Broughton Archipelago, Sep. 06 - 12, 2009 (Part 2)

Thursday arrived and with it were the long awaited clear skies. We got into the practiced routine of a quick breakfast, breaking camp, and loading the boats and we were off. We took off from the Owl camp and headed southeast, the sun blinding us as we paddled down Providence Passage, towards Knight Inlet. Once into the inlet we were a little surprised by the strength of the currents, and they weren’t working in our favour. We shouldn’t have been surprised as the maximum strength of the currents in this area is clearly marked on the charts, but it was just one of those things I overlooked when planning the trip. No harm done in this case, just made the trip east a little slower than planned.

The vistas as you travel up the entrance to the inlet are incredible. Mountain peak after mountain peak as far as you can see, always neat to see as the ranges start out dark blue and fade to light blue as the distance increases. We got across the inlet and took a short break at Rocky Point, on Crease Island. We weren’t able to get out of the boats so just had a quick snack and a bit of a breather. We started paddling again, with our much anticipated visit to the abandoned Indian village of Mamalilaculla, on Village Island, foremost in our minds. Three years ago, almost to the day, we were in this area with a group made up of the four of us, plus Lila’s father Joe, Ray and Margs’ son and girlfriend, and three of Ray and Margs’ friends. It was the first real kayak camping experience Lila and I had taken and it consisted of a four night trip out of Telegraph Cove, with the hopes of getting to Village Island. Unfortunately, on that trip the winds came up strong enough that it kept us from getting to the old village. We now travelled through a picturesque passage between Maud and Pearl Islands, came around the south coast of Island 44, and faced the huge, wide expanse of the shell midden beach of Mamalilaculla. As you paddle towards the beach there really isn’t a lot to see anymore.

You can just make out some rooftops of a couple more modern, but derelict buildings and some pilings and old wharf structures on the beach. We landed and got out of the boats and the first thing that you notice is the glass. The beach is covered in broken glass. Not sharp, jagged pieces but small fragments that haven’t quite been worn smooth by time yet. There are a couple of trails that lead up off the beach and we take them, only to find the trails up above are completely overgrown and nearly impassable, except for the bears who show signs of being here in abundance. We walk to the southern portion of the beach and find another trail leading up, this one takes us to what I had been hoping to find.

I had heard of and seen pictures of this old totem pole that was lying on the ground but was really looking forward to seeing it with my own eyes. As we heard it, it is tradition that when a totem pole falls, it is left where it lies, to decompose and go back to the earth where it originated from. I’ve seen totem poles before, in Stanley Park, and on native reserves in northern B.C. but seeing this one on the ground here made the old native way of life a little more real for me. I still couldn’t actually picture their lives here but it was proof that they did exist here, carving out an existence most of us could not think of doing today. We met a young native woman wandering the beach here with her two dogs. I don’t know if we ever knew her name but she says she was once the caretaker of the village, after the old caretaker Tom had left. The position of caretaker had been removed and she was just there harvesting rose hips. We sat and had a quick snack on the beach and then started on our way again.

We now changed direction and headed southwest, crossing both Village Channel and Indian Channel, making our way to our next camp at Mound Island. We did see some porpoises again while crossing Indian Channel but other than that it was an uneventful paddle to Mound.

The Mound Island camp is one we stayed at three years ago. It’s a fantastic place to camp as it has everything you could possibly want in a campsite. Trails all through the area to hike, beautiful green waters at the edge of the shell midden beach, and a kitchen structure that could easily be tarped in if necessary. The sun was still shining this afternoon so right away we got out all the tents and tarps and spread them out to dry.

It saves a huge amount of time in the set up and take-down of camps if you are not worried about being rained on. Once the camp was together Ray and I started on our unofficial crib tournament. We say it’s just for fun but I think both of us could tell you exactly how many games each won and lost over the course of a trip. They’re good games and usually pretty close finishes but since I’m the person writing this I can say I think I’m ahead by one game. (I suspect Ray will use whiteout on that part after reading it). This was kind of an odd day at camp because it seemed like we had just finished emptying the boats and setting up, and then we were already organizing for the next move tomorrow morning. We were only staying here the one night and the next morning was to be an early one as we had to transit a certain passage at an early slack current time. We sat up for quite a while around the campfire this evening, maybe even making it to nine o’clock before calling it a night.

