would only drink it as a last resort. It tastes a little funny, but I don't know if it's harmful.
I started thinking about how much carbon gets leached from the forests by this tannin tea. It must be significant. In most forests the carbon that is absorbed from the atmosphere is released back as CO2 when the matter breaks down on the forest floor, or if the forests burn. But here, it is so wet that decomposition is incomplete and it simply washes out. It probably doesn’t always flow intensely brown like this; most likely it’s because it is the height of summer and soil activity is higher.
Another way forests release carbon back into the atmosphere is through direct release of isoprene through their leaves. I find nutrient cycling in ecosystems interesting, because we are all part of that. All our food comes from there.
Columbine
Returning to nature
The beautiful little windswept wildflower meadow
A grey whale came by the kelp line about 20 meters off shore. There were whales everywhere. You only have to stand and watch for 15 minutes and you are bound to see one. Greys feed by sifting mouthfuls of mud through their rakers to separate out the shellfish. They spend the summers up here and migrate south to Mexico for the winter to have babies, most in Bahia San Ignacio on Baja California.
July 15 – To the Edge of the Continent
It was cloudy in the morning but not raining so I packed up and made the difficult gear transfer down the slippery rocks to a flat muddy area at the bottom with eelgrass. This little island is actually connected to the main island at really low tides. There was a wide diversity of marine algaes / seaweeds here, exposed at low tide.
As I was finally getting ready to go, the rain picked up, but that was okay because I was in my drysuit. I came prepared! I immediately crossed over to the north shore of the inlet and began searching for a creek from which I could fill my water bottles because I was getting very low. I wanted a little stream, not a raging river, since the stream would be groundwater that I wouldn’t have to filter. There were tons of streams with all the rain; it was just a matter of finding one that was easy to access.
I came upon this nice beach with a little creek running into the sand.
I used my underwater camera housing because it was so rainy, so the pictures are all blurry.
That's where it came from -- perfect!
A fishing boat went by as I started off again. I went past another beach with a big raging creek. The rain started to taper off so I pulled my head out of the drysuit since I was getting too warm.
I continued on for a while, following the interesting shoreline as I moved west towards the open ocean. I came upon a bay with a large brown sandy beach and I went in to investigate.
There was a succession of about four of these beaches, really nice. I don't know how easy it would be to find a spot to camp above the tideline though, with these midnight super high tides.
But the water was very brown from all the runoff. I almost thought it might be an algae bloom.
One of the sources of brown, a tea-like raging stream, with goops of foam drifting away in the salt water as it entered.
Streams of foam. The sea water here was like tea.
Rain off in the distance
I came upon another of those interesting floating logs.
My destination was a little island out at the mouth of the inlet, where there is supposed to be a beautiful sandy white beach on the lee side of the island.
As I was reaching the end of the mainland before heading across to the islands, a final bay presented this interesting sight -- a zodiac full of people in survival suits paddling to the rocks. I didn't know what to make of it. In retrospect I probably should have gone over to see what was going on, but they didn't gesture for me. And they had nice yachts anchored just to the left of here in the sheltered bay.
I donned my drysuit again as I crossed over to the islands, especially since the weather was staring to close in.
Here it comes.
I crossed over to Brown Island as the rain started pelting down. As I was approaching I startled a pair of sea lions about 30 feet off the bow.
The problem was that there was a lot of waves here and landing on this beach wouldn't be simple given all the rocks just below the surface. I paddled over to the left and found a spot that might allow me to land.
I waited until a break in the waves and then raced in over the reef in a foot of water. Just as I was landing a big wave came up behind me and if I hadn’t been perpendicular it probably would have knocked me over. I pulled out ASAP.
The beach was brilliant white crushed shell.
I played with my underwater still camera in the tidepools. This is a green surf anemone, which only grow in the tidepools on the exposed west coast. They can also dry out for short periods too.
Surfgrass
Usually these half in / half out shots are in tropical locales with coconut palms above and coral reefs below.
It was still raining and I got a little sleepy so I took a nap by lying on a log in my drysuit. It was very comfortable, just the right temperature to be lying in the rain.
Then I took my drysuit off, and now it wasn’t so warm! Those things really work.
This beach had a beautiful little wildflower meadow of primarily coastal strawberry, but also lots of other interesting plants thrown in. Here is Indian paintbrush.
I decided to set up the bat instead of the tent and sleep on the sand because the bugs didn't seem too bad.
I lay under the tarp and had a nap for a couple hours and collected this much water off the drip. I hope there aren't any toxins leaching into the water.
