Harvey Island Camp

March 7, 2020

I’ve been holding off talking about Bill’s most remote camp out in Hecate Strait for 15 years.  A friend first told me about it immediately after returning from his visit there in 2005, just 2 years after Bill left the camp for the last time.  About then there were spoilers published by Neil Frazer in Sea Kayaker Magazine (https://3meterswell.blogspot.com/2017/11/looking-for-kayak-bill-by-neil-frazer.html), John Kimantas in “the Wild Coast 2” and Ian Mcallister in “Following the Last Wild Wolves”  but they flew under the radar or maybe nobody cared.  Probably the latter. 

Shortly after Bill’s wake in 2004 my friend was given copies of Billy’s journals and charts by one of his childhood mates from the Wood’s Christian Home orphanage outside of Calgary where the two had spent their early years.  http://woodschristianhome.info/  Using this information, he undertook a solo mission to visit some of the camps marked on the charts and mentioned in the journals.  Those resources led him out into Hecate Strait ~11.5 NM west from Aristazabal Camp III to the Beyers-Conroy-Harvey-Sinnet Islands Ecological Reserve and the site of Bill’s most remote and comfortable camp on the coast.  It was a camp less reliant on tarps for protection from the elements.  Almost a shack rather than a shelter. 

My friend paddled west from Weeteeum Bay into a fogbank on a compass course of 270 degrees, located the islets by sound and arrived on a high tide which happened to be the right answer.  His account was published online by Sea Kayaker Magazine and is available here: https://3meterswell.blogspot.com/2017/12/kayak-bill-requiem.html

On a 270 course out of AIC III

Image by My Shearwater Bar Friend

The Harvey Islets Group is one of the two groups of four in the conservancy out in the middle of nowhere that allows reasonable, albeit conditional, landings.  From the water you wouldn’t consider it advisable as the Harvey camp lies in the center of a maze of islets and is completely invisible from the perimeter of the group.  The area surrounding Harvey is shallow and the anchorage is foul.  Boomers are the norm which caution against approach by watercraft of any type.  At low tide the drying is extensive which further complicates approach and discourages exploration. 

Harvey Islets Group

In 2002 Neil Frazer learned from the Bonilla Island Lightkeeper that Bill had a camp on Harvey so he landed to look for him.  He found no sign that anyone had ever been there before.  Rather than camp on the islet he and his partner chose to anchor in the surrounding kelp and spent a cold and wet night in their kayaks.  Later he learned from Stewart Marshall that they had walked within meters of Bill’s camp. 

Nearly a decade ago, I met a paddler in Port Hardy with extensive knowledge of the coast.  He had an interest in Billy Davidson and had been to some of his camps by choice.  He described to me an encounter that he had with a man who had dropped by his campsite at the west end of Higgins Passage.  The visitor had spent the previous 25 Summers cruising the coast on his yacht which was anchored a bit east near the abandoned village site of Goo Ewe.  He told my friend of coming across Kayak Bill nearby while he was busy dressing out a freshly slain deer.  He told of visiting Bill’s Higgins Pass Camp and described its location and layout.  We used that description to narrow down the camp’s location but still couldn’t locate it until 2019. 

Further, he described a conversation where Bill had expressed interest in getting some plywood transported out to Harvey Islets where he was establishing a camp.  The online Sea Kayaker Magazine article said that the camp had plywood walls and roof. 

It turned out that the yachtsman’s timeline conflicted with other known events so the exact date of the establishment of the Harvey Camp is in question.  Personally, I think that it was established between 1995~ish and 2000.……………I’m not really sure though as some evidence is missing and I’ll update this document as information is received. 

In 1994 Bill told Colin Lake that he was thinking of establishing a camp on Goose to get away from tourists.  That makes me think that Goose must have been the most remote outer coast-type place he had been to at that point.  A place so removed that no “tourists” would intrude.  If you have been to Goose, though, you know that it can be a busy place with lots of coming and goings.  In 1994, however, Bill thought of it as “remote” so I can’t reconcile the thought that the Harvey Island Camp existed at that time or was even considered by him as a possibility because Harvey is so much more remote than Goose that it is ridiculous. 

•  It is out in Hecate Strait where any sort of water travel has greater potential consequences than on Queen’s Sound. 
•  The shortest approach is long and exposed.
•  The Group is foul.  Tides and winds have greater consequences.  Objective near-shore risks are significant and require consideration.
•  It is an Ecological Reserve so you are not supposed to be there in the first place.  

In 2017 my Port Hardy friend paddled out to Harvey and spent a couple of nights.  He had researched the approach and chosen his weather and tides.  Arriving at a reasonably high tide level allowed him to paddle up within meters of the shack which featured a standard driftwood windscreen, plywood walls and roof. 