Six thirty a.m. on Friday morning and we’re back at work. For a holiday there sure seems to be a lot of early mornings and chores to do. This was probably the quickest we have ever been able to get on the water. We were loaded and paddling within the hour today as we didn’t want to take any chances on missing the slack current time through Blackney Passage. As far as predictable water conditions, this passage was the one that could give us problems if we were late today. The plan was to catch the last of the flood current as it flowed east into Johnstone Strait. If we were late, not only would we be fighting the ebbing current, it’s also an area known for bad tide rips and rough water if the wind is strong. The other concern was the poor sightlines we had for passing commercial boats, from fish boats, to barges, to the numerous cruise ships that travel this route headed for Alaska.

We started out on probably the most beautiful morning we had had on the trip. The water was like glass and the reflections like looking into a mirror. We paddled west to Blackfish Sound and started across from Red Point.

We saw porpoises as we crossed the sound and humpbacks off in the distance. It was a gorgeous morning with just a slight haze hanging above the water. There was no other boat traffic in sight as we made our way towards Hanson Island, we had the entire sound to ourselves. We were able to see northwest towards Queen Charlotte Strait for a long ways but could not tell what was beyond Cracroft Point, the western most tip of West Cracroft Island. A thirty minute crossing for us can allow a cruise ship to cover twelve to fifteen nautical miles. The big boats may seem a long way off but you don’t want to be halfway across a passage when one comes into view. The strength of the current became more noticeable as we approached Hanson Island and tucked ourselves into a little bay for a snack. We were about an hour early for the slack water so we took advantage of the flood and let it push us through Blackney Passage, sticking close to the coast of Hanson.

We paddled through a pretty little passage at the end of the island, full of kelp beds, where we saw the first eagle of our trip. I don’t remember ever paddling a full day without seeing an eagle and here we were, on day six and just seeing our first. The next part of the trip was the crossing of Johnstone Strait. We had no real concerns of this water at this time as there was no wind and the current was dropping off, it was just the distance we had to think about.

Four kilometres by kayak is the better part of an hour’s travel and a lot can change in one hour. We had decided to make our way to a camp called Little Kaikash, so that is where we pointed the boats to and started paddling. Even using the gps it is hard to look four kilometres away and be able to pinpoint the spot you’re trying to make it to. You can find the general area but in this case it could have been any one of a number of beaches on the opposite shore. The crossing went smoothly with nothing out of the ordinary to cause us problems. There was a small tidal rip area we ended up having to contend with about a third of the way across, but other than that it was fine.

We arrived at Little Kaikash at ten in the morning and looked to have the entire site to ourselves. We laid the tents out so the sun could dry the last night’s dew off and began the most relaxing day of the whole trip. We were just sitting around enjoying a coffee when a young lady pulled up in her kayak. She came up and introduced herself as Hayley Shepard and explained that she worked for a group called Strait Watch, which works to educate boaters in the area about how to act around the sea life they may encounter. She came across as both very knowledgeable and personable, a tough combination to find anywhere. The name had rung a bell to me later and when we got home I googled it and found she was the woman who was trying to help save the albatrosses and was preparing to circumnavigate South Georgia Island in the Antarctic Ocean next year. (FYI: http://www.kayakingtosavealbatross.com/index.asp?p=0) I had first come across this venture while talking to her mother, who had a booth set up at the previous Ladysmith Paddlefest. In her off season she says she leads expeditions to both the Antarctic and Arctic regions, including Greenland, with a company call Quark Expeditions. Pretty impressive resume. She was with us for probably less than thirty minutes before she headed off across Johnstone Strait but I think she left a pretty big impression on everybody there.

