I woke up to sunshine and calm winds! And lots of bugs. Along with my usual morning routine including collecting salal berries for my oatmeal I took advantage of the sun to set up my solar panel on a big stump to charge my GoPro camera. I also assessed all of my food supplies – two weeks’ worth, not including any fish I catch. This should be enough to get me to Rivers Inlet where apparently there is at least one floating general store in a bay somewhere, catering to the summer boating crowd. My map sucked, so I didn’t know exactly where it was but I’d figure it out.

This spot is beautiful, especially in the sunlight. It was reflecting off the water onto the cedar trees on the nearby shore and making interesting patterns, below a vibrant moon in a blue sky.

A little bit of morning marine layer

All my food

Because of the Narrows, there is very little garbage on the shores here. This was some bling left by birds. Probably a stolen lunch sandwich from some forestry operations.

I also noticed more of these hundreds of tiny fish which I had seen before a few times in the last few days. They were only in the inlet, this side of the Narrows. They were about a centimeter long and schooled by the thousands. I got out my fish net and scooped some out and saw that they were actually swimming mysid shrimp. If I cared to I could make a meal out of them, some stew or soup. Just scoop until I had enough.

The little shrimp were all around my kayak here.

That’s the floating house I would paddle by.

Logging operations a few years later. Alder grows on the disturbed soils of the roads.

Fresh logging with some soil disturbance

A variety of age classes. Above is old growth. Below this is relatively recent cutting and in the foreground is maturing second growth forest.

I still needed water so I’d hug the northwest shore as I paddled to see if any of the indentations on my map actually had water. I got as far as the northwest point of the inlet and at this point there is a valley with a creek. However, I had to hike a ways up the creek to get away from the salt water. I took video of this whole affair. I strapped the camera to my head and my audio recorder to my wrist and started hiking up the mud flat. I had to cross the creek once and I was thigh deep, walking across slippery boulders. If I fell I could destroy my audio recorder. Luckily I didn’t.

I felt uneasy walking up this creek because it is perfect bear habitat. I noted how much the vegetation reminded me of my home forests, the Seymour Valley in North Vancouver (not to be confused with the other nearby Seymour Inlet and River up here, they are totally different). I love exploring those verdant riverside forests in North Van but I also know that there are no grizzlies there; there would likely be some here.

I got to a point which obviously had fresh water so I filled up my new found water bottle from Shelter Bay. The grass beside this spot was flattened from something large, presumably sleeping. I returned to my kayak and filtered it, then went for another water run. That went by fine as well.

I had to hike into the trees a little farther than you can see here.

Then I decided to get some underwater video footage of the shrimp. They were in the brackish flow of the estuary by the hundreds of thousands. They seemed to be feeding off the bits of stuff flowing down the creek.

It’s interesting how different the marine life is in this inlet compared with the open ocean just outside the Narrows. That mostly has to do with salinity, especially in winter when huge volumes of rain and meltwater flood through the inlet and do not have a chance to flush well with the full strength sea water outside. It would be interesting to find out what the salinity is here in winter. As an interesting aside, there is an observation that all the natural fluids in the world have roughly the same proportions of elements. Rain water, fresh water, and sea water, they all have roughly the same composition of minerals. What is interesting is that the fluids of our bodies, like our blood plasma, have a very similar composition to sea water, with the exception of elements like nitrogen and phosphorus, but at only half the strength. This is why you can’t drink sea water. We have the same internal salinity as fish but they can drink sea water because they use energy to pump the excess salt out. This consistency is thought to be a relic of our primordeal origins as fish in the oceans; our bodies have maintained he same internal chemistry ever since.

I also noticed the lack of marine mammals in here; I can’t imagine any whales or dolphins coming through the Narrows. There were, however, plentiful seals because they are everywhere.