Harvey Islet Camp 2017

He found it somewhat overgrown but definitely more comfortable than the remains of Bill’s other tarp dependent camps and still a very suitable and dry shelter.  The large fire stand was in good shape with a supply of firewood that Bill had left when he stepped out the camp on September 23, 2003. 

The planks that made the bed and various bench surfaces were in place and still serviceable.  A packet of Zig Zag rolling papers (Bill’s Signature) was still pinned to the board that topped the fire stand. 

A yellow Marmot rain shell (inadvertently left by the guy who introduced me to Billy’s story at the Shearwater Bar in 2005) hung from the wood forming the peak of the shelter.  A candle lantern made from an aluminum can was tacked to the shack wall.  My friend cooked dinner, warmed the space using the firestand and spent a comfortable night on Bill’s bed.

He described the firestand construction this way:

“Bill’s shelter was placed more or less on a line northwest to southeast.   This would put the fireplace in the most southerly corner.   Behind the fireplace Bill used cedar, like long split shakes for the wall and also for part of the roof that was most exposed to smoke.  There was a gap where the end wall met the roof of an inch or two which didn’t seem to let any rain in (it rained hard when I was there) but when there was any wind from other than the south or east the roof seemed to create a kind of venturi effect as it passed over the peak of the roof and this sucked the smoke out through the crack.   Given the placement of the shelter and the topography, most of the time the wind was funneled in from the west though the channel.   So, except when there was a storm bringing SE wind the smoke was drawn out of the shelter quite effectively.  I am not sure how it worked with a SE wind but I can speculate.  Bill had a window to the right of the door going in that was covered with an adjustable tarp. The bottom of the tarp had a long pole attached with on end of the pole through a hole in the back wall of the shelter and the other end appeared to be able to open and close the ‘window’ hole in some way. When I was there the tarp was badly torn and deteriorated and I couldn’t quite figure out how it worked.  I think when the wind was from the south most of it would be stopped by the wind break but what got through would create a similar venturi effect in reverse and take the smoke out the top of the door or maybe out the peak of the roof at the back.   The effect in this case was that if you remained sitting down, you were below the smoke and I think if it was set up properly most of the smoke would be no lower than about 5 or 6 feet.” 

Harvey Islet Camp at High Tide

Additionally, he reported that while he was there, he saw no sign of mice.  This may seem like no big deal but during Bill’s last stay in 2003 he reported 62 mouse encounters in a little over two months.  Mice really pissed him off and he reported mouse encounters in his journals at all of his camps and kept track of his successful kills.  Mice, Mosquitoes and Black Flies.  They were all dead to him.  With no fresh water for Mosquitoes or Blackflies to breed on, Harvey provided relief from them.  His fresh water came from his bucket well buried in the ground on the adjacent islet.  But mice?  They haunted him on Harvey.  How do mice get out there and why were they so prevalent during his last visit? 

Harvey Islet Camp at Low Tide

Bill Davidson described Harvey as a “Garden of Eden” where “time was way different”.  Each day he could gather what he called “wild peas, wild carrots, Goose Tongue, Sea Asparagus” and Crab Apples in minutes.  Huge Mussels and Gooseneck Barnacles were just outside of camp. His chart marks areas surrounding the islets as good for jigging.

 Bounty

He brought flour, and sometimes rice, from Shearwater to mix with sea water and seal oil to make chapatis and stew.  When needed, he would shoot a seal to render down to blubber that he would melt to make oil and after the meat fell off of the bones he would knead it, mixing it with sea water, forming it into patties that dried over the fire stand.  Dried Seal Burger.  When meat was on the menu, he simply soaked the dried seal burgers in sea water to mix with rice, chapatis or to eat by themselves.  

Life was good on Harvey.

On September 23, 2003 Bill left his Harvey Paradise for the last time on his way back to Shearwater.  He reported a “Very Hard Paddle” on Hecate Strait to Aristazabal Island Camp III with strong E to SE winds.  From there he took his time and didn’t get back to Shearwater until ~3 weeks later.  Weather was a factor but he was not in a hurry to get back to civilization.

After three and a half weeks in Shearwater he set off on his last trip choosing Goose over Harvey as his Winter Camp.  Why did he choose Goose over Harvey?  We assume that it was because:

• With a hard push he could get there in one long day.
• The approach to Goose was less exposed.
• The Goose Camp faced north with great natural protection from southerlies.  This allowed him to get out in his boat to fish in the lee of large islands. 
• The Goose Camp was slightly higher above sea level.  Its elevation and surrounding protective islands virtually eliminated the dangers posed by storm surge which he had experienced once on Harvey. 
• Goose supported a deer population that would provide another food source. 
• He could get away from camp and really walk around which he couldn’t do on Harvey.

Or he might have known that his trips were coming to an end and if this was to be the last one, it would be at a comfortable place that had played such an important role in his coastal journey.  


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Revised March 21, 2021