I just got back from a very cool kayak trip leaving from Tofino, BC. Its on the west side of Vancouver Island, in Canada. So I had to get to Canada, then take a ferry, then meet up with my friend Lindsey and then drive across Vancouver Island to get to Tofino, then get into little skinny kayaks and go out on the cold and wavy waters. Here's a shot of the launching.
It was forecast to be a rainy time, and, as usual, the forecasters were inaccurate in their crystal ball gazing. In fact, it was exceptionally rainy. We had hopes for a day of sunshine, but the gods were displeased with our supplicants, I guess, so they delivered only a few hours of warm golden rays before they moistened us again. The first evening we got over to Vargas Island and found a small beach to camp at, and in the fading light we paddled over to a small shallow bay and found small and shallow fish schooling around. The fish became startled as we paddled by and reacted by jumping out of the water, almost as if they were piranhas. I had one get stuck on my boat, and I think it was a form of sea perch. Maybe the babies live in the shallows before they go out to sea.
There was a small river at the back, and its very similar to small rivers up in Alaska, with the same brown tannic acid water, and similar grasses and sedges.
When we got out to camp there were some wolf tracks on the beach that had probably come from the middle of the day, so fairly recently.
The next day we started out again and I found this fern just before we left, and I thought it might be of the genus Polypodium, but its not a licorice fern (which I believe is polypodium glycorizo... or something) (ok, looked it up and its glycyrrhiza) This one seems to be Scouleri.
And so off we went. The boat I was paddling was pretty narrow for me, but had a bit of rocker and was made of plastic. A Necky Chatham 17. I thought it was nice, and I really like the plastic boat so I can just drag it up on rocks, but it took me a bit to get used to how tippy it was, and I had a big dry bag of stuff up on top which didn't help that. Lindsey was in a fiberglass boat with a long "keel" and it was really fast and good in flat water, but she said it was really tippy when the waves were bumpy or going downwind.
There's lots of kelp we paddled through, and I noticed lots of Sea Otters that will help the kelp forests to grow by eating off the things that eat kelp. There were two kinds of kelp that I saw mostly, the Bull Kelp and the Giant Kelp. I am not sure what is the deciding difference for where each wants to grow, but the Giant kelp is found all the way down to California and only in a few places in Alaska, whereas the Bull Kelp I have found more in further north (and colder) places. Both like the open sea and don't seem to like being near a river.
We did a long distance this day, and stopped for a snack at a beach with a broken down old wreck. I think this boat might have been washed ashore and then burned on the shoreline afterwards, but it could have been the reverse and the fire caused people to abandon ship and it washed ashore with flames. But ships that burn usually burn fast and don't have time to go anywhere, so I am still sticking with my idea it caught fire on the beach.
Another beached craft, but this one not yet aflame... After a long day of paddling towards a little camp symbol of the map that we were using as our guide, we dragged ourselves up onto this barren stone mound to find a place to camp. It was mostly basalt kind of rock, so lava, but there must have been a lot of soluble materials in the rock because after the glaciers came through and smoothed it all over into nearly perfect smooth bumps, the ocean (or rain) tore great sharp chunks out of the rock all over it. So finding a place for a tent was looking very grim. Our Malevolent Mapmakers (or cantankerous cartographers) who drew such hopeful little camp symbols on this spot had lied to us! We scoured over the Batholith of back pain and finally found a tiny spot to put a tent, and there we spent the night.
It had been a long day of paddling in the rain and wind so our hands were made of raisins and prunes.
The next day we had a spot of sunshine. We hung up everything to dry and set off in enlightened kayaks to the back bay of the fjord we had found ourselves in. A small stream comes down from the hills and makes a flat at the bottom, so we strolled around in the grass and a little into the woods. A very un-constipated bear lived there.
We crossed the river a bit
And climbed up on a log for a view of the river, and for lunch.
The beautiful day quickly became overcast, and, fearing storms ahead, we began our backtracking towards Tofino. We collected our stuff from the Bivouac of broken backs and made our way along the shoreline. As we passed a river outlet I heard a waterfall, so we pulled into the river to look.
It was very hidden. There was a giant tide flat that we navigated up and then huge cliffs rose out from the shallows and a very small canyon emerged.
and the canyon was passible in a kayak, so we found a very cool waterfall cascading into it.
Another view of the falls
The tide flat was from multiple rivers, so we continued on a short distance to a place that showed promise for camping (but wasn't listed as such by the map-makers) and found a beautiful stream with grassy patches on all sides and very flat soft dirt and grass to set a tent up on. A perfect spot! But there was one catch... It was already occupied! As we came into the river we spotted a black bear munching on grass. We watched for about 30 minutes and the bear didn't seem to be bothered by us at all, just sniffed a bit and turned his but in our direction, but didn't run off. So this was a good sign, that it wasn't bothered by us, and not curious, but at the same time, maybe this bear would bother us in the night? We were trying to decide it finding another spot was a better idea or not, so we went further up the river...
And then we spotted a wolf! It was right on the river bank and stood up and looked at us before loping off a short distance and sitting down. The bear was a signal to go away, but the wolf was telling us we should stay! Have you ever camped near a wolf? I had not, and was very eager to. So we decided to risk it.
We set up camp on a nice little finger of higher ground where we figured the bears wouldn't really want to wander over, and also did our cooking and cleaning a long ways away from the tent. There were nice flowers all over.
The Paintbrush (red) and the Chocolate Lilly (brown) were up and looking great.
It began to rain on us a little, and we explored a bit before bedtime, but the wolf came back to the spot just across the river from us and we found it was a kill. It was a dead animal and so we sat in the tent watching the wolf eat for some time that evening.
The next day we got moving pretty early because we were concerned about getting back before a big weather system, so we popped across the river to look at the kill. We had figured it was a deer, but in fact, it was a bear! I don't know what killed it, but the fur was all gone and the skin of a bear looks a lot like a werewolf foot from the movies. Also it smelled bad.
Here's a wider shot of the foot and the rest of the bones and Lindsey holding her nose.
So we paddled out and as we left we found the bear from the evening before just eating grass some more.
It was a long paddle and we were against the wind the whole time and there was also a lot of rain. We stopped a few times to rest and once got out of the boats for lunch at a beach with giant mussels.
It was near an opening to the ocean and so the beach was well formed, but the waves weren't too big for us to handle going ashore.
After a lot more slogging along we neared Tofino and found another wolf scouring the shoreline for something to eat. Its the whiter blob in the middle here.
I got a short video of the wolf coming out to look at me and then going away again...
We got back to Tofino and camped in the rain at a small off the road spot in the woods and then headed back to Nanaimo. On the way we stopped at an Old Growth Forest spot and got out for a look in the rain. I don't know what this is, but it looks a lot like rattlesnake plantain in the leaf coloration.
And there were big trees with maiden hair ferns nearby. It was very pretty.
The trip was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about the area up there. I think I'd like to go again with a bigger boat or have more time, or just not get rained on so much. It was very different from my canoe trips, since we could go much faster in bigger seas and against the wind better, but we were very limited in stuff to bring with, and also we didn't have that much time to really be out in the wild. It took a long time to get beyond the reach of all the people that live in boat accessible houses near Tofino, so there was a lot of boat traffic for a long time. It was only in the back bay area that we didn't see any sign of humans for a full day.
I have one more week left before I go back to work, and I'm planning on a trip with Gran Milonga and Abe, Katrina, Forrest, Rachel, Henry and Nora. It should be fun!
