Breakfast with Kayak Bill - by Colin Lake

Originally posted 12/22/2019

Image by Colin Lake

In the fall of 1994, I got a job with a small logging outfit on British Columbia’s mid-coast.  Rather than felling live trees like most loggers do, we made our living by salvaging trees that were floating in the ocean or deposited on shore by high tide.  This method of logging is known as “hand-logging” or “beach-combing”.  We would collect timber from the myriad inlets and channels using a small tugboat, and construct a large floating raft, or ‘boom’ of logs that would be picked up every couple of months by barges travelling up and down the coast. 

Image Colin Lake

Our floating camp was nestled in a sheltered inlet roughly midway between Klemtu and Bella Bella, in the Finlayson Channel area of northern Milbanke Sound.  We were about a three-hour tug boat ride from town, so supply runs were only made every four to six weeks.  The camp consisted of several trailers on top of a barge measuring approximately 10 x 30 meters, with the deck sitting about 2 meters above the water.  Long lines, the thickness of your forearm, ran from each corner of the camp to the shore, maintaining the barge’s protected position at the back of the inlet while still allowing for rise and fall with the tide.  It was common for several weeks to go by without seeing anyone, with the possible exception of a prawn boat or salmon fisher who would unexpectedly tie up at our camp for the night to get out of a heavy sea.  We didn’t punch a clock or work regular hours; available daylight, weather conditions and tides determined where we went and what we did each day.  I was in my early 20’s, and recently graduated from college.  I grew up in a small town in eastern Ontario, and this was the first time in my life that I had spent any amount of time on the ocean - the scenery, weather and wildlife all seemed exotic and overwhelming. 

About a month after I started the job, my boss had to fly down to Victoria for some meetings.  Camp could not be left unattended for the three weeks he would be gone, so I stayed alone to ‘camp-sit’.  There was no telephone, satellite, television or electricity (aside from a generator).  My daily routine was to wake up and turn on the VHF radio in the kitchen to monitor channel 16 for weather forecasts and Coast Guard notices to mariners.  Then I’d fire up the large gas-powered pump to empty out the barge that the camp sat on – it was always taking on water, and would sink if left unattended for more than a couple of days.  Once the camp chores were done, I was free to go hiking, fishing, or exploring the various islands and passages around camp. 

Google Earth

During my solo camp-sitting stint, ‘Kayak Bill’ dropped by for a visit.  I had been told a little bit about Bill – he tended to keep to himself, lived largely off the land and travelled everywhere in his kayak.  My boss seemed to know Bill to some extent, and in hindsight I wonder if he had arranged for Bill to drop by and check on me and make sure the ‘new kid’ wasn’t having any difficulties while alone at camp.  Whatever his motivation, Bill paddled into my camp one morning and introduced himself.

My first impression of Bill was how incredibly weathered he appeared – it was hard to even guess his age.  His skin was very deeply tanned, with lots of wrinkles around the eyes resulting from so much time on the water.  He had a long grey beard, and wore lots of wool – not a scrap of nylon, gore-tex, or neoprene.  He looked like a rugged, outdoorsy homeless guy.  I don’t recall him being a large man, but he gave the impression of being pretty wiry and tough – capable.  In such an isolated and remote setting, it’s a little awkward to suddenly have a conversation with a complete stranger after not speaking to anyone at all for a week.  However, Bill wasn’t a big talker, and I’m not either, so we seemed to get along alright.  I invited him in, then made us omelettes and put the coffee on – both were luxuries that Bill said he didn’t get often while paddling.  I puttered around the kitchen, and Bill smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, consulted his carefully-annotated, well-worn navigational charts, and we chatted.

