Kayak Bill Camps - Extended Point

Extended Point had strategic value as a staging site for comings and goings from Calvert Island and crossings of Smith Sound.  It is the southernmost camp that I have visited.  I’m sure that Bill had camps between there and the Broughtons.  Randy Washburne told me of finding one of his camps in the cove at Wilby Point.   Perhaps he didn’t build others and just used camps established by others.  Do you know?

2009 

I first searched for the camp in 2009 when Dave Resler and I were southbound from Prince Rupert.  I “knew” exactly where it was but we didn’t find anything.  The top of the beach seemed too steep, the logs too high and the forest too thick.  We came up empty.  I knew that it was there someplace.

Three years later I was on a solo trip from Klemtu to Port Hardy.  I was positive that I would find it that time.  It had to be hiding in plain sight right where I “knew” it was.  I just needed to look more carefully. Quitting Calvert Island, I crossed Fitz Hugh Sound, made my way south towards Extended Point and cruised right into the same place.  I looked high and low and finally, accepting defeat, I crossed Smith Sound and stewed over my failure.

2013

In 2013 Glenn Lewis and the Outer Coast Crew were finishing up their survey of Calvert Island and Queens Sound and they paddled right to it.  They knew where it was.  They had lunch, took photos, relaxed………Geoff Mumford took most of photos that are featured here. 

I had been close.  Stubbornly so, which resulted in me missing the camp that was hiding in plain sight.  With Geoff’s photos and Glenn’s direction I was able to paddle right to it in August.  Upon arrival the tide was near high slack and the three tiny beaches were choked with floating logs that blocked access.  Rolling, bumping, jostling.  There was no way to land without fear of damaging my boat or body.  I had been there twice before but 50 meters away and never looked in that spot. 

Even though these three beaches were sheltered by Tie Island their southwestern exposure would have made them miserable during the Winter.  Winds and currents would have made the clearing of drift logs a constant maintenance problem and, logs aside, access to Bill’s beach would have been dictated by tides.  

About 300 meters to the east on the southernmost end of Lucy Bay I found a protected, all-tides beach that would have made a better place for him to have kept his boat.  Though it was also choked with floating logs it would have been an easier beach to keep clear. 

I bobbed in the surge just out of harm's way and thought about Bill Davidson living in this camp that was hidden in plain sight.  It would not have been my first choice and I doubt that it was his.

Continued..........

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