Kayaks – Not Just Hood Ornaments Anymore

Twelve degrees Celsius and raining.

Greetings friends!

Our last post started with us thanking Tony for saving our home from a fire and left off with us heading to the beautifully rugged islands of Haida Gwaii. How lucky are we?

Haida Gwaii is a storm battered, moss covered archipelago of 150 islands located 93 nautical miles due west of Prince Rupert, British Columbia.  At this time of year, Haida Gwaii is accessible either by plane or by a twice weekly ferry from the Port of Prince Rupert, which is the option that we chose to take. Upon leaving the port we got a good feel for the amount of business passing through this terminal as we watched a large cargo container ship unload and also viewed the under-construction Altagas Propane Export Terminal which made Bill’s heart go pitter patter.

 Evidence suggests that First Nations people have inhabited the Haida Gwaii islands for 14,000 years so you can bet that at times you can feel the history and believe in the myths that permeate the islands, peoples and way of life. We wanted to experience everything that Haida Gwaii offered including the journey to get there. At this time, we should include full disclosure by telling you that Clark did NOT accompany us to Haida Gwaii due to the fact that we don’t have a first born to sell to include Clark in this particular venture. We arrived at the ferry dock in Prince Rupert, pre-booked three months ago reservation in hand, about fifteen minutes prior to when we were supposed to (which was two hours prior to our 2:30 PM departure) along with many other keeners. When a ferry happens only twice a week, you can bet that there are keeners. We visited with other folks that were waiting until loading, people watched and speculated about their stories and tried to quantify the difficulty of driving and handling certain vehicles that were parked in the line ups. As far as people watching, this is pretty first-rate stuff for killing a couple of hours.  Loading of the vehicles and walk-ons (bike-ons in our friend from Ontario’s case) eventually commenced, but things had the appearance of being a bit, well, haphazard. In the end, under the direction of BC ferry dockhands, Bill had to back the truck down the loading ramp, and into our spot on the ferry car deck. The BC Ferries fellow directing him clearly knew EXACTLY how many of what vehicles would fit by the hair of their chinny chin chins because Keoma had to climb into the back seat and up through the front seats to get back in when we disembarked. After a two and a half hour delay we were delighted to finally be on our way and we spent the seven hour journey watching for whales (none) and then retreating to our pre-booked ocean view cabin to read, blog, and almost have a little snooze for the ocean passage. Having the cabin was saweeeet!

Despite departing two and a half hours late, by some miracle of the power of ramped up diesel engines of the BC ferry and favorable ocean currents, we arrived only an hour late with our captain shaving our original journey time of seven hours to five hours and fifty minutes. We were duly impressed, and even more so when we were able to drive straight off of the ferry, fifth in line while everyone else that had driven on forward was going to have to back off of the thing. We were positively giddy about that and grinned smugly and chuckled right out loud the entire four-kilometre trip from the ferry terminal to our hotel in Queen Charlotte City. We checked in and after unpacking some of our kit we hit the hay.

The following morning, we rose bright and early with the sun and gazed out upon our ocean view in wonder. The forecast for the three days that we were to be here had been for rain and cold, but suddenly the view made all of that not matter a damn. The tops of the islands were wreathed in mist, the waters of the Bay were calm and the village of Queen Charlotte City quietly stirred to life. We could not have been more delighted. Our original plan was to try to find a place to kayak right away however the cool weather and predicted rains had us, on the advice of the nice lady at the Information Centre, (starting to love these places a lot) heading out to the Haida Gwaii Museum  and Heritage Centre . The museum sits on the original site of an old village at Kay LLangaay and is built to resemble the long houses that would have greeted visitors, traders and other first nations arriving from the coast. While we were there, a pod of Gray Whales were snacking on tasty sea creature treats and scratching their bellies on the eel grass in front.

