Telegraph Cove to Bella Bella

This is a big leg and it will take me a month! I plan to head up north through the Broughton Archipelago and follow the mainland coast northwest until Seymour Inlet. I’ll then head in through Nakwakto Narrows and go up to the head of Belize Inlet. This is for two reasons. Firstly, I avoid 25 km of Cape Caution, some nasty open ocean that my kayak would not like. Plus, I get to detour through grizzly country. From Belize Inlet it is a two kilometre bushwhack over to Long Lake. Depending on how that bushwhack treats me, I have two options. If I am feeling strong (unlikely given my knee) I’ll go east to the head of Long Lake, ford up Smokehouse Creek four km to the turn, and bushwhack five km over some mountains by some small lakes to the head of Smith Inlet, where there is a major grizzly estuary. If my knee was strong, I’d have no trouble, but it is weak.

More likely, I will instead turn west at Long Lake and go through Wyclese Lagoon which feeds into Smith Inlet. From here I will paddle east up to the head of Smith Inlet to see the grizzlies. Then I will come back out and cross the five km stretch of open coast to Rivers Inlet, where I may be able to resupply and get on the internet at a fishing lodge. Then I will cross Rivers Inlet and either head straight for Bella Bella, but if I feel up to it I’ll go west through Hakai Recreation Area and its myriad inlets and islets. Apparently there are lots of wolves up in that area and on Calvert Island so I’d like to see it. This should all take me a month. I only have about 20-25 days’ food supply so I will have to catch fish, which really isn’t hard, it just takes time. With Maggie and Brian, at the end of the day he can fish while Maggie sets up camp. I have to do both.

Here is Bryan and Maggie’s website (I have misspelled his name all before). Maybe you want to donate to it. They are raising money to buy chickens for an orphanage in western Kenya. They say an egg a day would end poverty. The local people have enough food to eat but it isn’t very nutritious. If we could only introduce them to quinoa! Bryan and Maggie live off the stuff along with fish. Very healthy!

Paddle for the Chickens

And here is my GPS locator map which I will try to update daily except for when I am bushwhacking in forest and the signal won’t get through. I may be in the forest for several days at a time so don’t get worried.

My location

Also, sorry for the garbled and uncommented photos. WordPress is fiddly with photos especially on a shaky internet connection. I’d need a full day to sort them all out and I’ve already put in 10 hours on the computer today. Also, they seem to come in backwards order.

And maybe you’d like to donate to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, for which I have set up a challenge for my trip to raise money for them.

My Big Wild page.