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. 

Kayak Bill Camps - Gosling Island

September 27, 2017

In 1991 Audrey Sutherland reported that she had run across Kayak Bill on her way north to Alaska.  He told her that he had wintered at Goose the previous Winter.  He told an acquaintance that he had built it to get away from “tourists”.  It was both a natural and unfortunate choice.  Natural in that Goose is very remote and requires a committed crossing that limited traffic and unfortunate in that he initially built it on a reserve near the north end of Duck Island.  The reserve marked the site that had once been a seasonal harvesting village and the Heiltsuk took exception to it.  After finding it destroyed twice he moved from Duck Island to Gosling Island and it was there that he would spend the last days of his life.

The access to the Goose Group filtered out most casual visitors by requiring a significant crossing of Queens Sound or a northern approach with a crossing of Golby Channel.  A typical crossing of Queens Sound is between 7 – 8 NM.  Crossing Golby from the McMullin Group sounds pedestrian at 2 NM but the water through Golby can move surprising fast during medium to large exchanges and the addition of a typical wind component can make for a challenging transit that some may look at and choose to forego.  Most of the traffic into Goose Anchorage consists of pleasure boaters passing through or locals from Bella Bella / Shearwater who motor out to camp and fish.  During the ‘90’s there just weren’t that many kayakers out there.

Side Bay 2 Tofino 2014

Image by Greg Polkinghorn

Paddling the west coast of Vancouver Island, in one trip or in many, can be complicated.

There are few hard surfaced roads that cross from the inside to the outside of the island.  Owing to the extensive logging that has been undertaken there are a number of gravel roads that provide access but their condition varies and they are subject to closures.  They can also take their toll on your vehicle. This seriously complicated the Point A to Point B route that we were going for.

The route is exposed and subject to changing weather.  Conditions can get very large and you have to pay attention and stay within your skill set.  Some stretches of the coastal route can be long, requiring extended periods of cockpit time and potentially difficult surf landings and launches.  Many of the places that make sense to land were First Nation village sites or fish camps hence Maa-nulth Treaty lands that require prior approval of the local band office prior to entering.  For the most part if there is a good beach it has First Nation’s historical significance and should be treated as such.

Enter my friend and Nanaimo area paddler Glenn Lewis.  He offered to ride with us from his house near Parksville up island to Port Alice and out 60-some miles of bad roads to Side Bay where he dropped us off and then delivered the vehicle to the Ucluelet Campground where we hoped to finish in 2-3 weeks.  His knowledge of the logging roads out of Port Alice proved invaluable as we made all the correct turns and arrived at Side Bay around 4:00PM.  Oh yes, his wife Joan then drove the 2 hours out to Ucluelet to pick up Glenn and bring him back home.  Amazing, right?  On the way up he provided weather and site-specific data that helped us solidify our route.

Magic Light on Otter Channel

One of my favorite things about paddling the BC coastline is the way light is accentuated, diffused, bent, filtered and muted to create impossible colors and a million shades of grey.  It’s true that the precipitation that created the world’s largest temperate rainforest can provide greyness in seemingly endless quantities but in smaller doses it interacts with light and makes magic.  Paddling in fog or overcast you may experience a visual transformation of dark monotones changing to silvers that suddenly erupt into violent explosions of color.  Longer angles of sunlight passing through moisture suspended in the air bathes us in unworldly colors that have no names.

There is a particular magic light that occurs when the sky has a low overcast or a thin fog layer and the sun tries hard to work its way though. Everything is in shades of silver and grey. The water is in motion and reflects light like mercury.  The cloud cover thins in places and beams of sunlight break through, explode then disappear.

On An Adventure of Its Own

Posted with permission - This was originally posted by Randy Washburne on his Facebook page. - I have reformatted Randy's original post to work with my blog format.  In so doing I have attempted to retain all of the original look and feel including punctuation. 

Two kayaks on the beach in the Broken Group Islands on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.  Both are Seaworthy Enetai kayaks, designed by the late Kelly Tjaden.  Kelly joined us on this trip and took the photo.

The Green boat is mine.  The nearest multi-colored boat belonged to my friend Dennis and has a wild history

In 1989 Kelly and nine others from Britain and the US made an attempt to cross the Bering Strait from Alaska to the Soviet Union in kayaks.  For the expected abuse from ice, etc. Kelly built the red, white and blue boat with an extra heavy hull and deck.  The colors were to increase its visibility.