We were extremely fortunate to have a chance encounter with the Manager of Collections of the museum, Sean, after he spotted Bill trying to figure out the mechanics of the lid and hinges of a bentwood mortuary box. He spent about 35 minutes with us sharing both his connections with the land as an archaeologist, a former logger, the son of a chief, a watchman in the Gwaii Haanas Reserve and a tour guide for the tour that we were going on the following day across the island to the West for a visit to an ancient village (the tour got cancelled due to high winds and inclement weather – something in there about risks to passenger safety and comfort). He also took the time to tell us about a button blanket featuring a double headed eagle in their collection that had originally been gifted to Pierre E. Trudeau by clan elders when he attended the original museum’s opening in 1976. Upon meeting Mr. Trudeau, the gifters of the blanket re-assessed the situation and advised him that he was not, in fact, an eagle but rather a raven because as a politician his natural state was to be a trickster and shifty. They gave him a raven button blanket instead, and Mr. Trudeau in turn donated the original double eagle blanket to the museum. There is no photo of it here as photos were verboten on the premises but we greatly enjoyed the story and the time spent with Sean. By the time we finished all of the exhibits, our brains were full and we were a bit overwhelmed. So. What to do? Hang around for another hour to get the totem tour of the seven totems and three warrior canoes on the site. That’s what. We crammed more knowledge in about the meanings of animals appearing on totems along with the stories behind them and left completely exhausted but oh so much smarter. After a brief rest, we headed to the local pub for a surprisingly good seafood dinner for such an establishment and back to the motel for bed because we are old and lame.

No tour today. Needed a new agenda item. We decided to do the hike up the Tlell River to the ship wreck site of the Pesuta that we had been planning to do the following day followed by a drive up the island to visit the communities of Masset and Old Masset with the added bonus of Agate Beach along the northern coast.

The Pesuta was a 264 foot log carrier that ran aground on East Beach in 1928. No souls were lost. In the spirit of being early recyclers, the residents along the coast used the wreck contents for building supplies. There are a lot of wooden structures on this island. Just sayin’. The hike took us through a beautiful old growth coastal forest and dropped down to follow along a tidal river that becomes impassable at high tide.

Needless to say, we were checking our watches fairly carefully inbound in order not to get caught stranded by high tides. The inlet was still emptying when we were on our way out so we could say that perhaps Keoma’s panic was for naught. The sun was shining when we hiked out to the exposed beach and the wreck site and though we had the place to ourselves when we arrived, clam diggers on quads began to arrive to reap the benefits of low tide. They were still looking when we left so we thinks no clams for dinner for those guys. We rested our legs on the 90 km coastal drive up to Massett and Old Massett where there are about 16 totems to decipher and ogle. We spied a couple, however there appeared to be a public gathering happening in response to a community tragedy so with respect, we withdrew from town and continued up the coast to see what else we could see towards the northern tip. We could almost see Alaska, that’s what we could see. We also saw some of the most beautiful rugged beaches that we have ever run across and decided that if we ever return we would camp at the campground along Agate Beach where we strolled along looking for, well, agates. It was bracing and beautiful and we loved it. Highly recommend heading up there, even just to have a sandwich and gaze upon the wondrous ocean. After being dazzled, we headed back to our motel and strolled across the street to one of the three Chinese/Canadian Cuisine restaurants that service this town of 850 people. We chose the one that we could see had a steady stream of traffic and customers even after they closed. It was tasty and we had leftovers too. Good times. And….then guess what? We retired. Because we’re old.

We were up bright and early the next morning for breakfast next door and (insert squeal of delight here) we got to go sea kayaking! We headed to the boat launch and after some fiddling and futzing we launched and were oh so very very happy. The seas were calm and we paddled out to a couple of islands that we could see from our motel balcony for some whale watching (none) and star fish gazing. We rounded a spit and came upon a fellow that was out in his canoe clamming. Twice when he turned his back we saw clams spit which is something that neither of us had ever witnessed. They spit about 18 inches into the air! That is a lot of propulsion for such a small buried in the sand critter. It was very cool and we smiled smugly as we paddled away and didn’t tell the guy because…well…we didn’t want to.

Several star fishes and a crab later, we headed back to the boat launch before we would have to fight the change in currents when the bay would fill from the next tide. The timing was perfect as it began to rain as we loaded up and then it cleared again when we returned to the motel for leftover Chinese food on our balcony with an afternoon glass of wine.

Haida Gwaii has been a fantastic experience and we have both decided that we would definitely return. Folks are friendly, and the scenery is incredible. Haawa for the memories.

Next post – Back to the Mainland.

Thanks and cheers everyone!