Brilliant white sand
So many types of shells
Some abalone shells, or "mother of pearl". I did a little garbage cleanup and surprisingly there was very little.
Looking south across Smith Inlet
I even pulled out my computer to check Google Earth and to charge my GoPro cameras and download photos. I didn't know if I'd have sun again to charge the GoPro's so I decided to sacrifice my computer's battery. The sand wasn't a problem at all because it was the perfect size -- large enough that it doesn't stick to everything and get everywhere.
July 13 & 14 – The Weather Gets Wet(ter)
There was a really low tide in the morning. The tent was nice and dry for packing up too.
I was up early and launched in a little tiny beach down there by 8 a.m. A few minutes later, and the beach was under water, so I timed that well.
It was cloudy and I had a slight tailwind. And the currents were going my way too. I made an easy 7 km/hr and knocked off a few kilometers in no time. How so much easier this was than 14 hours previously when I was fighting the winds to the campsite. Sometimes you just need to know when to call it quits and relax. Work for the sake of work is pointless, counterproductive, unless you are doing it for the physical exercise. I say the same thing about economics — our constant struggle to grow our economies bigger is futile and ultimately self destructive. We need to stop.
Some dispersed heli-logging cutblocks across the inlet. This is an interesting situation because the smaller cutblocks look nicer and result in less disturbance, but the direct implication is that we aren't ever going to have another large contiguous block of mature forest there if we continually rotate it through these dispersed small cutblocks, which aren't ideal habitat for certain animals like spotted owls that need large contiguous blocks. But, every piece of land is managed for different objectives, so this may be appropriate for this location.
Those poachers just never quit.
Even way up here I'm seeing the same patterns on logs I did down south. The log on the left is covered with mussels (which are the black things), whereas the log on the right is devoid of mussels. Why? You see this every 50 meters along the shore.
After about 6 km, a headwind picked up, but I had still done a respectable haul in the early morning hours. After this I paddled along the shoreline closely, hugging the coves to stay out of the wind.
Looking out towards the ocean
There is a lot of floating plant debris out here, from both the terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Much of it enters via the rivers. There is often an oily sheen on the surface which is all the biological oils accumulating with the tides and winds. This is ecological productivity in its raw form. Here is a salal leaf turned red.
It is not uncommon to see skunk cabbage leaves floating around in the salt water, They likely got there from grizzly bears ripping the plant up in the muddy parts of rivers and then eating the succulent stems and leaving the leaves to wash out into the ocean.
This was an interesting tethered floating log which I think had something to do with the relatively fresh adjacent cutblock.
I tied up to a cedar tree and had lunch (dates and peanut butter) with the wind keeping me in my spot. I made a little video commentary but the batteries on my audio recorder soon died.
You can't do this in most kayaks. And you also can't climb up to the front of the boat either. And you also can't stand up in most kayaks.
I continued on and now the ocean waves were becoming noticeable. There are quite a few islands out in the mouth of the inlet which break up the swell but I was now starting to experience it, the closer I got.
That's the open ocean out there in the gaps.
I followed the shoreline a bit more and the rain started. I turned on the video camera to record what it’s like in a squall as I paddled. At this point the north shore of the inlet reaches a point, and doubles back a bit before heading up north and then west again. I had the choice of crossing some open water in this weather or following the coast back and crossing up north amongst some islands where it would be safer. I chose the latter.
The weather was making interesting mist patterns on the nearby mountains.
Hues of green
I crawled up the north side of Dennison Island, all the while scoping out potential campsites as I went. I didn’t see anything obvious and I crossed over to the next island to the west, which had some rocks at its exposed end that I was hoping would be suitable. But the rain was really starting to pick up. I could see it coming in from the west. I crossed over to the island before it hit and took shelter under a big overhanging cedar tree, maintaining my spot with the odd paddle stroke against the wind. I would stay here until the weather abated. After 1/2 hour it didn’t and I had to make the decision to move on in the rain. I was only in my rain gear, not my drysuit, so I would get wet. But if I could pull out for the day that would be OK.
I got to the rocks and the pullout was difficult, but doable.
The pullout was up the slippery and tortuous jumble of big rockweed-covered rocks,all in the pouring rain.
I got my stuff up but I didn’t want to open it because anything inside that was still dry would then get wet; it was still pouring rain.
I stood around for probably an hour waiting for the rain to end, which wasn’t. I was getting wet and cold. I was not a happy camper, literally.
I realized I had to do something so I managed to cook up some fettucini alfredo which wasn’t very good, but it warmed me up a bit.
