Wild with the Dolphins

Aug. 10, Ocean Falls
Coming up Fisher Channel we spotted a long line of what looked like a rippling boat wake in the distance off our bow. As we came closer we saw it was a huge pod of Pacific White-side dolphins, all swimming in a line in one direction. As we watched they all turned and suddenly swimming the other way. They looked very organized and I suspect they were herding fish ahead of them. When we came within about a quarter of a mile though, all discipline was off. The pod completely broke ranks and surrounded our boat, taking turns surfing alongside and just in front of our bow in the wake. Although each animal traveled his own course, they seemed to read each other's minds as the pod acted and moved together. Leaping and splashing, turning aside and running ahead again, we watched as dozens and dozens of them played all around us for at least 15 minutes. For those minutes we were the star float at the center of a holiday parade. They made us part of the pod for a little while, and we felt the exuberance of being one among so many, all with a single thought--

We came in to the 'ghost town' of Ocean Falls and found it to be fascinating. The few residents are so very friendly, and there is something eerie but compelling about the sight of so many big office buildings, hotels and houses, empty and open to the elements. When Crown Zellerbach had a big pulp and paper mill here in the 1970s it had a population of 5000. Now it's down to 40, but they're still trying to make a go of it. We've stayed longer than we thought we would. We've been watching the local harbour seals patrolling the docks, and yesterday we saw an otter chomping on a fish as he swam along the shoreline. Two good-sized deer grazed along the road and crossed just in front of us as they picked their way from the surrounding forest down to the shoreline in front of town to forage.



This afternoon Pat and I walked through the town. I climbed through the broken windows of several abandoned houses and found hardwood floors, porcelain bathroom fixtures and floor plans that reminded me of Chautauqua cottages. Patrick spotted two bucks relaxing in the yard between two them and we watched them for a while. Eventually they got up and threaded their way down a narrow game trail to a patch of thimbleberry bushes where they browsed, unperturbed by my camera. Occasionally they glanced up at me with their wild, liquid eyes, but they soon returned to the fine business of nibbling on the very freshest of thimbleberry branch tips. Their antlers were still in velvet and I wished I could reach out to stroke them.

Aug. 8, Roscoe Inlet
We anchored all alone at the tip of a narrow bay in Roscoe Inlet with a grassy estuary at the head, and enjoyed hiking up the little creek to see what we could find. I picked a bouquet of wildflowers for the boat; white yarrow, Indian paintbrush, Queen Anne's lace, cornflower, fern and more.


As the sun went down Pat fished over the side at our anchorage and caught a little sand dab as a treat for the cats. While he cleaned it on the fantail, we heard a pack a wolves howling in the twilight. Their cries seem to come from everywhere as they echoed off the steep walls of the mountains that surrounded us.

There's a bear on my beach

Aug. 5 Stryker Island and the McMullin Group

We woke up this morning in a very sheltered anchorage to bright sunshine -- a welcome change from the recent morning fogs that have lasted well into the afternoon. We pulled up anchor and headed for a group of tiny islands that face the Pacific, only to run into dense fog on the way out. With radar and me on bow watch, we slowly picked our way through a maze of little islands and kelp beds (which often conceal submerged rocks) and anchored at our destination. We took the dinghy ashore to find stunning white sand beaches bordered by colossal boulders and tortured chunks of huge driftwood logs. Pat went fishing while I patrolled the beaches, finding beautiful iridescent abalone shells and tide pools full of kiwi green anemones and rose pink turban snails. We jumped back into the dinghy (still in fog with less than 1/4 mile visibility) and went out farther toward the western side of the island group. As we twisted and turned through the swaying arms of kelp we spotted a family of four sea otters sporting in a little cove. Later on the beach we watched a pair of martens (like mink) scamper across the wide beach to their rocky outcropping. I'm finding that I love these wild beaches at the outer edges of the Inside Passage.

Aug. 3 Fisher Point

Today we went up Seaforth Channel toward Fischer Point to see the carved totem that is there. We finally found it in our binoculars, far up above the rocky point, but while I was searching for the carving, I became fascinated by the shore there - it looked like a really interesting wild beach with lots of little islets and passages in front of it. I talked Pat into dinghying me over and dropping me off. He threaded his way through the rocks, islets, logs and kelp beds to leave me on the beach and went back around to the other side of Fisher Point where Tenacious was anchored. The charts indicated a flat, sandy bottom that would almost certainly attract halibut. About ten minutes after he left me as I made my way west along the beach, I heard some noise from a tiny islet about 75 feet from the shore. I stood silently listening for a moment and there it was: the unmistakable whuffling, snuffling, grunting and general bashing around the brush that is a bear. I couldn't see it to tell how big it might be, but my instincts told me to quietly back away from the islet and continue west along the beach. I kept a weather eye behind me as I collected shells from turban snails and tiny abalones. Sure enough about 5 minutes later I spotted a young bear, dark brown and around 200 pounds, making his way from the shore out to the islet. My first thought was that he was joining his mother there, and I was grateful that she didn't get upset at me for being right between her and her baby. The young bear climbed over the rocks and swam the short distance to the islet where I could watch him climb around the perimeter. I continued to explore the beach while he explored the islet, but when he decided to come back to shore, I decided to climb out to the seaward edge of a bare rock outcropping until I knew which way he was going to go once he got back to the beach. I figured even if he came toward me there wouldn't be anything on a bare rock that he would be interested in... Happily, he turned away from me and ambled along the shoreline, sometimes walking on the beach, sometimes wading in the shallow water until he was out of sight.

Meanwhile, I called Pat on our walkie-talkies to let him know that I was sharing my beach with a bear. He had been fishing for halibut and caught a nice one. He'd had another one on the hook and gotten it all the way over to the side of the boat when it 'kicked' the lure out of its mouth right against the side of the inflatable dinghy, puncturing it. He was losing air fast and racing back to Tenacious for repairs when I called. Neither of us was in any imminent danger, although I didn't really want to move around too much knowing there were bears around, so I had to wait for Pat to patch the dinghy, let the sealant dry, re-inflate the punctured pontoon and make his way around Fisher Point again to get me. He did it all in record time, but it was all pretty exciting ...

Aug. 2 Yeo Island
We did some salmon fishing off Idol Point (Seaforth Channel), which, according to local knowledge, is where the big salmon are now. Alas, no joy! But we did enjoy some delicious fish that Pat caught while I was exploring an abandoned Indian village site. He got several red snapper - I found another trade bead! It is a pretty turquoise-green color, although it is fairly worn. At the same site there is what appears to be a decaying fisherman's camp with huge blue tarps forming a sort of structure among the trees. There is even a kind of wood-burning stove made from a 550gallon drum inside. There are collections of fishing floats and stone sinkers scattered around the woods nearby. I also found a tiny old pioneer cemetery there, with three gravestones. Two of them had stylized, moon-shaped faces carved on them and the middle one had the names and early-1900s dates of several children. I can't imagine living in the wilderness and losing so many children at young ages: 3, 5, 8 and 13. So sad!

We (and the cats) enjoyed our red snapper dinner when we returned to our anchorage. Our stir-fried vegetables were supplemented with fresh sea asparagus I had gathered on the beach, and we finished off our meal with spruce tea, made from the new growth at the branch tips of a spruce tree near the beach. I boiled the tips, then let the tea steep for a while. Delicious and full of vitamin C according to a local survival expert. We're living off the fat of the land - and sea.