Marcel Speaks

 

Originally published 4/21/2021

On my second day of skiing I participated in a series of bad decisions that nearly cost me and my friends our lives.  Being in high school at the time when bad ideas and bad decisions were a way of life the only thing that is surprising is that we survived.  Without belaboring details let me just say that we had gotten lost and were suffering from hypothermia.  We were rescued by three remarkable men, two of whom told me years later that when they found us, we had maybe 2 hours to live.  Two of those men were very kind but the third was a beast.  

The beast was a German expat named Marcel Schuster who had served on the Russian Front in WWII as a Nazi Mountain Trooper.  He was captured and spent three years in a POW camp which didn’t make him a nicer person.  He was entirely unpleasant and totally unsympathetic to our situation.  During our rescue the only six words he uttered to us were “You Stoopid Boyzzz” and “Learn or Die” followed by another “You Stoopid Boyzzz”.  After eight years I was reunited with the three men who I owed my life to and Marcel didn’t smile and wouldn’t shake my hand.  All he said while looking at me with a cold and bitter stare was “You Stoopid Boyzzz”.  

I’m going to get to the kayaking part in a minute but before I do I want to mention what a strong influence Marcel’s message has had on my life choices.  Though I have met no one who knew him who would describe him as a nice guy he spoke to me in a way that got my attention and that I understood.  

I think that many of us choose our activities, boating or otherwise, where we accommodate objective risks and plan for what subjective risk / rewards we may or may not be willing to consider.  Since that cold Winter night in my 17^th year when I had 2 hours to live but was snatched from death by two nice men and one acerbic ex-Nazi with a short temper and no tolerance for the dumb-assery of youth I have heard Marcel speak to me a number of times.  When he speaks I listen. 

  

I was 2 days into a 2 week solo kayaking trip on the BC coast when my weather radio told me that an intense ridge was setting up over Haida Gwaii and that it would bring 40 kt winds to the area.  That made my intended route and my current location untenable.  I had two days to seek a sheltered route, which was doable, but I didn’t want to go where the easy and safe routes would take me.  There was a 6 mile stretch of coastline on Athlone Island that I wanted to see and if I hurried, I could paddle it and get into the lee of the Bardswell Group before the winds arrived, but just barely.  Once sheltered by the Bardswells I could scurry from here to there like a mouse evading a hungry cat, safe as long as I didn’t get caught in the open.  So, for 2 days I monitored weather and hustled towards safety.  

Beatdown at Red Sand Beach

Originally published 10/13/2019

Fury Cove to Red Sand Beach

August 9 / Day 12

Heavy fog to low overcast, Winds calm increasing to W @ 15 knots, Seas calm to swells at 1.5 meter with 2 foot windwaves, Combined seas to 6 1/2 feet, moderate at times

Some days on the water are perfect and some are less so.  Sometimes those less-so days deteriorate into downright sucky and no fun at all.  Foggy days often fall into the less-so category for me.  On this day I would be crossing Rivers Inlet and Smith Sound with a combined total of ~10 NM of open water.  I delayed my departure until an hour into the flood knowing that it would take me another 45 minutes to reach Karslake Point where I would start across Rivers Inlet.  If it was to be a blind crossing I wanted to avoid currents that would drift me out towards Queen Charlotte Sound but I hoped that the fog would lift so I could see what I was doing.