With that finished I continued on towards a logging camp a kilometer to the east. But as I was leaving I had divebombing displays from those gulls, which I think are mew gulls. They have the most beautiful, haunting, lonely calls. This one didn’t let up and got more aggressive as I got towards the floating house. I don’t know what it does when people are at this place. Maybe it is guarding the house for its owners. It probably had a nest around there somewhere. It got really aggressive and was bombing me repeatedly only a few feet above my head. I took photos of it but it was difficult to get good shots as it came in close because panning was hard. It went up over my head rather than from one side to the next.

Giving me the evil eye

The wind was picking up from the south so I was getting hit with some waves from the side as I went along. There was a large log boom perimeter protecting a calm area which is where the logs would be stored before being towed out. This was bouncing waves back at me. When I cleared this it got a little calmer. I crossed over to the south side of the inlet which was now going east, since that was in the lee of the wind.

There were more gulls here so I recorded their sounds and I’ll put them up when I finish writing the blog and figure out how to do it.

A normal gull on the big log with the smaller mew gull down below

Old logging near the head of the inlet

I think this clearing has to do with helicopter logging up above. I think they drop the logs here before towing them out.

I now had a long straight stretch to the final bend to the left which would be the end of my time on the water for a while. The paddling was uneventful in the sunshine with a nice tailwind. The mountains were getting higher. There was snow on some of them. At the end of a large island I crossed over to the north side before the inlet turned north. I spotted a murrelet nearby up against the shore and tried to get photos of it. It didn’t seem too scared of me but by the time I got my camera out it was gone.

I noticed on the other side of the inlet a picturesque waterfall cascading straight into the water, so I could have filled up my water there rather than at the previous creek. This creek must be fed from high elevation snowmelt since it was going pretty good. I wasn’t sure if I would have water at my pullout since the map showed a small stream but I didn’t know if it would be running.

I finally rounded the final corner and saw my adversary for the next few days. Or should I be more optimistic and call it my “friend”? I felt a bit of a lump in my throat. I just didn’t know how the next few days would go. The location was beautiful and sunny, and nice and warm with a light breeze.

Rounding the final corner. That is my pass up there. I say “mine” because it may not have ever been traversed before, I don’t know.

I also noticed some very large impassable cliffs which were not noted on Google Earth or my topo map. That’s OK though because I was going up the valley to the pass at the base of those cliffs. I still had to get to over 300 m elevation though.

There was an abandoned barge at the very head of the inlet near where I would enter the forest. The grassy spot beside the creek would be the best entry point. I was glad to see that the forest was no longer hypermaritime, which is an almost impenetrable tangle of thick brush. This forest was again more like what I was used to around Vancouver – a high closed canopy with relatively sparse understory vegetation. This is of course all relative. It is still very dense.

For some reason I wanted to make some headway today so rather than camping on the barge, I decided that it would be to dangerous to pull my kayak up against the rusty metal and instead packed up all my stuff to see how far I could get in the bush before dark. I had a couple hours left. The tide was coming in but I got it all sorted out and off I went.

I would do the portage in five loads, with one backpack full of little things that never leave the pack. All the remaining large items would be carried in my kayak backpack. I would fill and empty the pack with each run. I would go about 30 meters per run and then dump my stuff and come back for the next load. This would be five loads in total.

It doesn’t sound too bad and I convinced myself of that. It is only about 2.5 km across to Long Lake where I would then go down to Wycleese Lagoon and then exit into Smith Inlet, thereby bypassing Cape Caution. Well, when you consider that I had to return 4 times to get the additional loads, we can do some math and add it all up: 2.5 km times 5 for the loaded runs, plus 2.5 km times 4 for the return runs. That equals 22.5 km. And that is over rough terrain.

The first run crossed the creek and went up to a little bench above the creek. This continued on for a hundred meters or so. Then I crossed another little dry muddy creek and after this the incline started. It went up for another 100 meters, but it got steeper. I was taking comfort in that it was actually very reminiscent of the Grouse Grind in Vancouver which I used to do regularly and get very good times on. That is a 700 meter vertical climb up Grouse Mountain above Vancouver which is 2.9 km long I believe. It is basically just a huge staircase.