We took a few minutes and got our tents set up for the last night and followed that with a few more games of crib. Ray and I later got our fishing rods together and went out in the boats to try our luck, while the girls paddled east to check out the Kaikash Creek campsite. I tried trolling for salmon for a while and had no luck so switched over to jigging for bottom fish for the fun of it. Ray and I got to enjoy another small pod of porpoises playing nearby as we fished, some of them surfacing not forty feet away. We also finally got to see a cruise ship as it came through Blackney Passage, making its way east back to Vancouver. Even looking at the boat from about three kilometres away it looked huge, more than ten stories high and I couldn’t begin to guess how long. The wakes from these ships was surprising as we found they would produce a couple of large rollers, and that was it, there wasn’t an endless string of waves hitting the beach. Over the course of our twenty four hour stay at this site I was to count eight cruise ships passing by, including several that passed in the middle of the night, waking us due to the bright lights more than by any noise that they create.

When the girls came back we wrapped up the fishing and headed back to shore. The afternoon and evening passed with us lounging around, snacking, and playing the odd crib game. We had our last campfire as we watched the stars come out. I don’t remember ever having seen so many stars before.

Saturday. Our final day on the water of this portion of our trip. We woke up to a beautiful sunrise this morning. We only had a short paddle today to get to Telegraph Cove so no one was in a big rush. We even had time enough this morning that Lila was able to make omelettes for breakfast with leftover food we all had. It was another clear day out but with a little more wind than Friday, the good part being the wind would be blowing west, helping us along. We had our camp taken down and the boats loaded shortly before nine this morning, so we still got a reasonably early start to our paddling. We set out west, following the coast of Vancouver Island, enjoying the small wind waves coming up from behind, the odd one just large enough to feel like you were almost surfing. We made pretty good time this morning as we all were looking forward to getting back to some of the modern conveniences we had been doing without. All eyes still kept a pretty close look out for the Orca whales which we had yet to see, but we were to be denied the sighting of one on this trip, instead we did have one last sighting of a porpoise as we made our way back. We paddled past Blinkhorn Peninsula, another site we had camped at three years ago, and in no time at all we were rounding the point and coming into Telegraph Cove.

I find it’s always a bittersweet time at the end of these trips. On the one hand you are looking forward to a number of things you’ve had to do without such as showers, the convenience of modern appliances, and proper shelter from the elements. On the other hand you realize the trade-off, for these essentials as we consider them now, is the noise, the crowds, and the constant drone of activity that is hard to ignore. Thinking about it now though, maybe we wouldn’t appreciate these trips as much if everyday life was more like our holidays on the water. You need to spend time in both environments in order to really appreciate what each has to offer.

The Broughton Archipelago appears to be an undiscovered kayaking paradise. We did not come across any other kayakers until day six when we met Hayley, and watched a few others paddling east towards Robson Bight. Hayley commented that the vast majority of paddlers stay in Johnstone Strait, hoping to see the Killer Whales, and if they do venture across the strait they will generally only go as far as Mound Island. The areas I enjoyed the most on this trip were the small islands off the west coasts of Mars and Bonwick Islands. I could easily have spent another couple days exploring this region and then I would have liked some more time to explore further north into the archipelago. On another trip I would even consider using the water taxi both ways, in order to avoid the Johnstone Strait area, which holds less appeal to me, and so I could spend more time in the less populated northern locales. Another area of local interest that would be great to see on the next trip is Echo Bay, the place where the girls were threatening to leave us for at one point so they could take advantage of the hot tub and bakery to be found in this little community.

Even though the weather for the first half of the trip wasn’t that cooperative, it was still a first rate week on the water and I wouldn’t hesitate to repeat it in its entirety. It had a little bit of everything that we’ve come to enjoy on these adventures including the rougher waters of Spring Passage, numerous whale sightings, relaxing afternoons on beaches, and being able to spot porpoises on every day of the trip. It’s a beautiful area I wouldn’t hesitate to return to.

Total Distance Paddled - 83.6 km.

Related links:
Broughton Archipelago Picasa Web Album

Broughton Archipelago Marine Park