     

 

Billy Davidson

I’ve always enjoyed camping and paddling, so I was interested in all the details of how Bill managed such long solo trips in a challenging and often hostile environment.  He told me he could go six or seven months without needing to get essential supplies from town (ammunition for his .22, tobacco and rolling papers, garlic, rice, flour).  During these extended trips, he packed his two-person kayak full of supplies, while all of his fresh food was obtained from the land.  He described shooting waterfowl and seals, setting hook-lines for fish, and eating lots of shellfish.  He told me that he was surprised to find that the first seal he shot immediately sank to the bottom – he assumed that they would float like a cork when dead.  Bill was unwilling to lose the hard-won food, so he jumped into the ocean and swam down to retrieve the dead seal.  As a result of this experience, he only shot seals that were basking on shore so that they were easier to retrieve.  Bill didn’t romanticize his lifestyle, nor claim to know everything - he struck me as very pragmatic and well aware of the challenges that he faced.  He mentioned that he was considering having all of his teeth pulled and replaced by dentures, so that dental self-maintenance would be possible if issues arose while paddling in remote parts of the coast. 

  

I asked him if he was camping nearby, and he was somewhat vague, describing a series of camps that he used depending on the weather and season, and how many tourists were around.  During the time I was alone at camp, Bill dropped by two or maybe three times to say hi – he must have been in the general area at that time (within paddling distance), but I never saw one of his camps.  I assumed that Bill would not be willing to pose for a photo (I should have asked - I may have been wrong), so I surreptitiously snapped a photo of him paddling into our camp.  Once the film was developed, I discovered that the quality of the photo was pretty poor.  I think my camera lens was suffering from the seawater and moisture that was so punishing on all of our gear.  At any rate, the grainy, blurry quality of the photo I snapped of Bill has always seemed somewhat appropriate to me for some reason.

       

 Image by Colin Lake

Bill was well-known locally (by reputation, if not personally), but there were also others from the ‘outside’ who knew of Bill, and he seemed to have attained folk-legend status in some circles.  On two occasions while doing fuel runs into Bella Bella, I ran into kayakers who were looking for Bill.  These folks had taken the ferry up from Vancouver for a paddling vacation, and were decked out in the latest high-tech paddling gear with high-end boats, clothing, navigational gear, etc. – the very antithesis of Bill’s well-worn kayak with the home-made sailing mast and his wool clothing.  The visiting kayakers approached me while I was on the fuel dock, and asked if I knew ‘Kayak Bill’ and where he might be found.  Secretly pleased at being mistaken for a local, I played dumb, and said that I’d heard of Bill, but had no idea where he was or where his camps were.  Bill didn’t seem to want to talk to a lot of people while he was out on the water, so I didn’t feel that I should encourage anyone looking for him.  It wasn’t like I could really give any useful information on his whereabouts anyways.  Anyone that wanted to keep a low profile could easily do so in the thousands of kilometers of coastline and intricate network of channels and fjords of the mid-coast.  Perhaps that was part of the appeal that this area had for Bill. 

I met Bill again that December, when my boss and I went home for a Christmas break.  Since the camp couldn’t be left unattended, arrangements were made for Bill to camp-sit.  When we returned to camp after a couple of weeks on the mainland, everything was fine, and the camp dog by this time was absolutely devoted to Bill.  Apparently, the store-bought dog food had run out, and to the dog’s delight, Bill had switched his diet to seal.  By the time we returned, the dog had put on a considerable amount of weight, and his coat absolutely glistened – he looked like a hair model from a shampoo commercial.

The year I spent on the coast was one of the important formative times in my life, and I think of my experiences there frequently, including meeting Kayak Bill.  I am not claiming that I knew him well – we only met a couple of times.  However, the impression he made on me was disproportionate to the short period of time I spent in his company.  Aside from being an interesting person to talk to, I liked the ‘idea’ of Kayak Bill – the willingness and ability to live outside of society to a certain extent and slow down the pace of life and live much more simply than most of us do. 

You don’t meet people like Kayak Bill often.  In fact, most people never meet someone like Bill.    

Colin Lake – November 2017