I became totally soaked. I was getting cold, frustrated and angry. I yelled my profanity and frustrations into the weather. I finally bit the bullet because I had no other choice, and tried to set up the tent with the tarp in a small and contorted space on some rocks. This did not work.
To get my tent out of the way I moved it onto these rocks temporarily. Magically, I had found my tent spot for the night. Sometimes I amaze myslef at the spots I can sleep in. Yes, that is three boulders I was draped across.
I got my stuff semi-organized and I hunkered down in the tent for a while to listen to the weather — a quasi stationary trough in Queen Charlotte Sound was sending waves of rain out. Well, that’s where I was, and that’s what I was receiving.
It rained all night, but miraculously it stopped mid morning the next day. I wasn’t going anywhere that day; it would be my day off. If I tried to pack up now everything would become soaked.
I got up and sort-of dried out. There was a hummingbird hanging around, going in the little salal flowers. My breakfast was some apple cinnamon oatmeal. A banana slug seemed to really go after the residue on the oatmeal packet. I threw the slug into the bushes. Then I thought about how long the banana slug population has been isolated on this little island, off the bigger island, which itself is isolated from the mainland.
I felt sorry for myself, thinking that I am the only life form here that can’t handle the rain. Nothing else cares about it, they just go on with their lives regardless.
Then I saw all the silverfish bugs taking refuge in the dry corners above my tent in the morning, and realized that I may not be alone in my desire for dryness.
There were frequent salmon jumping out there.
I didn’t do much all day; I mostly sulked. I had a bath in the ocean, and took some video footage of waves coming into the tidepools. I didn’t even open my camera bags because they were soaked.
July 12 – Heading Back Out Smith Inlet
The rain started at 6 in the morning -- right when I wanted to get up. I poked my head out and got this shot before retreating inside.
As usual, I sat in my tent, getting really bummed out, until it finally ended at 11. I packed up with everything mostly wet.
I was getting my boat loaded when a fairly large boat came by and then doubled back around after it passed me to check me out, probably just to make sure I was okay because I don’t think there are many kayakers up here. It was a nice gesture, but in doing all their twists and turns they sent some big wake my way which really caused havoc with my precariously placed half-loaded kayak. I then headed out.
Up close at that big slide
A zodiac zoomed by. I couldn't figure out where they came from since it is a long ways to anywhere up here. Your closest neighbours are 20 km away at least.
Looking back to where I came from
The weather was fairly calm for the most part. I played with my underwater video camera as I went. The water was brown from all the river runoff. The vegetation here never really dries out so decomposition is incomplete, and lots of tannins are produced which make the runoff water look like tea. The intertidal life isn’t too diverse up here because the salinity can get low when it rains hard. But mussels, barnacles, and rockweed all flourish. There were also tons of giant sunstars along the steep rocky subtidal slopes here up the inlet. These are the monsters of the sea and they can get over a meter across. They are the fastest starfish in the world. Most of their prey around here deploy unique escape mechanisms when they smell an approaching sea star. Clams stick out their feet and try to walk away, and if they’re lucky they’ll go in the right direction. California sea cucumbers start doing the wave and try to squirm away. Swimming scallops do what their name suggests — they swim away, just like in the cartoons. Sea urchins lay down their spines flat, exposing thousands of little pinchers called pedicellaria, with which they pinch the sensitive tube feet of the star.
After a while a headwind started picking up as usual in the afternoon when it isn’t raining. I tied off to an overhanging cedar and had a 45 minute break for lunch — Clif bar, dates, and peanut butter — what else. I battled the winds for a few more hours and made it as far as I thought would be practical — no point wasting energy fighting the wind when in the morning it would likely be calm. There was a little peninsula sticking out that became an island at high tide and it looked ideal to camp on. It was bare rock up top.
I landed on the thickly mussel-infested protected beach in the leeward bay behind the peninsula, but as I pulled one of the bags off my kayak the force of this pushed it up against some mussels and gave it a big gash. Not deep enough to cause a leak, but it would need attention.
Looking back
The poachers, this time with a different boat, were still at it a few kilometers away across the channel.
What a great view I had out towards the opening of the inlet.
I had zucchini lasagna for dinner and took advantage of the relative dry to put some Aquaseal on the gash. I would only need a few hours of dry for it to set.
At midnight, under a full moon, the tide came way up, floating my boat which of course was tied off since I take no chances, this time to a big rusty shackle lying around. All that stuff in the middle would be covered with water if I didn't move it. It came to within about 8 inches of my tent. Not only that, but I also had the low drone of the poachers going all night to keep me awake, which wouldn't normally bother me, but these guys did.