They started from Nome in early June paddling up the coast toward the Strait, expecting to be able to find open water along the shore inside the pack ice.  But the ice had been blown inshore so they had to drag the loaded boats for many miles across the ice before they found some leads in which to continue. 

They started across to the Diamedes Islands, with the international border running between them.  As they neared the border strong wind and currents made progress difficult.  After thirteen hours of paddling and blown well off course they decided to radio for help.  The group got separated and some of the boats were picked up by a soviet military ship.  Kelly and four others were rescued by an Eskimo outboard-powered umiak (open skin boat) from the village on little Diamedes, boarding the boat while the five kayaks were towed.  But progress was too slow and the boats had to be cut loose.  

Kelly thought that was the last of that boat, but it floated with its full load of gear drifting through the Baring Strait ice all summer.  In early Fall it was found and taken aboard by a large sailboat and returned to Seattle where Kelly got it back intact.

Being such a heavy boat Kelly didn't have much use for it so it got occasional paddles over the years.  My wife paddled it in Swinomish Channel near La Conner one year.  Finally in the late 1990's my friend Dennis bought it and we made several trips together, including this one to the Broken Group in April 2001.  That Summer Dennis and I paddled with two other friends down the BC coast from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy, joined our spouses in Shearwater for the second half.  I got to know its considerable heft very well carrying it across many rocky beaches.

At one point Dennis got surfed full speed into a rock with a CLUNK heard a hindred yards away.  No harm done - that boat was indestructible.  I don't know what eventually became of it.  

International Relations

Solo adventure kayaking presents some challenges that aren’t present when traveling with a team. 

• Some are obvious like having no shared gear which means more weight and more space required for you to deal with. 
• It means that at least twice each day you have to solo carry your 60+ pound boat and 130+ pounds of gear between the tide line and camp.  On a three-week trip that is 5,250 pounds carried.  You have to trust me that if you have a partner it is easier to carry ½ that amount of weight twice than it is to carry it alone once. 
• It means that you make all of the critical decisions as there are no “more experienced” partners to rely upon,  
• It also means that if you are like me and sometimes awkward and lacking self-confidence around strangers you have no other confident, smiling face to buffer and smooth your interactions with said strangers.  No one to send ahead to pave the way, as it were. 

For this final reason, in part, my ferry ride from Port Hardy to Klemtu was an interesting and uncomfortable exercise in international relations.

Passengers with kayaks are the first allowed to board the Northern Expedition in Port Hardy as we have to move our boats from the ramp to the far end of the ferry.  I happened to be the only traveler with a kayak so I was the very first to board.  As the first walk-on I made my way to an upper deck and my favorite seating area on the starboard side just outside of the Aurora Lounge.  Being first in gave me my pick of seats so I chose a high-backed seat front and center to a set of tall windows.  Soon others filed in and a tall European man asked me if the seats were taken.

“Only this one that I’m sitting in” I responded with a smile.

 Soon he returned with an entourage of older German speaking folks.  They quickly snapped up all of the seats except for the one beside me.  Several walked up to the seat and looked down at me as if to suggest that I should move elsewhere so that they could have my place.  Their posture and glares seemed to say “If you move somewhere else we can sit here”.  I was wearing my best welcoming face because I was really looking forward to the company but had no plans of moving.  The group in the adjacent trio of seats had an animated conversation that was interrupted only by glances at me and the adjacent seat.  It was as if they were trying to figure out whether to ask me to move or failing that which among them would be so unfortunate as to sit next to me.  Finally, a fair-haired woman sat in the seat sideways with her back to me.

Nisqually Reach 2 Alki 2009

I have done a number of day trips in the South Sound but I always wanted to paddle back home rather than return to the put-in. I may have mentioned before that Dave and I have a goal to travel from the southern-most regions of Puget Sound to Alaska by kayak. Yes? No? Whatever, we do and this will be done, in chunks. The South Sound to Seattle was a just a piece of it but the timing was never right. Last Fall while eating lunch at Winghaven State Park (a WWT camp site on Vashon Island) we discussed the idea of banging out the South Sound piece during the Winter. We agreed to do it and in January and we did.