We bedded down for the night in the large Heiltsuk cabin on Cockle Bay. In the morning, we planned for a short 9 mile paddle to Gale Passage where we would spend the night. From there, Greg would leave and paddle 16 miles solo to catch the ferry at Bella Bella while Dave and I carried on to Port Hardy.
Since our planned mileage to Gale Passage was modest I had anticipated sleeping late so I was surprised to be wakened by Greg before sunrise. He had been up a while drinking coffee and relaxing on the front porch but was now bent over my bunk with a finger to his lips signaling me to be quiet. He whispered that he heard something walking on the rock shelf in front of the cabin. He thought it might be a wolf.
I slipped out of my sleeping bag and we tiptoed across the rough, uneven floorboards to the deck where we sat in the dark and calibrated our ears to the pre-dawn silence. Listening carefully, we could just make out the faint footfall of an animal walking on the shelf out of sight to the left of the cabin.
Soon, a wolf came into view, head down, intent on scavenging the tide line. We held our breath and didn't move yet the wolf sensed our presence, looked up at us and froze a moment before his posture changed to prepare for flight. He glanced back from where he had come and then walked quickly past us looking back as he went. We heard the soft sound of more paws on the rock to the left and another pair of smaller wolves stepped in front of the cabin. They quickly spotted us and took off back the way they had come.
The larger wolf sat on the beach 50 meters to our right and began to howl. The smaller pair answered him. I had heard wolves before but these didn’t sound like anything I had ever experienced before. Back and forth they called in an eerie, otherworldly language. We could hear the smaller pair calling as they moved through the forest behind the cabin. Soon, they joined their alpha and went about their business.
I've never had a single bad morning on Cockle Bay.
