Kayaking in the Broughton Archipelago: August 5 2017: Fog-ust

After last year's Desolation Sound trip, we conceived of a loose plan to do the Discovery Islands this year, launching from Lund again, pushing north from the Rendezvous Islands and making a circuit of the area while covering as much territory as we could. But try as I might, I couldn't create an itinerary that made sense. I didn't feel like we were up for transiting the area's many rapids yet; and given that they are so close together, we'd be looking at a lot of hanging-around time when our style is more miles-making. After reading a lot of trip reports, grabbing all the info we could from the Marine Trails website, and digesting a lot of John Kimantas, we settled on an itinerary more or less lifted straight out of The Wild Coast 3: around the east side of Gilford Island, up Penphrase Passage to the Hopetown area, then down along the western edge of the Broughtons themselves. Such a trip, he promised, rivals the Desolation Sound area for the best two-week trip on the south coast. He wasn't wrong.

Rough itinerary

A spur-of-the moment decision to buy a couple of kayaks instead of renting complicated matters a bit and added a slight element of nervousness: We knew our capabilities in barges like the Nimbus Telkwa; how would we fare in these rudderless performance boats? We had the Mariners stashed at a marine repair shop in Nanaimo after buying them from Victoria long-distance. More logistics to play with.

All of BC was covered in a thick blanket of smoke from the wildfires; when I picked Jon up in Vernon on August 3, visibility was a couple kilometers at best. We decided to push to Vancouver that night to get an earlier start the next day and be in Alder Bay at a reasonable hour and launch the following morning. The smoke persisted all the way down to the coast and settled into our clothes as we waited two sailings for the ferry to Nanaimo. It seemed as though half the world wanted to get to Vancouver Island - possibly the only smoke-free place in Western North America at that moment.

Thank You for Not Smoking

After a final stop in Campbell River for the last essential item - we'd nearly forgotten toilet paper! - we began the long drive north to Alder Bay (between Telegraph Cove and Port McNeill) where we were due to be picked up tomorrow for a water taxi across Johnstone Strait. Alder Bay is a campsite/marina located right across the channel from Alert Bay, and proved a good staging point for our trip. Parking was cheap, the owners were friendly (if a bit odd), and we'd have the ability to clean ourselves up before driving back to civilization. 

We test-paddled the Mariners that night after setting up camp. We were exhausted with travel - with getting and spending, with packing and prepping - and excited to get out into the wilderness. 

August 5 dawned with heavy fog. So heavy you could see droplets suspended in the air in front of you.  We were really glad we weren't crossing Johnstone Strait in those conditions. We would make a similarly blind crossing later in the trip, but at this point we didn't have our sea legs yet. Terry, the proprietor of Alder Bay, told us August was known in these parts as "Fog-ust." Our water taxi arrived on time and we were plenty chuffed that Larry, the owner/operator, recognized the Mariners and thought well of them. On the way to Mound Island, he grilled us about our plans. He wasn't thrilled with tonight's destination of Klaoitsis Island and gave us an alternate location in the area he said would be better. We'd later find out why.

The Mariners, loaded

Studying the charts near Plumper Islands

By the time we arrived at Mound Island around 11:00 the fog had burned off and the day was clear and calm. Mound seems like it would be a great group site - open level forest, room for dozens of tents easily, a pit toilet, huge Douglas-firs and a scenic location. After a quick hike around, we packed the boats and set off toward Village Island. We could hear (but not see) whales blowing in the distance behind us as we paddled east. 

A mound of gear to pack

The beach at Village Island is a little ratty with rusty debris and glass - not all of it worn smooth by the sea yet. We had lunch with a little tour group that was a bit of a sad scene - nobody looked like they were enjoying themselves very much - and then had a tramp around before moving on. It wasn't just because of the remains of the houses that you could imagine what it must have been like when it was inhabited; the woods felt like they'd been lived in, old trails packed down and grown over. The most impressive thing was the skeleton of the longhouse. You really get a sense of the dimensions and it doesn't take much imagination to put up some imaginary walls and a roof, light an imaginary fire, and populate the place.

Entrance to the longhouse at Village Island

Apparently there are two totem poles on Village but we only found one - almost unrecognizable as such now, just a log with some bits that were obviously carved. We found a bunch of old apple trees and - joy - some stinging nettles. Jon gathered some spearmint by the main house facing the beach and we left a pinch of tobacco in thanks.

A derelict Eaton's Catalogue house on Village Island

Well into the afternoon we launched down Beware Passage, beginning to paddle against the current as the wind began to kick up. We passed a big floating logging camp at Caution Cove and found ourselves at a dead end on the northeast side of Care Island. Both the CHS chart and the WaveLength map show a channel there, but it's no longer navigable and the deadfall would make a portage awkward and hazardous. Doubling back into Beware Passage, the conditions made for some challenging and active paddling. The wind and the waves calmed down after we crossed to the Klaoitsis area, and we made for Larry's suggested campsite. We weren't super impressed with the amenities or with the very active and noisy logging across the channel on Cracroft Island, so we checked out a few potential rock ledge sites in the area (not impressed with those either) before landing on the midden beach at Klaoitsis. What a place! A heavily used, level, roomy, easy-to-access campsite with a gorgeous white clamshell beach overlooking a narrow channel that's obviously a clam garden. The only thing that could have made it more perfect would be a clear stream 100 meters away, but you can't have everything. We set up camp and made dinner.

Midden beach at Klaoitsis Island

After supper when we went to hang our food, we discovered why Klaoitsis isn't on the Marine Trails list of sites and probably why Larry had tried to steer us away from it - it's a burial island. A little graveyard is hidden back in the woods, and when we returned from the comedy of errors of hanging our food near the graveyard (nobody is going to hire either of us as pro baseball pitchers) we discovered another stone grave marker close to our tent. I felt pretty sad about this - it's considered disrespectful to visit, much less camp on, burial islands, and if it hadn't been getting well on in the evening by this time we'd have packed up and tried another site. Or if anything I'd read (and believe me, I've read everything that Uncle Google has to say about Klaoitsis) had indicated it was a burial island we'd never have gone there. As it is, I'd like to do my part by warning people who might be tempted. 

Nonetheless, we quietly enjoyed the rest of our calm, sunny evening there. Despite the campfire ban,  we sat up into the night reliving the day's events.