Based on that history I should have no problem with this bushwhack. The problem was that I was still recovering from severe patellar degeneration and tendonitis in my right leg from the nerve damage and all the damage the physiotherapist and doctors inflicted on me. And I was only in running shoes. I didn’t have space for more sturdy footwear.

Anyways, this day was a success. I did about four or five runs and near the top of this steep hill, I set up camp in a relatively flat spot. I went to sleep amidst the symphony of mosquitoes buzzing only inches from my head outside the mesh, wondering what the next few days would bring.

The forest is very similar to what you see on the Grouse Grind. Just substitute Sitka Spruce for Douglas-fir and everything else is the same.

Before I got out of bed a tug boat came by towing a log boom out through the narrows. You have to time the tides right to pull something like that through the narrows! This is a working forestry area with lots of logging so I expect to have boats around. The old growth cedar and cypress is very valuable wood.

There were productive salal bushes all over this island so I augmented my morning oatmeal with berries and of course sugar. I am able to do this frequently since there are so many salal berries along this coast at this time of year.

Launching was a bit more difficult that anticipated because the rocks were slippery but I got away and rounded the corner of the island while fighting the currents. I would go as far as I could and then wait for the currents to die down before going through the narrows. Since it was going against me there was no chance of the current carrying me away past a point of no return and sucking me into the abyss.

I didn’t get very far until I reached raging white water. This really is an amazing spectacle. The water was raging by and very loud. It was like a huge whitewater river. There was a clear line separating the raging current from the kelpy little cove I was hiding in. The water was calm where I was tied up on some kelp. There was a small back eddy, and only 15 feet away, that back eddy met up with the 15 knot torrent (who knows).

Low tide was at 10 a.m. so I would just hang out here until the water slowed enough to be safe. Unfortunately it didn’t. For over an hour I sat there watching a log circling endlessly in the eddies, snoozing, and taking photos.

I realized that there is a lag between the tides and the currents. The current continues to gush out even after the ocean tide has reached its minimum and begins to rise again. This is because there are over 150 km of inlets behind Nakwakto Narrows, the two main ones being Belize to the north and Seymour to the south. They both generally head eastwards, filling in the channels created by parallelogram shaped mountain ranges. If it wasn’t for this 300 m wide channel, the whole thing would just be a very large lake.

So all the tidal water volume is fed and drained by a 300 m wide narrows. What happens is that the water flow through the narrows can’t keep up with the tide levels in the ocean outside. So even though the tide is low in the ocean, the inlets still haven’t finished draining and water continues to gush out until the tide rises enough to equal the level of the inlets. Then you get a slack tide and after this the current switches and the cycle repeats but on a high tide. Because of this, I am expecting the tides to have a narrower range once inside the narrows. I’m sure there’s some partial differential equation in there somewhere… I imagine that under certain conditions, and with big river runoff, the narrows could get crazy.

Eventually after lunch the currents died down enough and I crossed the channel to a larger bay on the other side which looked calm enough to make some headway. I went from cove to cove and at one point the current was just too fast so I had to retreat back five meters to hang out in the kelp only two meters away from the fast water, and wait a while. I took photos of Tremble Island, which is a rock sticking out of the middle of the rapids. Its trees are hanging with signs from people brave enough to land and climb on the island. I don’t know how long slack tide lasts here. Probably not long. I saw the sign from the Vancouver Aquarium. They went there a few years ago on an expedition up the coast. There were a few ducks on the rocks of the island and that would be an interesting place to camp. Maybe some day I’ll do it. I wonder if it would be a first.

The raging water was only a few meters to my right.

Looking east up Seymour Inlet

Looking northwest up Belize Inlet

There is interesting marine life in the narrows, with the strong currents. There are extensive beds of giant barnacles but I won’t be checking that out. You can eat barnacles by the way. They are crustaceans like crabs and apparently taste like them.