The Faces of Type III Fun

Having spent the majority of my life at REI I have been surrounded and inspired by young-at-heart, active people who have a taste for living life to the fullest and well-practiced risk management skills.  Not a sedentary group of folks and our activities of choice have often been viewed as fringe sports or sports participated in to the fringes of sanity.  For us the “Three Types of Fun” are nothing new and probably learned as adventurous children.  For those who have never heard of this system of rating fun I’ve listed some things below that can potentially define a “Type” as relates to my reality.  It goes something like this:

• Type I Fun – Blue skies, isolated puffy Cu’s, winds 5-10 KT’s or whatever it takes to keep you cool, feeling strong, skills are right-on, friendly surf-free beaches, currents are favorable, campsites are plentiful with highbacked beaches and tent-sized clearings, no bear sign, whoever might have been there before left no beach architecture or other sign of their passing, your camping gear is all dry and only gets damp from the evening dew.  These are the sorts of things that you enjoy as they are happening and would gladly repeat. 
• Type II Fun – Tired but happy, weather is within reason, rain might be involved but you are dressed for it, small craft warnings might be issued so you have to pay attention and active paddling is required, beach surf is spilling and not dumping, camping above the next expected high tide can be managed, currents are mixed but manageable, there is bear sign but more recent wolf sign, thoughtless beach architecture left as monuments to the previous paddler’s passing can be easily taken down and scattered, camping gear may be damp but still functions as required, tent and contents stay dry if it rains.  These are the sorts of things that may not be enjoyable as they are happening and may take you from your comfort zone but add to the overall fun and though they cause some angst to think of doing them again you are willing to repeat the experience.  
• Type III Fun – Worked to near exhaustion, feeling ill, hard rain driven by near gale to gale force winds and associated sea states, difficult conditions requiring regular bracing to stay upright, surf is high or dumping, adverse currents, campsites are scarce, hard to find with no tent-sized clearings or available places to hang a hammock, obscene beach architecture so massive and involved that there is no way to remove it, previous visitors left obvious poop and toilet paper, all gear is soaked and it dumps rain throughout the night.  These are the sorts of things that are not fun at all as they are happening, maybe dangerous, you wouldn’t wish them on anyone, creates an overall miserable experience and you never, ever want to repeat them.     

 

Google Earth

We were nine days and 130+ NM into an outer coast jaunt from Bella Bella to Prince Rupert.  It was day 2 of 4 days that we would spend on Banks Island, the coast of which is festooned with all sorts of confidence-inspiring place names.  Calamity Bay, Terror Point, Grief Point, Foul Bay, Junk Ledge and Wreck Islands to name a few.  As we ground against the current and quartering wind I pondered how all of those features ended up being named after bad experiences.  Little did I know that I would soon be adding to the Banks Island Collection of Nightmare Names.  

Blue Highways of the Inside Passage - Part I

Originally published 11/30/2016

Paddling the Inside Passage changes people forever.  Attempting it is bold.  Completing it is remarkable.  I stand in awe of those who have attempted or completed that task.

Living in Seattle I have the good fortune of being just a day’s drive from Port Hardy which is located at the north end of Vancouver Island.  That allows me access to the Canadian Coast that most North American paddlers would die for.  While I have paddled parts and pieces of the Inside Passage I lack the commitment that is required to do it from start to finish.

The planning and logistics of a trip of that magnitude are daunting and the time requirement can be tough to accommodate with our busy lives.  The Canadian and Alaskan Pacific Coastline is probably a long way from your home.  It certainly is for most North American paddlers so just getting to and from your put-in and take-out isn’t easy for most.   It takes tremendous commitment from beginning to end and I suspect that this combines to make the Inside Passage trip a one-and-done sort of experience for many paddlers.

The IP is well established and serves as the primary route for all water craft with only minor variations that are focused on efficiency of staying on task.  Little is mentioned about what lies just off the route by a day or of lesser-used parallel routes and from an efficiency standpoint that seems wise.

In 1982 William Least Heat Moon released the book “Blue Highways” which was his account of traveling around the United States using lesser used roads which, in the days of paper road maps, were blue in color.  Avoiding the interstate highways/established routes his experience was enriched by traveling the “road not taken”.  since it may be hard for you to return to this remote paradise consider incorporating some “Blue Highways” into your route planning. .………..just in case you don’t get back that way or you need fodder for planning another trip.

As Robert Frost once said:

I shall be telling with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Continued.........Hakai Luxvbalis.

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.