Kayak Bill Camps - Cape Calvert Camp

“Cape Calvert Camp” is located in Grief Bay at the southern tip of Calvert Island.  At just under 8 NM northwest of Extended Point it’s an easy paddle provided that conditions on Queen Charlotte Sound are accommodating. 

The bay is protected by the Sorrow Islands that sit approximately 800 meters offshore and block unfriendly seas from almost all directions.  If Extended Point was Maintenance Hell, Calvert Camp was Paradise as most large logs either drifted past Cape Calvert or got caught up on pocket beaches to the west.  The logs that did make it into the bay collected mostly on the rocky west end of Grief Bay leaving the eastern end relatively clean and the forest accessible.  

The beach is shallow and comprised of the bright, classic-Calvert sand that lends the bay its tropical look and feel.    Unlike most of Bill’s camps Grief Bay featured a stream with reliable water.  I would be curious to learn how such a beautiful place was tagged with names like “Sorrow” and “Grief”.  

Since few paddlers travel the outside of Calvert Island and Inside Passage kayakers tend to stick to the east side of Fitz Hugh Sound the beach gets very little traffic, a common characteristic of Kayak Bill camps.

I stayed at Grief Bay during a solo trip in 2012.  After two days of navigating moderate seas along the outer coast south of Choked Passage I pulled into Grief Bay and was immediately greeted by calm winds and seas.  It was a transition that was almost disorienting and it made me understand what a great camp this had to have been.  Seas and wind could rage but in Grief Bay there was no drama.

 

The beach was over 700 meters wide and I wondered if I would be able to find Bill’s camp.  Walking just below forest I was pleasantly surprised to find the signature windscreen so easily.  It was just into the tree line about mid-beach.  Close to the stream but not so close that he would have been mosquito bait.  Typical Kayak Bill.  He hated mosquitoes.

 

I broke through the tree limbs and salal to enter the camp.  Many of the signature elements were obvious.  The firestand stood uncomfortably close to the firewood rack.  It seemed a bit awkward.  The rack was half-full of custom fuel cut to the oh-so-perfect length.  

I wondered why the rack and firestand were located as they were and saw that the trees that Bill had anchored his camp around were not as mature or large as those in some other camps.  The layout of those trees hadn’t accommodated a nice open rectangular camp and created an odd angle that was responsible for the awkward placement.  Salal had filled the camp so all small artifacts were gone.  I am always curious to see what sort of odd stuff he found useful but the forest had taken it. 

In my opinion it was a far nicer choice for a camp than Extended Point.  I believe that the two camps were probably active during the same period as he traveled north and south and used in conjunction with a mysterious camp that he built in Mustang Bay. 

Continued..........