I got through the rapids and after another work boat went by I immediately crossed Seymour Inlet to the other side because I didn’t want to get sucked back through the narrows by crossing near its mouth.

There are tons of burrowing sea cucumbers in the inlet. These are a different species than the California sea cucumber I caught last night. They aren’t as mobile and keep most of their bodies in crevices, with their fluffy tentacles extended to catch plankton from the water. They have beautiful colours ranging from purple to orange. I got some nice footage of them as I moved along in my boat.

Burrowing sea cucumbers

I didn’t waste any time heading up Belize Inlet, which goes northwest until doing a big U-turn at the corner of the parallelogram and turning eastwards. Seymour inlet goes east right from the narrows. It’s all semantics though. They are all just inlets.

The wind was against me but the currents were with me as I worked my way up the inlet. Because the currents were with me, this meant that the back eddies in the coves were against me, so in order to take advantage of the currents, I had to stay away from shore for much of the time. But this put me out in the wind. The two tended to balance out and I made decent progress.

At one point I saw some weasel-type critter in the trees right at the water’s edge. It took off quickly. It was fairly large but I don’t know my mustelids well enough to be able to ID it.

A very strange tideline. I don’t know why it is so sharp. I have seen this a few times so far.

A logging access dock

I reached the 270 degree turn at Mignon Point. I was actually not far from the big beach at Burnette Bay near Cape Caution. It is just a few kilometers over the land to the west. But with my kayak I do not want to risk that open ocean. I would not be able to land safely in big surf and there is nowhere to take refuge if needed. This is a shame because apparently it is a beautiful beach. Instead I am taking the inland route northwards. It will include a 3 km long bushwhack. I wonder if it’s ever been done before. I may be doing a first!

I began heading due east and the expanse of Belize Inlet lay before me, a dead straight shot into the mountains that went on for miles and miles. I soon crossed over to the north side and saw a rocky reef off in the distance. There were some sticks sticking up and I wondered if those were put there by someone to warn boaters of the rocks. But when I got to it I saw that the sticks were from a large log that had gotten stuck on the rock.

Looking east up Belize Inlet after Mignon Point

The marine life changed markedly in this inlet, compared with the open ocean. There were a lot fewer birds, but more loons. Also, mussels had returned. They had been absent from most of the open ocean shores I had been following previously. For some reason they seem to prefer the inlets which receive some fresh water dilution. I am not sure why. It might have something to do with their main predator, the ochre star.

I was getting pretty lonely in the empty vastness of this huge country. I had seen no boats since leaving the narrows. I passed by a few logging operation docks. I was starting to miss the open ocean now. I finally got to the beginnings of Mereworth Sound, which is the inlet leading off to the northeast from Belize Inlet. Right around here I saw some seals on some rocks which lifted my spirits a bit. Also, a speedboat passed by on the other side of the inlet, and a large ministry forest ranger boat went around the corner. I was wondering how much territory that boat must cover, and what it was doing up here.

Just through this channel I came upon…

I passed a floating logging camp which looked like an interesting place, with cedar shacks and a patriotic BC flag. No one seemed to be home though.

. I was heading for some little islands a few km further on, but I needed some water. I crossed over to the other side to where it appeared that there was a small river entering the inlet but when I got over it appeared to be way up some marshy estuary in the trees and I didn’t want to risk a bear encounter so I instead just went back across to the islands.

Scenery to the east

There is apparently a creek there.

I didn’t want to go look for it.

My island for the night

The skies had cleared up and the setting was stunning. The mountain across the inlet was cloaked in beautiful old growth cedar forest and these islands were really interesting. I was feeling very lonely and homesick at this point and the beautiful location helped temper that but I had been on my trip for a month and a half now and I always get homesick at that time, no matter where I am. Plus I had only spoken to one person for almost two weeks, since leaving Telegraph Cove. So I had curry again.

Looking east from my island. What a view!

An osprey was watching me from the trees. As soon as I pointed my lens at it it took off.